The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Steven Pinker’s core argument is compelling and important. Contrary to the nearly universal assumption that things have never been worse, human society is actually becoming less violent. As horrifically as the wars and genocides of the last 100 years loom in our consciousness, the long view of history demonstrates that life for many of our ancestors was far nastier. Genocide, rape and enslavement were routine, even heroic, aspects of war. Interpersonal violence was ubiquitous. Human rights as a concept was unknown. Slavery and the subjugation of women were simply facts of life.
Having marshaled a massive array of evidence, Pinker demonstrates across one dimension after another that we’ve never been kinder and gentler than we are now — war, crime, domestic violence, attitudes toward children and animals, and on and on. In fact, he can’t stop himself from piling on the evidence, and at 800-plus pages the book will be unfinishable for many readers, becoming grueling well before they give up altogether.
A more distressing flaw is that in his enthusiasm to demonstrate how nearly every day in nearly every way we’re getting better and better, Pinker departs from the merely factual and pursues arguments that seem obtrusively like personal hobby horses. These include making the case for vegetarianism as an index of human progress as well as a critique of 1960s American culture that is dubious both in the blame it places on rock stars and their fans for dragging civilization backward and in the importance it accords to what in historical perspective was a trivial sideshow.
When he sticks to facts however, he demonstrates conclusively that in far more ways than we’re willing to give ourselves credit for, life on this planet has never been better. Now, if we can only develop the economic and political will to preserve that way of life. In this, Pinker’s optimism wavers a bit, and rightly so. But arguably an understanding that what we’ve collectively created really isn’t so bad should strengthen our resolve to do what it takes to keep the engines of progress running.