Ch. 1 - A Foreign Country

[geo]

I can believe the decline in violence, but couldn't that be an outcome of a generally higher standard of living and maybe the fact that our borders between nations are more firmly established? Maybe there's less room for warfare in a post nuclear time. But if in the event of large scale collapse of social systems, say if we began to experience food and energy shortages, wouldn't we become more violent again? In other words, humans are still capable of violence as we have ever been, but current conditions in the world are more conducive to peace. Does Pinker address this?

[DWill]

I can believe the decline in violence, but couldn't that be an outcome of a generally higher standard of living and maybe the fact that our borders between nations are more firmly established? Maybe there's less room for warfare in a post nuclear time. But if in the event of large scale collapse of social systems, say if we began to experience food and energy shortages, wouldn't we become more violent again? In other words, humans are still capable of violence as we have ever been, but current conditions in the world are more conducive to peace. Does Pinker address this?

I hope LevV will weigh in, as he knows the book better than I do. Pinker does acknowledge that there is some fragility to our progress, and that social cataclysms would set us back. However, he says that such events that have occurred in the past have produced sags in a sawtooth graph that still maintains an upward trend over the long run. There also are some practices that Pinker doubts would return even in the event of major disruption, such as chattel slavery being widespread, forced sterilization of the disabled, or entertaining uses of animal cruelty. I guess you could speculate about true, dystopian end-of-the-world scenarios like The Road providing the conditions for a near-total reversal, though.

Pinker also has a set of possible explanations as to why we've become more civilized and humane. The best way to review these would be the summary in newbooksinbrief.com, which I need to look at again, too.

[LevV]

geo wrote:
I can believe the decline in violence, but couldn't that be an outcome of a generally higher standard of living and maybe the fact that our borders between nations are more firmly established? Maybe there's less room for warfare in a post nuclear time. But if in the event of large scale collapse of social systems, say if we began to experience food and energy shortages, wouldn't we become more violent again? In other words, humans are still capable of violence as we have ever been, but current conditions in the world are more conducive to peace. Does Pinker address this?

DWill wrote:
I hope LevV will weigh in, as he knows the book better than I do. Pinker does acknowledge that there is some fragility to our progress, and that social cataclysms would set us back. However, he says that such events that have occurred in the past have produced sags in a sawtooth graph that still maintains an upward trend over the long run. There also are some practices that Pinker doubts would return even in the event of major disruption, such as chattel slavery being widespread, forced sterilization of the disabled, or entertaining uses of animal cruelty. I guess you could speculate about true, dystopian end-of-the-world scenarios like The Road providing the conditions for a near-total reversal, though.

Pinker’s main contribution with this book was to describe in great detail the reasons for the decline in violence so that we can use this information to decrease violence in our societies still further.
As DWill states above, Pinker does suggest that we have progressed to a point where we are unlikely to revert to the kinds of cruel and dehumanizing practices of the distant and not so distant past. Then I reflect on a book recently covered by BT members, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”, and I have to wonder what it would take to really insulate a society from the kinds of violent behavior suggested by geo.

I made the mistake of buying the ebook version of this book for my Playbook. Never again. It takes me forever to find electronically the supporting info I’m looking for.