This is a fascinating and informative book, which I should never, ever have given to my Dad as a Christmas present.
Firstly, although father is not adverse to fact dense books, he is a slow and careful reader and this book is a long slog.
Secondly, while this book has an uplifting premise and the word "angels" in the title, it's filled with gore, vileness and gruesome records of atrocity.
Dad, I read this book so that you wouldn't have to.
Pinker expects his readers to be resistant to the idea that violence is on decline (just look at the news!), so he bolsters his position. His argument begins with the idea that far from being angels now, we have forgotten the devils we used to be: murdering children, torturing women, and likely to stab each other over dinner.
It's a history of homicide, democide, genocide, ethnocide, politicide, regicide, infanticide, neonaticide, filicide, siblicide, gynecide, uxoricide, matricide, and terrorism by suicide. Ugh!
Also, people in the past (use say 1910 as a barometer) were morally stupid, and even, by today's standards, somewhat retarded.
Cold comfort. All this is depressing, as Pinker admits, "After reading eight chapters (the book is 10!) on the horrible things that people have done to each other and the darker parts of human nature that spurred them, you have every right to look forward to a bit of uplift in a chapter on our better angels."
It's accurate to say that the final chapters are "a bit" of an uplift. Pinker says he wrote this book as an answer to the question, "What makes you optimistic?" Judged by this book, he is unlikely to be accused of being a Pollyanna.
He does, however, counter some of our factually mistaken and scientifically unsupported pessimism.
Pinker cautions against forces that favor violent outcomes such as ideological and utopian thinking and warns us of the dangers of pluralistic ignorance, when people, "...endorse a practice or opinion they deplore because they mistakenly think that everyone else favors it," and punish dissenters.
He suggests forces that favor a pacifying effect: art and literature (fiction, satire, first-person accounts, and reportage); democracy (electing smart and open-minded leaders, establishing policies, norms, and taboos); feminization; and "rights" movements (human, civil, homosexual, women's, and animal and, in general, "...a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation.") as well as, "conditions of democracy, prosperity, decent government, peacekeeping, open economies".
His approach is rational, moderate, and a counterpoint to authors who find that humanity's increasing traits of empathy and compassion are a source of improvement and inspiration.
Rather, Pinker points to our increasing powers of abstract reasoning and understanding of the economic benefits of cooperation. He's quite enthusiastic about this in his way.
Pairs well with: The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer, The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin; The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society by Frans de Waal; and Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong.
For more info:
A sobering note: The kind of arguments used today in discussions of abortion, animal rights, stem cell research, and euthanasia were earlier (and horrifically) used to justify infanticide (the merits of which people also used to debate!):
Firstly, although father is not adverse to fact dense books, he is a slow and careful reader and this book is a long slog.
Secondly, while this book has an uplifting premise and the word "angels" in the title, it's filled with gore, vileness and gruesome records of atrocity.
Dad, I read this book so that you wouldn't have to.
Pinker expects his readers to be resistant to the idea that violence is on decline (just look at the news!), so he bolsters his position. His argument begins with the idea that far from being angels now, we have forgotten the devils we used to be: murdering children, torturing women, and likely to stab each other over dinner.
It's a history of homicide, democide, genocide, ethnocide, politicide, regicide, infanticide, neonaticide, filicide, siblicide, gynecide, uxoricide, matricide, and terrorism by suicide. Ugh!
Also, people in the past (use say 1910 as a barometer) were morally stupid, and even, by today's standards, somewhat retarded.
Cold comfort. All this is depressing, as Pinker admits, "After reading eight chapters (the book is 10!) on the horrible things that people have done to each other and the darker parts of human nature that spurred them, you have every right to look forward to a bit of uplift in a chapter on our better angels."
It's accurate to say that the final chapters are "a bit" of an uplift. Pinker says he wrote this book as an answer to the question, "What makes you optimistic?" Judged by this book, he is unlikely to be accused of being a Pollyanna.
He does, however, counter some of our factually mistaken and scientifically unsupported pessimism.
- There's not an inevitable cycle towards war and catastrophe. It's even statistically improbable and there's a trend away from it.
- We're not ruled by a violent bias toward predation, dominance, and vengeance. Human nature also includes peaceful traits, which evolution seems to be selecting for, of compassion, fairness, self-control, and reason.
- Things aren't getting worse. They are getting better. "The forces of modernity — reason, science, humanism, individual rights — has brought us benefits in health, experience, and knowledge as well as a reduction in violence."
Pinker cautions against forces that favor violent outcomes such as ideological and utopian thinking and warns us of the dangers of pluralistic ignorance, when people, "...endorse a practice or opinion they deplore because they mistakenly think that everyone else favors it," and punish dissenters.
He suggests forces that favor a pacifying effect: art and literature (fiction, satire, first-person accounts, and reportage); democracy (electing smart and open-minded leaders, establishing policies, norms, and taboos); feminization; and "rights" movements (human, civil, homosexual, women's, and animal and, in general, "...a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation.") as well as, "conditions of democracy, prosperity, decent government, peacekeeping, open economies".
His approach is rational, moderate, and a counterpoint to authors who find that humanity's increasing traits of empathy and compassion are a source of improvement and inspiration.
Rather, Pinker points to our increasing powers of abstract reasoning and understanding of the economic benefits of cooperation. He's quite enthusiastic about this in his way.
Pairs well with: The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer, The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin; The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society by Frans de Waal; and Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong.
For more info:
- The TED talk: Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence
- Peter Singer's review in The New York Times, "Is Violence History?"
A sobering note: The kind of arguments used today in discussions of abortion, animal rights, stem cell research, and euthanasia were earlier (and horrifically) used to justify infanticide (the merits of which people also used to debate!):
"In 1911 an English physician, Charles Mercier, presented arguments than infanticide should be considered a less heinous crime than the murder of an older child or an adult: 'The victim’s mind is not sufficiently developed to enable it to suffer from the contemplation of approaching suffering or death. It is incapable of feeling fear or terror. Nor is its consciousness sufficiently developed to enable it to suffer pain in appreciable degree. Its loss leaves no gap in any family circle, deprives no children of their breadwinner or their mother, no human being of a friend, helper, or companion.'"Quotes:
"...as long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular." — Oscar Wilde
"...biology and history suggest that all else being equal, a world in which women have more influence will be a world with fewer wars."
"Though nothing can guarantee that virulent ideologies will not infect a country, the vaccine is an open society in which people and ideas move freely and no one is punished for airing dissenting views, including those that seem heretical to polite consensus."
"One could say that for every presidential IQ point, 13,400 fewer people die in battle, though it's more accurate to say that the three smartest postwar presidents, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton, kept the country out of destructive wars."
"But it is just as foolish to let our lurid imaginations determine our sense of probabilities. It may always be something, but there can be fewer of those things, and the things that happen don't have to be as bad. The numbers tell us that war, genocide, and terrorism have declined over the past two decades — not to zero but by a lot."
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