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The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
by Steven Pinker. Viking Adult, 2011
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), worldwide military expenditures have been growing annually for the past 15 years, and between 15 and 20 major armed conflicts—yes, wars—are in progress as you read this. All told, upward of 175 million people died in war-related violence during the 20th century, plus another eight million because of conflicts among individuals.
Even so, according to this weighty new book by Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker, the “better angels” of human nature have actually brought about a dramatic reduction in violence during the past few millennia. Yes, the absolute number of victims has been rising, but relative to the world’s population, the numbers look good.
The shift toward nonviolence, he says, has been driven by many factors, such as the spread of agriculture and the rise of feminism and democracy. Such trends have led to a reduction in institutionalized torture and execution and slavery and, especially in recent years, to an increase in the rights of women, homosexuals, children and animals.
Pinker acknowledges that one’s immediate experience belies these facts to the point where you might even want to call him “hallucinatory.” Yet the wealth of data he presents cannot be ignored—unless, that is, you take the same liberties as he sometimes does in his book. In two lengthy chapters, Pinker describes psychological processes that make us either violent or peaceful, respectively. Our dark side is driven by a evolution-based propensity toward predation and dominance. On the angelic side, we have, or at least can learn, some degree of self-control, which allows us to inhibit dark tendencies.
There is, however, another psychological process—confirmation bias—that Pinker sometimes succumbs to in his book. People pay more attention to facts that match their beliefs than those that undermine them. Pinker wants peace, and he also believes in his hypothesis; it is no surprise that he focuses more on facts that support his views than on those that do not. The SIPRI arms data are problematic, and a reader can also cherry-pick facts from Pinker’s own book that are inconsistent with his position. He notes, for example, that during the 20th century homicide rates failed to decline in both the U.S. and England. He also describes in graphic and disturbing detail the savage way in which chimpanzees—our closest genetic relatives in the animal world—torture and kill their own kind.
Of greater concern is the assumption on which Pinker’s entire case rests: that we look at relative numbers instead of absolute numbers in assessing human violence. But why should we be content with only a relative decrease? By this logic, when we reach a world population of nine billion in 2050, Pinker will conceivably be satisfied if a mere two million people are killed in war that year.
The biggest problem with the book, though, is its overreliance on history, which, like the light on a caboose, shows us only where we are not going. We live in a time when all the rules are being rewritten blindingly fast—when, for example, an increasingly smaller number of people can do increasingly greater damage. Yes, when you move from the Stone Age to modern times, some violence is left behind, but what happens when you put weapons of mass destruction into the hands of modern people who in many ways are still living primitively? What happens when the unprecedented occurs—when a country such as Iran, where women are still waiting for even the slightest glimpse of those better angels, obtains nuclear weapons? Pinker doesn’t say.
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8 Comments
Add CommentI think we shouldn't be content with the violence at any single moment in time, but it would be strange not to be content with the fact that there is a decrease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe also need to ask why the common wisdom seems to be the opposite. What's the media industry doing? Informing us, or inflating the danger for the sake of their short term profits?
Caveat emptor...
How did the review of this book end up with evil Iranians torturing their women and building nuclear weapons!?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"But why should we be content with only a relative decrease?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause that measures violence in direct proportion to the human population (I should have thought that was obvious!)
That was my thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy does such a "reputable" publication (one i have been reading since the 60's) start taking part in the bogus military-industrial complex propaganda? The last hundred years has seen the US and UK ("great game") do terrible things to the people of Iran (and Iraq, Afghanistan..). For what? Oil? Control of the region (for Oil)? Support of Israel? Money from war?
The thing that makes people most hate the USA is the warmongering and dishonesty of its people - all the way from the "Christian" heartland "up" to the ruling elite.
Frankly SA it is disgusting that you publish such trash. Please stick to science.
pop
When I grew up I was taught that there is an terrible animal in everyone's mind.It is the root of all aggression.And that the most dangerous and violent people are those who think it isn't there,but there are a small handful who know it is and use it to commit selfless acts of violence.The big difference is how much power is taken or given to them.This is of course the fight or flight mechanism,located in the base of the brain.It is pure instinct,but can be controlled by higher levels of the mind,but as I said to begin with you can't if you don't think or know it is there.It is this that causes most violence acts by even the most pacifist of minds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisexactly
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistruly awful review. The facts are that violence is decreasing, per capita over time. Haven't read the book yet, so I can't comment on the reasons that Pinker sugests to explain the fact, though I do have some ideas of my own. Larger social and political groups, more complex systems of government, more law, law enforcers, more education and socialization. Personal experience, news and entertainment media can tell us the world is violent, but by any quantifiable measure, per capita violence decreases over time, and prosperity increases. Human nauture is both selfish and selfless, violent and cooperative. We tend to be selfish and violent toward those in 'out' groups. We tend to be selfless and cooperative toward those in the 'in' group, or the group to which we belong or in which we self identify. Most conflict is at the edges, where groups come into contact and into conflict. As the groups get bigger, more people within the group are in the interior, not exposed to the conflict on the margins. The point is that it is a per capita phenomena, which is the proper frame in which to view the subject - a risk analysis way of seeing the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving read the book I can say that it does include this kind of explanation to a great extent. Also Pinker DOES discuss the idea of a few terrorists killing many. I suspect that whoever wrote this review didn't bother reading the whole thing.
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