OK, well it looks like you have a very different notion of what "objectification" consists in than I do, so we can either talk past one another or agree to disagree. The latter conserves more time and energy.

As I attempted to explain to KoolCat, I am not making a claim to the actual explanation of global trends, I imagine there to be many many factors that I couldn't anticipate.

I only meant to offer a more persuasive, and fact friendly account than an alternative.

But as far as violence is concerned, the USA sees many tens of thousands dead by gun violence every year. — Wayfarer

Are you suggesting that there is more violence today? This is not reasonably disputable. There might be different kinds, and trends, but way less over all.

Maybe I missed the point... but I felt that it was a clear counter-factual, that needed jumping on.

There might be different kinds, and trends, but way less over all. — Wosret

According to Steve Pinker. And I do accept in the overall upward trajectory in the way humans treat each other, much of it due to the civilizing influence of Western civilisation, which is the very thing that Dennett et al are intent on dissolving.

Pinker most famously, because it's hard to get anything other than terrible news out -- but it is statistically and archaeologically supported, and not just a claim he's making. It's what the actual evidence suggests.

You can keep claiming that the world's about to burn up in the dead of winter if you want to. You can say things are wrong all you want to, but when you turn to consequences, don't just make them up.

You can say things are wrong all you want to, but when you turn to consequences, don't just make them up. — Wosret

I go to a lot of trouble to present quotations, citations, articles, and arguments. I'm not the one tossing out assertions here.

And you did for the trends of violence, the only thing I have disputed?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html

Just do a google search. This isn't obscure, or complex.

As I tried to explain, twice, the original citation wasn't about 'violence' but 'the degradation of culture', under the title Barbarism, but the point seems to have gone past you, both times. I give up.

Pinker is probably correct that since the Enlightenment, at the very least internal domestic violence has gone down, though I don't really think for all the reasons he says it does. (he also cherry picks which types of violence he considers significant.) From what I can see, he most is definitely wrong on pre-Historic violence, which he takes a minority stance on the subject matter within anthropology, something people who haven't gone into the subject aren't aware of. Leading Anthropologists such as Douglas Fry, Brian Ferguson, and Stephen Corry have done a lot of analysis to show his assumptions are wrong.

https://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/sites/fasn/files/Pinker's%20List%20-%20Exaggerating%20Prehistoric%20War%20Mortality%20(2013).pdf

That the consequential fearmongering is not to be taken literally, but understood to just be emotional manipulation on its face?

As I already admitted, I may have missed the point, but God is in the details.

That's attacking when claims get speculative, this is actually demonstrable for at least the last few centuries (causes of course aren't).

I was talking in generalized terms but the way the social sciences sometimes works is you can do anything with the data to make it appear to fit your thesis if you leave out different factors. Anyways as I said, I think internal domestic violence went down since the Enlightenment. I disagree with him about how current times compare to pre-Historic times.

That the consequential fearmongering is not to be taken literally, but understood to just be emotional manipulation on its face? — Wosret

Not 'understood to be', but 'misinterpreted as emotional manipulation', by you. Anyway, it is plainly pointless to continue, you haven't shown any interest in the actual subject.

You've got an ax to grind is all.

Anyway, I think Dennett's anti-philosophy is a complete falsehood, a crock from top to bottom. So do a lot of other philosophers, but they have to be polite about it. It is simply the attempt to apply 'scientific thinking' to subjects beyond it's scope, which is 'scientism', pure and simple. People have been pointing this out about Dennett for decades, but he keeps turning out this nonsense. — Wayfarer

All Dennett does, as do all materialists, is create human beings out of neurons. They talk about neurons as though they are the little human beings in charge of the robots - that is us - who are dwelling on illusions while the real humans - the neurons - continue to play tricks on us - us being the self same neurons, I think. Of course, the neurons are not really in charge, not by a long shot. Scientists, those who see through the illusion, can control the neurons, because apparently their neurons know how to control other neurons and are smart enough to see through the illusion. Call these super-neurons and they inhabit Dennett. So it is really not Dennett who is exposing this illusion for what it is, but rather his super-neurons that have decided to let the cat out of the bag thereby exposing all of the other neurons for the tricksters that they are. The jig is up, and we can thank Dennett's superior neurons for finally setting accounts straight. This may be the agenda that the reviewer speaks of.

And that is the "story".

“The way in which this conscious life is allegedly illusory is finally explained in terms of a “user illusion”, such as the desktop on a computer operating system. We move files around on our screen desktop, but the way the computer works under the hood bears no relation to these pictorial metaphors. Similarly, Dennett writes, we think we are consistent “selves”, able to perceive the world as it is directly, and acting for rational reasons. But by far the bulk of what is going on in the brain is unconscious, ­low-level processing by neurons, to which we have no access. Therefore we are stuck at an ­“illusory” level, incapable of experiencing how our brains work. — Saphsin

Presuming this analogy, suppose I am working with my computer, doing something. I haven't the foggiest idea of what is going on within my computer, all that circuitry and electronics. Why would anyone ever think that the work I am doing with my computer is just an illusion, and what is really going on is all that electronic activity underneath? This is like arguing that on a construction site, the activities of the various tools being used by the different trades people is what is really going on, and the belief that a particular building is being constructed is just an illusion. The architect is sitting in an office somewhere, with "no access" to the particular trades people. But that doesn't mean that the trades people are not following the architect's plans. It doesn't matter that the person carrying out the task doesn't know all the particular low level activities which are going on. This does not make the task being carried out illusory.