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A review by aislingnuttall7
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
4.0
Reassuring and thought-provoking. Why is there war? Why is there peace? What have we been doing right?
Tipping point around time of Enlightenment esp in the West. Why do we believe the opposite?
*We now have better reporting
*Cognitive illusion (news articles more memorable the more gory) - easier it is to recall specific instances, higher probability that you assigned to it
*Change in standards can outpace our change in behaviour
*Decline in religion (oversimplified summary on my part), rise in science
*More government intervention, shift in attitude
*Civil & equal rights revolutions, leading to constitution change
Why has violence declined?
1. Thomas Hobbs
- Humans do not have primordial taste for blood or aggression
- Logic of anarchy - in state of anarchy there is constant temptation to invade your neighbours before they invade you
- This train of thought was common in hunter-gatherers and raiding
- Deterrence can work but must be credible (settling all scores)
- Solution = Leviathan Theory
2. 'Life is cheap'
- Lower value on life
- Technology / more things to live for nowadays (education for children)
3. 'Non-zero sum games'
- Technology has increased the number of positive sum games by allowing TRADING (China & major nations) of each others surpluses over long distances and among larger groups of people
- Other people hence become more valuable alive than dead
- Violence declines for selfish reasons
4. 'The Expanding Circle' by Peter Singer
- Evolution bequeathed us with a sense of empathy
- By default we only employ it to small circle of friends and family
- Over history the circle has expanded - from the village to the clan to the tribe to the nation to other races to both sexes and even to other species
- What has powered this expansion?
- Increasing circles of reciprocity
- Golden Rule - more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realise that you must not privilege your interests over theirs if you want their attention
- Wright's theory - enjoying cooperation over larger circles
- Cosmopolitanism
- Histories
- Journalism
- Realistic fiction
- Memoires
- Travel
- Literacy
- Allows you to project yourself into the lives of other people that formally you treated as sub-human
Tipping point around time of Enlightenment esp in the West. Why do we believe the opposite?
*We now have better reporting
*Cognitive illusion (news articles more memorable the more gory) - easier it is to recall specific instances, higher probability that you assigned to it
*Change in standards can outpace our change in behaviour
*Decline in religion (oversimplified summary on my part), rise in science
*More government intervention, shift in attitude
*Civil & equal rights revolutions, leading to constitution change
Why has violence declined?
1. Thomas Hobbs
- Humans do not have primordial taste for blood or aggression
- Logic of anarchy - in state of anarchy there is constant temptation to invade your neighbours before they invade you
- This train of thought was common in hunter-gatherers and raiding
- Deterrence can work but must be credible (settling all scores)
- Solution = Leviathan Theory
2. 'Life is cheap'
- Lower value on life
- Technology / more things to live for nowadays (education for children)
3. 'Non-zero sum games'
- Technology has increased the number of positive sum games by allowing TRADING (China & major nations) of each others surpluses over long distances and among larger groups of people
- Other people hence become more valuable alive than dead
- Violence declines for selfish reasons
4. 'The Expanding Circle' by Peter Singer
- Evolution bequeathed us with a sense of empathy
- By default we only employ it to small circle of friends and family
- Over history the circle has expanded - from the village to the clan to the tribe to the nation to other races to both sexes and even to other species
- What has powered this expansion?
- Increasing circles of reciprocity
- Golden Rule - more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realise that you must not privilege your interests over theirs if you want their attention
- Wright's theory - enjoying cooperation over larger circles
- Cosmopolitanism
- Histories
- Journalism
- Realistic fiction
- Memoires
- Travel
- Literacy
- Allows you to project yourself into the lives of other people that formally you treated as sub-human