Book Review
by Madeleine Kando
Everyone knows that the world is a dangerous place, full of mayhem, murder and calamity. Our instinct tells us to fear strangers, lock our doors at night and not trust anyone outside our immediate circle of friends and relatives. It is also common knowledge that we live in a very dangerous time. Terrorist and extremist groups are sprouting up like mushrooms, waiting for the slightest excuse to blow everyone to smithereens. It's a wonder we still have the guts to lead normal lives: we go to the store, we walk our kids to school and we even go to the movies.
In 'The Better Angels of our Nature', Steven Pinker blows all these pre-conceived ideas with one swell swoop right out of the water. Spanning his arguments across 700 well-documented pages, he shows us that violence in human society has gone down by leaps and bounds and that we now live in the most peaceful time in human history.
Pinker is a master at pre-chewing difficult subjects so that mere mortals can more easily digest them. As in his previous books, he uses his ample talent as a retailer of great ideas and tackles the subject of violence by cleverly dividing the material into bite-size morsels.
The subject matter demands great detail and Pinker generously provides us with tables and graphs to prove his point. He has been criticized for using relative rather than absolute numbers to show that violence has declined but to me it makes sense: After all, 10 murders per year in a village of 1,000 people is a disaster, whereas 10 murders per year in New York City would be a blessing.
It is mostly Pinker’s humor that makes this often unpalatable subject digestible, although at times I found myself skimming over the more gory passages describing medieval torture practices or human sacrifice.
Traveling to the Past
He starts off by taking us into the past as if it were a foreign country where the mores are.. well, foreign. The most 'foreign' aspect of traveling to the past is its level of violence . The average person endured and even embraced violence, accepted it as a fact of life. Archeologists have found million year old skeletons with their heads bashed in, their bodies pierced with arrows, limbs cut off, you name it. Pinker also refers us to works of literature like Homer and the Hebrew Bible to prove that killing and being killed was a large part of everyday life. In Roman times violence was used for entertainment and as a way to keep control over the masses by publicly crucifying, flogging, burning and quartering their subjects. In the Middle Ages, people's indifference towards seeing someone suffer gives the impression that the entire population was made up of psychopaths.
The Pacification Process
So where does violence originate? Is it part of the human condition? What purpose does it serve? In his book ‘The Selfish Gene’, Richard Dawkins asks us to imagine a human being as a 'survival machine'. To a survival machine another survival machine is part of the environment, like a rock or a river. It will try to use it to further propagate its own genes. So violence in the living world is simply the default. It is how species survive and evolve.
Since we are all survival machines, there is no reason why we wouldn't all want to use each other as part of our environment. If a species evolves to become violent, so do all its members, so why don't we live in a world where everyone tears each other to pieces? Enter Mr. Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, said that without a central authority, every person would fight everyone else and there would be total anarchy. In order for peace to exist in a society there must be a neutral bystander who has the monopoly on the use of force to impose the rule of law. He called it the Leviathan. With the foundation of city states the 'Pacification Process' was underway. Violence began to decline.
The Civilizing Process
Medieval people were crude and childlike in their behavior, without any inhibitions. They belched, passed wind and had sex in public. It took quite a while for people to become 'civilized' and to develop inhibitions and self-control. Surprisingly, one of the ways they accomplished this was by learning table manners. Even though we take it for granted that we don’t blow our nose in our sleeve at the dinner table, or unsheathe a hunting knife to pick up a piece of meat, these things had to be learned over time. The idea was that self-control is like a muscle and that if you exercise it with table manners, it will get stronger across the board and stop you from killing someone who insulted you.
Two external forces also contributed to the civilizing process. One was the appearance of large kingdoms that swallowed up smaller territories and the other was the emergence of commerce. Commerce is a non-zero sum game which means that both parties benefit from a transaction. If one person steals someone’s wife, it leaves the other person without one. That's a zero-sum game because you cannot cut a wife in two. But you can cut a loaf of bread in two and sell half of it in return for something else. If you both benefit from a transaction, why kill the other person?
The civilizing process took place at different rates and different times. In America, for instance, there were two regions where the civilizing process was late in coming: in the south and in the far west. While the northern states were settled by people from countries in Europe that had already been 'civilized', like England, Scandinavia and Germany, much of the southern hinterland was settled by people from the mountainous regions of Scotland and Ireland, which had been harder to reach by the civilizing process. The lawlessness of the Wild West is made famous by Hollywood and it was not until the women arrived on the scene with their bibles and tea sets, that the West was won over to civilization.
