--Steven Pinker
https://stevenpinker.com
Steven Pinker argues that violence in the world has declined both in the long run and in the short run and suggests explanations as to why this has occurred.
The book uses data simply documenting declining violence across time and geography. This paints a picture of massive declines in the violence of all forms, from war, to improved treatment of children. He highlights the role of nation-state monopolies on force, of commerce (making other people become more valuable alive than dead), of increased literacy and communication (promoting empathy), as well as a rise in a rational problem-solving orientation as possible causes of this decline in violence...
(0) -- Thesis
Pinker argues that the radical declines in violent behavior that he documents do not result from major changes in human biology or cognition. He specifically rejects the view that humans are necessarily violent, and thus have to undergo radical change in order to become more peaceable. However, Pinker also rejects what he regards as the simplistic nature versus nurture argument, which would imply that the radical change must therefore have come purely from external "(nurture)" sources. Instead, he argues: "The way to explain the decline of violence is to identify the changes in our cultural and material milieu that have given our peaceable motives the upper hand."
The Leviathan
Commerce
Feminization
Cosmopolitanism
The Escalator of Reason
(2) -- Six Trends of Declining Violence
The Pacification Process
The Civilizing Process
The Humanitarian Revolution
The Long Peace
The New Peace
The Rights Revolutions
Predatory or Practical Violence
Dominance
Revenge
Sadism
Ideology
Empathy
Self-Control
The Moral Sense
Reason
(1) -- Five Historical Forces -that have favored our peaceable motives and have driven the multiple declines in violence.
The Leviathan – the rise of the modern nation-state and judiciary "with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force," which "can defuse the [individual] temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for revenge, and circumvent ... self-serving biases."
Commerce – the rise of "technological progress [allowing] the exchange of goods and services over longer distances and larger groups of trading partners," so that "other people become more valuable alive than dead" and "are less likely to become targets of demonization and dehumanization."
Feminization – increasing respect for "the interests and values of women."
Cosmopolitanism – the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and mass media, which "can prompt people to take the perspectives of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them."
The Escalator of Reason – an "intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to human affairs," which "can force people to recognize the futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their own interests over others', and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved rather than a contest to be won."
(2) -- Six Trends of Declining Violence
The Pacification Process: Pinker describes this as the transition from "the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies ... to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments, beginning around five thousand years ago" which brought "a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature and a more or less fivefold decrease in rates of violent death."[3]:xxiv
The Civilizing Process: Pinker argues that "between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century, European countries saw a tenfold-to-fiftyfold decline in their rates of homicide." He attributes the idea of the Civilizing Process to the sociologist Norbert Elias, who "attributed this surprising decline to the consolidation of a patchwork of feudal territories into large kingdoms with centralized authority and an infrastructure on commerce."
The Humanitarian Revolution – Pinker attributes this term and concept to the historian Lynn Hunt. He says this revolution "unfolded on the [shorter] scale of centuries and took off around the time of the Age of Reason and the European Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries." Although he also points to historical antecedents and to "parallels elsewhere in the world." He writes: "It saw the first organized movements to abolish slavery, dueling, judicial torture, superstitious killing, sadistic punishment, and cruelty to animals, together with the first stirrings of systematic pacifism."
The Long Peace: a term he attributes to the historian John Lewis Gaddis's The Long Peace: Inquiries into the history of the Cold War. This fourth "major transition," Pinker says, "took place after the end of World War II." During it, he says, "the great powers, and the developed states in general, have stopped waging war on one another."
The New Peace: Pinker calls this trend "more tenuous," but "since the end of the Cold War in 1989, organized conflicts of all kinds - civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks - have declined throughout the world."
The Rights Revolutions: The postwar period has seen, Pinker argues, "a growing revulsion against aggression on smaller scales, including violence against ethnic minorities, women, children, homosexuals, and animals. These spin-offs from the concept of human rights—civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, and animal rights—were asserted in a cascade of movements from the late 1950s to the present day."
(3) -- Five Inner Demons
Pinker rejects what he calls the "Hydraulic Theory of Violence" – the idea "that humans harbor an inner drive toward aggression (a death instinct or thirst for blood), which builds up inside us and must periodically be discharged. Nothing could be further from contemporary scientific understanding of the psychology of violence." Instead, he argues, research suggests that "aggression is not a single motive, let alone a mounting urge. It is the output of several psychological systems that differ in their environmental triggers, their internal logic, their neurological basis, and their social distribution." He examines five such systems:
Predatory or Practical Violence: violence "deployed as a practical means to an end"
Dominance: the "urge for authority, prestige, glory, and power." Pinker argues that dominance motivations can occur within individuals and coalitions of "racial, ethnic, religious, or national groups"
Revenge: the "moralistic urge toward retribution, punishment, and justice"
Sadism: the "deliberate infliction of pain for no purpose but to enjoy a person's suffering..."
Ideology: a "shared belief system, usually involving a vision of utopia, that justifies unlimited violence in pursuit of unlimited good."
(4) -- Four Better Angels
Empathy: which "prompts us to feel the pain of others and to align their interests with our own."
Self-Control: which "allows us to anticipate the consequences of acting on our impulses and to inhibit them accordingly."
The Moral Sense: which "sanctifies a set of norms and taboos that govern the interactions among people in a culture." These sometimes decrease violence but can also increase it "when the norms are tribal, authoritarian, or puritanical."
Reason: which "allows us to extract ourselves from our parochial vantage points."
In this chapter Pinker also examines and partially rejects the idea that humans have evolved in the biological sense to become less violent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
Steven Pinker
https://stevenpinker.com
