The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined

In five thousand years, have we made progress toward a more peaceful world? How would we know? 

Steven Pinker provides answers in his new book “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined”. His well organized, rationally driven tome makes good reading for those who want a data driven account of how we went from a very violent Roman, and pre-Roman, time to our more civilized century.

Perhaps you are not convinced our current century is more civilized. We may not have the massive world wars of the last century, however, we are confronted with scores of regional conflicts and the threat of nuclear weapons is front and center daily.

During the 10,000 years of our evolving domestication, we humans have moved from family groups, to groups of families, to aggregates of families in villages, to our current mix of large urban populations and rural villages. Along the way we learned that cooperation was preferential to violent strife. The cooperation shows up in homicide rate declines and death rate declines from war that can be measured.

Of interest to me viewing Pinker’s data from a Beyond War perspective is: what are the drivers of the violence, and what accounts for the decline in violence over time ?

Pinker reviews up-to-date behavioral psychology research on our inner demons that drive violent behavior. Demons include predation, dominance, revenge, sadism, ideology, and what Pinker terms “pure evil”.

Countering our inner demons are the better angels, or in today’s terminology the Apps of empathy, self-control, morality, reason, feminization, and commerce. I don’t know if we can pull up these Beyond War Apps on our iPhones today, however, this may be a diplomacy tool for the future.

Pinker’s substantial book (696 pages) is loaded with discussion points for Beyond War exploration and application, and I recommend it for chapter discussion. Please provide input on book discussions to the Beyond War web site for discussion by the broader community.