The Humanitarian Revolution
The Age of Enlightenment or Humanitarian Revolution had a huge influence on reducing violence. Superstition and ignorance were replaced by knowledge and this allowed people to begin to sympathize with the victim. What had been considered an act of God was now understood to be caused by man. This period saw the abolition of slavery and torture, the end of human sacrifice, the burning of witches, cruelty to children and animals and other forms of violence that were previously socially sanctioned. The world had also become smaller so that people of different races and cultures began to interact, another reason to see things from the 'other guy's' perspective.
The Long Peace and the New Peace
'The 20th century was the bloodiest in history*" is an often heard cliché. Actually, it was a Jekyll and Hyde century, the first half being extremely bloody (the two World Wars) and the second half being extremely peaceful. It saw the creation of the European Union and the beginning and end of the Cold War. The post-war period is just that - it is post-war because the major powers have not fought each other since 1945. After the end of the Cold war, violence has gone down even further. Annual war deaths have fallen from about 500,000 to 30,000 per year and even though we are all afraid of terrorism, we are more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist.
The Rights Revolution
This Rights Revolution is happening right now so it is easy to loose sight of the forest for the trees. Our tolerance for violence and violations of basic rights has gone way down. Homosexuals. for example, are no longer imprisoned or declared mentally ill, but they should also be allowed to get married, raise families and have decent health care. It shows us that we do live in a different world today than 500 years ago. The Rights Revolution is about child abuse, domestic violence, women's rights, etc. These might look like 'peccadilloes' on the larger violence spectrum, but it is obvious that, as history progresses, people start to view violence in a different light. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 is a testament to how far we have come. Article 1 of the declaration reads: 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.' This is a far cry from discounting life on earth as a temporary phase, a mere rite of passage like puberty or a midlife crisis. We begin to value life , our own as well as others’, as sacred, not just as a repository for our eternal soul.
Inner Demons and Better Angels
It seems that our brains are wired for aggression and that we are all capable of violent acts, (recall the 'survival machine' theory) but we are also inclined to counteract those tendencies by invoking our 'better angels', as Pinker calls them. Who hasn't fantasized about hurting or even killing someone at some point in their lives? Thank God most of us don't act out our fantasies.
The first of Pinker's inner demons, predation, is the act of preying or plundering. Predation doesn't involve animosity towards a victim; a hawk doesn't kill a pigeon because it hates it, it is the 'survival machine' doing what it is supposed to do. Human predators, also known as psychopathic killers, are not able to see things from the victim's perspective. They kill pragmatically, amorally, like a hawk kills a pigeon.
The second inner demon is 'dominance', the urge to climb the social pecking order. Dominance is mostly a guy thing, it's driven by testosterone. Would the world be more peaceful if women were in charge? Actually the proof is in the pudding: the world IS more peaceful since women are more in charge and it will continue to be because women will have more influence in the future.
Although the demon called 'revenge' has gotten a bad rap, it is essential in deterring further violence by telling someone that they better think twice before they mess with you. Revenge is necessary in cooperation and it protects the nice guy from being exploited.
Another lethal demon is 'ideology'. When it takes the form of religious or nationalist fanaticism, it justifies violence with the promise of a Utopia, which of course, is a contradiction in terms.
The best of our better angels is self-control, when we are able to anticipate the consequences of our actions and refrain from violent acts. Empathy, another one of our angels, is when we feel someone else's pain or suffering, which (usually) stops us from being violent. Other better angels are morality, our sense of fairness. And finally there is reason. Reason will make us look at something objectively and override our emotions so we can make a better judgment.
Historical Forces
There are several historical forces that have tilted the scale towards peace rather than violence. The Leviathan has pushed us in a more peaceful direction by punishing the aggressor: the rule of law, as long as most people agree to it, is a deterrent to violence. Another development that has reduced violence is 'commerce'. Since it is a positive-sum game, taking care of your trading partner is always better than attacking him: he is worth more to you alive than dead. A third force is what Pinker calls 'our expanding circle of empathy'. We went from feeling empathy for our immediate family to friends, clans, nations, other races and now other species. Holland, for instance has an 'animal party' in government.. And last but not least, the feminization of society has made us more peaceful.
Pinker even tells us why all these forces have pushed us in the same direction. It is in everyone's interest to avoid violence because it is a social dilemma: it might be good for the aggressor but pretty bad for the victim, and since we are all potential victims and aggressors at some point in time, it is better to avoid violence altogether. The trick is to know how to get the other guy to lay down arms too and not end up being the sucker, as in the Prisoner’s dilemma. Those historical forces have given going the peaceful route more leverage.
