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It's good to see all the trends pointing the same way in a positive sense, for a change.
Book #1: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Author: Steven Pinker
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount library
The Better Angels of Our Nature falls into a category of book that I've come to think of as happy realization non-fiction. In these books, the author argues that despite what one may think due to exposure to regular media and conventional wisdom, matters in the world as they are now aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be, and in fact are greatly improved from how they once were. Other examples, just off the top of my head, include some of Gregg Easterbrook's work, like the Progress Paradox or A Moment on This Earth. I like reading books like this as an antidote to much of the other non-fiction I read, which tends to argue that things are getting worse all the time, with the point usually being that it is now urgent to stand and fight or donate money for their cause, or change your life right away, or sometimes just realize that everything's already gone to hell in a handbasket and there's nothing further to be done.
Pinker's specific argument is that, in contrast to what's usually reported, the world has grown less violent over time, and that the current age we live in is the most peaceful and safest ever. As Pinker himself admits at the beginning of the book, this is not a concept that most people cotton to particularly quickly, what with all the reported violence and the idea of the 20th century being the bloodiest ever, etc. Pretty much everyone who saw me reading the book and stopped to talk about it with me found it a bit odd.
To convince us, then, Pinker marshals hundreds of pages of documentation showing that statistically, rates of violent death from large-scale wars on down through homicides, have been decreasing for a long while, over the course of centuries and then with further focus on decreases after World War II. He identifies four different periods over which the decline occurred, with different exogenous factors given for this change, such as the rise of the state, the emulation of courtly manners by the lower classes, the pacifying nature of commerce, the rising importance of the individual, etc. To me, the presentation of the statistics, and then the ideas behind them, are quite convincing. He also draws attention to how bad it really used to be, the casual cruelty and violence that used to occur regularly that we've lexified, but have forgotten what it means that torture and war were so commonplace that the terms made it in.
After this attempt to convince us of the rightness of his central claim, Pinker turns to an examination of what leads to violence, presenting studies of the neurological bases for different types of violence (e.g. predatory, sadistic, etc.) and psychological studies looking at what can cause people to work along those lines. He then looks at the titular better angels (e.g. empathy, self-control) in the same fashion, and describes where each of these are set within the brain, how they're expressed in psychological studies, and how, to some degree, they may have come to have the upper hand over violence.
Pinker is careful not to make any predictions about the continued lack of war between great powers, or the continuing fall of homicide, rape, and other violent crimes; he points out that only one leader who wants violence is necessary for such a war to occur, and when great power wars occur, they can often be incredibly costly. However, if our tendency towards violence has come to be more muted due to better self-control, to better abilities to take the perspective of others, to rises in symbolic intelligence, and I don't see these reversing course in the near future. That said, yeah, I wouldn't want to stake my reputation on it, either.
The writing style of the book is pretty lucid for the amount of statistics and argumentation in it, and he returns to themes regularly enough for you to know which of the points he's trying to make he wants you to go home with. There was, of course, a lot of violence, and graphic descriptions thereof, but there were also some lighter, more humorous moments in there to alleviate the dark pressure.
It's an interesting book, and I definitely enjoyed reading it. I tend to like his linguistics books more, but this is a worthy addition to his bibliography. If you need convincing about the way violence has been heading, give it a try. There may well be a happy realization waiting for you.
Next up: Hmmm. Either the Art of Fielding, or the True Meaning of Smekday. A change of pace, in other words.
Book #1: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Author: Steven Pinker
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount library
The Better Angels of Our Nature falls into a category of book that I've come to think of as happy realization non-fiction. In these books, the author argues that despite what one may think due to exposure to regular media and conventional wisdom, matters in the world as they are now aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be, and in fact are greatly improved from how they once were. Other examples, just off the top of my head, include some of Gregg Easterbrook's work, like the Progress Paradox or A Moment on This Earth. I like reading books like this as an antidote to much of the other non-fiction I read, which tends to argue that things are getting worse all the time, with the point usually being that it is now urgent to stand and fight or donate money for their cause, or change your life right away, or sometimes just realize that everything's already gone to hell in a handbasket and there's nothing further to be done.
Pinker's specific argument is that, in contrast to what's usually reported, the world has grown less violent over time, and that the current age we live in is the most peaceful and safest ever. As Pinker himself admits at the beginning of the book, this is not a concept that most people cotton to particularly quickly, what with all the reported violence and the idea of the 20th century being the bloodiest ever, etc. Pretty much everyone who saw me reading the book and stopped to talk about it with me found it a bit odd.
To convince us, then, Pinker marshals hundreds of pages of documentation showing that statistically, rates of violent death from large-scale wars on down through homicides, have been decreasing for a long while, over the course of centuries and then with further focus on decreases after World War II. He identifies four different periods over which the decline occurred, with different exogenous factors given for this change, such as the rise of the state, the emulation of courtly manners by the lower classes, the pacifying nature of commerce, the rising importance of the individual, etc. To me, the presentation of the statistics, and then the ideas behind them, are quite convincing. He also draws attention to how bad it really used to be, the casual cruelty and violence that used to occur regularly that we've lexified, but have forgotten what it means that torture and war were so commonplace that the terms made it in.
After this attempt to convince us of the rightness of his central claim, Pinker turns to an examination of what leads to violence, presenting studies of the neurological bases for different types of violence (e.g. predatory, sadistic, etc.) and psychological studies looking at what can cause people to work along those lines. He then looks at the titular better angels (e.g. empathy, self-control) in the same fashion, and describes where each of these are set within the brain, how they're expressed in psychological studies, and how, to some degree, they may have come to have the upper hand over violence.
Pinker is careful not to make any predictions about the continued lack of war between great powers, or the continuing fall of homicide, rape, and other violent crimes; he points out that only one leader who wants violence is necessary for such a war to occur, and when great power wars occur, they can often be incredibly costly. However, if our tendency towards violence has come to be more muted due to better self-control, to better abilities to take the perspective of others, to rises in symbolic intelligence, and I don't see these reversing course in the near future. That said, yeah, I wouldn't want to stake my reputation on it, either.
The writing style of the book is pretty lucid for the amount of statistics and argumentation in it, and he returns to themes regularly enough for you to know which of the points he's trying to make he wants you to go home with. There was, of course, a lot of violence, and graphic descriptions thereof, but there were also some lighter, more humorous moments in there to alleviate the dark pressure.
It's an interesting book, and I definitely enjoyed reading it. I tend to like his linguistics books more, but this is a worthy addition to his bibliography. If you need convincing about the way violence has been heading, give it a try. There may well be a happy realization waiting for you.
Next up: Hmmm. Either the Art of Fielding, or the True Meaning of Smekday. A change of pace, in other words.
