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A review by borumi
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
4.0
3.5
Pinker tries to break apart our biased dispostion to look back and long for times gone by as the idyllic Eden of innocence in chapter 1 and see it plainly as what the title of the chapter suggests: a foreign country and a violent one. Then, through chapters 2-7, he goes over the six trends that took place in human history to retreat from that violent past: the Pacification Process (from prehistory to the first agricultural civilizations), the Civilizing Process (between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century), the Humanitarian Revolution (the Age of Reason and the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries), the Long Peace (after the end of World War II), the New Peace (since the end of the Cold Wars in 1989), the Rights Revolution (the postwar era, from the late 1950s to the present day). After describing the phenomenon, he goes on to explore both the causes that drove human beings to violence in the first place and then work to repel that violent tendency to move toward this trend toward nonviolence. The causes for violence are mainly the five inner demons described in chapter 8 (predatory of instrumental violence, dominance, revenge, sadism and ideology) and the inner motives for nonviolence, the better angels in chapter 9 are empathy, self-control, the moral sense and the faculty of reason. Chapters 8 and 9 are steeped in academic literature from both neuroscience, sociology and psychology and I think Pinker excels at delivering these points. Then he goes on with the more exogenous historical forces that favor peace: the Leviathan, the gentle Commerce, cosmopolitanism, feminization and the escalator of reason.
Writers like Diamond, Pinker and Harari are very good at going over a vast volume of content and presenting a relatively relatable and interesting perspective from that overview to the lay readers. Both Diamond and Pinker have expertise in natural sciences whereas Harari is a historian and they all delve into areas outside their comfort zones. That does not necessarily disqualify them as authors as the borderlines between natural and social sciences and other academia are increasingly becoming intermingled and blurred. So I wouldn't discredit this work as being 'out of his league'.
However, despite his huge compilation of evidence backing up his message, the statistical analysis is sometimes questionable and lacks power or fidelity (which is, to be fair, understandable due to the majority of his subject of analysis being placed in times with little trustworthy record). Some of the proposed causes are guessworks based on correlation and I hope it would be backed up by further evidences in the future but Pinker has already acknowledged this. I also wonder at his overlooking world wars I and II as momentary 'bumps' in the decline.
Moreover, I'm more worried that his definition of 'violence' and utilitarianism is too restricted at times. Sure, the explicit physical violence might be declining, but what about the other more insinuous violence of the government and capitalism which drove down the personal violence but may be a major player in the other forms of violence and dominance in the world?
Also, his perspective of good is westernized, anthropocentric and somewhat complacent regarding the increasing violence the human species are imposing on the environment and other species. I'm not as worried that his theory might be wrong as I am wary of the author's upholding an overly westernized, libertarian view towards both the forms of government and commerce and 'the way the world should be'. Isn't he propounding another ideal ideological theory of his own which he warned against in the first place?
It would also be interesting to follow up on the author's outlook in the post-Brexit, post-Trump world. What does he think of the simplified, unsophisticated political discourse and increasingly protective trade and immigration barriers rising in the democratic and capitalist West?
Pinker tries to break apart our biased dispostion to look back and long for times gone by as the idyllic Eden of innocence in chapter 1 and see it plainly as what the title of the chapter suggests: a foreign country and a violent one. Then, through chapters 2-7, he goes over the six trends that took place in human history to retreat from that violent past: the Pacification Process (from prehistory to the first agricultural civilizations), the Civilizing Process (between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century), the Humanitarian Revolution (the Age of Reason and the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries), the Long Peace (after the end of World War II), the New Peace (since the end of the Cold Wars in 1989), the Rights Revolution (the postwar era, from the late 1950s to the present day). After describing the phenomenon, he goes on to explore both the causes that drove human beings to violence in the first place and then work to repel that violent tendency to move toward this trend toward nonviolence. The causes for violence are mainly the five inner demons described in chapter 8 (predatory of instrumental violence, dominance, revenge, sadism and ideology) and the inner motives for nonviolence, the better angels in chapter 9 are empathy, self-control, the moral sense and the faculty of reason. Chapters 8 and 9 are steeped in academic literature from both neuroscience, sociology and psychology and I think Pinker excels at delivering these points. Then he goes on with the more exogenous historical forces that favor peace: the Leviathan, the gentle Commerce, cosmopolitanism, feminization and the escalator of reason.
Writers like Diamond, Pinker and Harari are very good at going over a vast volume of content and presenting a relatively relatable and interesting perspective from that overview to the lay readers. Both Diamond and Pinker have expertise in natural sciences whereas Harari is a historian and they all delve into areas outside their comfort zones. That does not necessarily disqualify them as authors as the borderlines between natural and social sciences and other academia are increasingly becoming intermingled and blurred. So I wouldn't discredit this work as being 'out of his league'.
However, despite his huge compilation of evidence backing up his message, the statistical analysis is sometimes questionable and lacks power or fidelity (which is, to be fair, understandable due to the majority of his subject of analysis being placed in times with little trustworthy record). Some of the proposed causes are guessworks based on correlation and I hope it would be backed up by further evidences in the future but Pinker has already acknowledged this. I also wonder at his overlooking world wars I and II as momentary 'bumps' in the decline.
Moreover, I'm more worried that his definition of 'violence' and utilitarianism is too restricted at times. Sure, the explicit physical violence might be declining, but what about the other more insinuous violence of the government and capitalism which drove down the personal violence but may be a major player in the other forms of violence and dominance in the world?
Also, his perspective of good is westernized, anthropocentric and somewhat complacent regarding the increasing violence the human species are imposing on the environment and other species. I'm not as worried that his theory might be wrong as I am wary of the author's upholding an overly westernized, libertarian view towards both the forms of government and commerce and 'the way the world should be'. Isn't he propounding another ideal ideological theory of his own which he warned against in the first place?
It would also be interesting to follow up on the author's outlook in the post-Brexit, post-Trump world. What does he think of the simplified, unsophisticated political discourse and increasingly protective trade and immigration barriers rising in the democratic and capitalist West?