I am in awe at the amount of research that must have gone into writing this book. It is entertaining, educative and at times stomach churning. The question remains whether our progress will continue in the future? Or is it possible than one nutcase, be it a nation or a group, someone who hasn't read this book, who doesn't believe in the Leviathan, who has inner demons but lacks better angels, someone who still lives in the Stone Age mentally but has access to all the marvelous lethality of modern technology, will blow us all to kingdom come? I prefer to be optimistic. What else can I do? leave comment here
* Two reasons for this cliché are (1) perception: today, the global media report worldwide violence, so when someone gets murdered in Kenya, people in Iowa read about it; and (2) the aforementioned rise is ABSOLUTE numbers: Obviously, in a world of 7 billion people, you can expect more murders than in a world of 500 million (the global population in the Middle Ages).
9 comments:
I for one find Pinker absolutely inane. His vision of the rise the enlightened man is nonsense. I won't go into a systematic critique of his view of progress -- where to begin when almost every word of his thesis harkens back to the apologetics of 18th Century imperialism. He gets his history is wrong. His sampling of violence, using wartime numbers, is wrong. His theory of knowledge is wrong.
Suffice to say that his message that despite ourselves, we are doing rather well, and that all things being equal, we are on a road to a better world, reeks. It is nothing short of an attempt to lobotomize his audiences.
Does he know he is doing this? I doubt it. Despite appearances, he really isn't that bright.
Marc: Did you actually read the book? Let me know, and then we'll talk.
Madeleine: I have not read the book. I have read many reviews of the book and I have heard Pinker lecture on this topic and listened to interviews. I understand his theory very well and his use of historical data in order to support his theory of why we are become less violent.
The error he makes is to conflate Darwinian evolutionary processes which are devoid of direction and intention with social processes that reflect human activity that is rife with intention. His error is built into "scientism" which arose during the "Enlightenment" period and that he pinpoints as marking a qualitative shift in human consciousness.
There is in fact, a qualitative difference between Darwin's brilliant explanation of evolutionary process and social process acted out by the symbolic creatures called humans. The key concept to keep in mind is "intention".
The scientific revolutions of the 16th and 1th centuries did not liberate us from the social process that makes us who we are. We remain irrevocably immersed in social process which is based grounded in our social constructed and usually taken for granted conceptions of value, And value remains an anathema to the methodology of the scientistic regime.
To better understand this I would recommend reading R. Tallis' "Aping Mankind", E. A. Burtt's "The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science" and almost any of the historical treatises on the road to the Enlightenment by F. Yates.
Pinker's error is very understandable. Not only is he steeped in a belief in the virtuousness of the scientific method but he is also a victim of a psychological view of the world--a we are our brains bias.
The very question of whether we are violent or not, and all measures that attempt to quantify answers, are nonsense. We are not more or less violent, we deal with our real world circumstances as social beings, in ways that we have come to believe will work better or worse -- questions of values.
If you believe that our current chosen path in the world will result in fewer contradictions -- that economic differentials will decrease for the 7, soon to be 10 billion people on Earth, then you have reason to suspect that violence will be reduced.
If you believe our current chosen path will reduce the despoliation of the environment so that everyone can reasonably hope to live in some version of The Garden, you have reason to believe violence will decrease.
If you believe that our current chosen path will create a situation in which powerful interests will cease their wanton exploitation of those with less power, you have reason to believe that violence will be reduced.
We are not our brains. We are our relations among ourselves going forward in a real world with real challenges. As intentional creatures we must choose to do right things. Evolution, technological invention, rigorous scientific investigation are all irrelevant until we decide and commit as human beings, to doing what is right and not doing what is wrong.
As is so often the case in our current age, Pinker puts the cart in front of the horse and in doing so, robs of what makes us human -- our ability to be responsible.
Why do you think Pinker ‘conflates Darwinian evolutionary processes with social processes’. He devotes most of the book to describing social processes that have contributed to the decline in violence.
Regardless of how many words you spend trying to force Pinker into saying something he doesn’t say, the fact remains that Pinker argues exactly what you think he doesn’t argue: Our Darwinian evolution notwithstanding, our better angels are making us less violent.
He does NOT say that we are our brains, he simply says that we can use our rationality to our advantage.
So, basically, you agree with him: What you call nonsense is the very essence of what he is talking about: our ‘values’ are a result of what has worked for us, we have become less violent because it works for us.
He also does not predict the future and is much less sure of what it will bring than you are. YOU seem to be putting the cart in front of the horse, not him.
Again, I suggest you read the book before you decide to trash it as nonsense.
Madeleine, one needs to think out of the scientistic box to see Pinker's error and why that error is a real problem. Here's a Pinker Quote about Iraq...
" the actual Iraq war itself, was by historical standards a far less destructive war than earlier wars — like Vietnam, Korea, Iran/Iraq, Russians in Afghanistan — in terms of the number of people that it killed." Steven Pinker, December 2, 2011
The main premise of Steve Pinker’s science is that, as he says, “You have to have a quantitative mindset to understand history.”
This quantitative mindset with respect to history is exactly why he is so wrong.
For example, as efficiency of killing increases, the total numbers go down. In WWI's the ratio of death between the principal combatants approached 1:1 in Iraq the ratio was roughly 1:2500. (aka "shock and awe")
Yes, the overall numeric lethality of the Iraq war was much less than WWII but this was because one of the combatants suffered comparatively little by virtue of the efficiency and superiority of their killing technology. If you can militarily subjugate an adversary with overwhelming lethal power at little or no cost to yourself, the number of dead goes down.
The asymmetrical distribution of killing technology reduces overall death counts but also inflicts upon those without that technology, a form of violence that defies simple quantitative accounting.
If two combatants are equally matched, each will pay an equal price in blood. If they are not, one will pay disproportionately more, but not just in blood.
Now consider the trends in the world today. What is the significance of being a nuclear have or have not? What is the significance of Drone warfare in which which the of sacrifice of one combatant approaches zero? What is the violence coefficient when one party has absolute power and the other no power at all?
Looking backward and ascribing to declining casualty numbers a trend toward decreasing violence is not just nonsense. It is an apologetic for those groups who possess the ability to kill with impunity and thereby impose their will upon others. This is true violence and explains why the world's disaffected seek to obtain high-tech weapons of mass destruction, and sooner or later one of them will succeed.
So-called rationality is not triumphing over violence. The amount of violence being pent up in the system is increasing at a horrific rate, and the likelihood that that pent-up violent potential will be unleashed in horrific ways is increasing rapidly in direct proportion to perceived injustices and affronts, and the proliferation of ever more efficient means of killing.
We are not on the brink of a more peaceful world, we are living on the brink of disaster.
Here's another way for looking at the quantitative error Pinker makes.
A Parable: The Peaceful Kingdom
There once was a kingdom that was plagued by violence. The monarchs’ henchmen and their rich patrons battled the poor in the streets using sticks and stones and spears and arrows. Daily, the dead piled up in heaps and had to be gathered and buried in mass graves every evening.
Then one day there came a truly great king, the richest and most learned man in the world. He gathered about him the kingdom’s most talented citizens and offered them riches and a place by his side if they would devote their best efforts to devising less costly methods, as measured in money and blood, for killing the kingdom’s thieves and rebellious poor. This he explained would put an end to the terrible violence that plagued the land.
So attractive was the kings offer, that the best and brightest in the kingdom set to work with great diligence and with each advance in methods of killing they created, the total number of dead declined just as the King predicted. By body count alone it was obvious to all that the kingdom was rapidly growing more peaceful!
After years of research and investment the king’s men came up with ways for monitoring exactly what everyone in the kingdom was doing–-satellites, surveillance cameras, wire taps and spies--and for methods of killing people with surgical precision using robots if someone was seen to be doing anything that might threaten peace in the kingdom.
Soon after that miraculous achievement, absolute peace was finally achieved. No one dared steal or rebel. And there hasn’t been a single killing in the kingdom since.
And then one day...
You are trying to impose your morals on Pinker's methodology. How else can you quantify anything, if not with numbers? I think you are missing the point of the book (which you really should read: it might clarify things).
Drone warfare... being nuclear... both of these actually have decreased violence worldwide.
At the risk of repeating myself, Pinker is not talking about the future here. He is talking about the present and compares it to the past.
Please, please, read the book!
All methods and all numbers have a morality behind them. That's the point you are missing. If you believe that A-Bombs and Drones have caused a decrease in violence, then you agree with the king in my parable. So be it.
BTW madeleine, thanks for a fine post on the very provocative subject of Pinker's theory. I enjoyed going over the notes I had assembled on his work.
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