Reviews & Essays

Reviews & Essays scholars and much of the educated public Pinker the Prophet simply deny the good news. But prehistoric graves and records from twentieth-century By Robert Jervis hunter-gatherers reveal death rates due to warfare five to ten times that of modern Europe, and the homicide rate in Western Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Na- Europe from 1300 to today has dropped ture: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: by a factor of between ten and fifty. When Viking Adult, 2011), 832 pp., $40.00. we read that after conquering a city the ancient Greeks killed all the men and sold ....ith the United States fighting the women and children into slavery, we ..two wars, countries from Tu- tend to let the phrases pass over us as we Wnisia to Syria either in or on the move on to admire Greek poetry, plays and brink of intrastate conflicts, bloodshed civilization. But this kind of slaughter was continuing in Sudan and reports that sui- central to the Greek way of life. cide bombers might foil airport security by Implicit throughout and explicit at the planting explosives within their bodies, it is very end is Pinker’s passionate belief that hard to be cheerful. But Harvard psycholo- contemporary attacks on the Enlighten- gist Steven Pinker tells us that we should ment and modernity are fundamentally be, that we are living in the least violent misguided. Critics often argue that material era ever. What’s more, he makes a case that and technical progress has been achieved will be hard to refute. The trends are not without—or even at the cost of—moral im- subtle—many of the changes involve an provement and human development. Quite order of magnitude or more. Even when his the contrary, he argues; we are enormously explanations do not fully convince, they are better than our ancestors in how we treat serious and well-grounded. one another and in our ability to work to- Pinker’s scope is enormous, ranging in gether to build better lives. time from prehistory to today and covering To make such bold and far-reaching wars (both international and civil), crime, claims, one must draw on an equally vast torture, abuse of women and children, and array of sources. And so Pinker does. The even cruelty to animals. This breadth is bibliography runs to over thirty pages set in central because violence in all of these do- small type, covering studies from anthropol- mains has declined sharply. Students of any ogy, archaeology, biology, history, political one of these areas are familiar with a narrow science, psychology and sociology. With this slice of the data, but few have stepped back range comes the obvious danger of superfi- to look at the whole picture. In fact, many ciality. Has he understood all this material? Has he selected only those sources that sup- Robert Jervis is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of port his claims? Does he know the limits of International Politics at Columbia University. the studies he draws on? I cannot answer 54 The National Interest Reviews & Essays these questions in all the fields, but in the methodologies to show that however much areas I do know—international relations we may fear crime, throughout the world and some psychology—his knowledge holds the danger is enormously less than it was up very well. With the typical insider’s dis- centuries ago. When we turn to torture, trust of interlopers, I was ready to catch domestic violence against women, abuse of him stacking the children and cru- deck or twisting elty to animals, the arguments and ev- progress over the idence about war. past two millennia While he does is obvious. Here miss some nuanc- what is particularly es, these are not interesting is not of major conse- only the decline quence. It is true in the incidence that despite the of these behaviors enormous toll of but also that until World Wars I and recently they were II, not only have the norm in both there been rela- the sense of being tively few massive expected and of bloody conflicts being approved. since then (and In all these di- an unprecedented verse areas, then, I period of peace think Pinker’s ar- among the major gument holds up. powers), but the Or, to put it more trends going back cautiously, the many centuries burden is now on reveal a decline in those who believe the frequency of war, albeit not a steady that violence has not declined to establish one. The record on intrastate conflicts is their case. (Whether our era sees new and muddier because definitions vary and histo- more subtle forms of violence is a different ries are incomplete, but most studies reveal question and I think would have to involve a decline there as well. In the aftermath of the stretching of this concept.) We often the Cold War, civil wars broke out in many scorn “mere” description, but here it is cen- areas, and some still rage (most obviously tral. The fact—if it is accepted as a fact— in Congo), but, contrary to expectations, that violence has declined so much in so this wave has subsided. In parallel, Pinker many forms changes the way we understand marshals multiple sources using different our era and the sweep of human history. It Reviews & Essays November/December 2011 55 shows how much our behavior has changed foresee the cataclysms that were to come and that even if biology is destiny, destiny and appeared to justify the dominance of does not yield constant patterns. It also puts racism and sexism around the world. It is in perspective our current ills and shows all too easy for any of us to imagine how we that notions of civilization and progress are could be ridiculed, generations from now, not mere stories that we tell ourselves to jus- for our naïveté and unwitting complicity in tify our lives. a new malign order. The recent past too seems to make a o why has all this good news generally mockery of Pinker’s argument. Just to men- S gone unrecognized, and why do many tion the names of Hitler, Stalin and Mao is people believe that our age is unprecedented to make us cringe at the thought of prog- in its bloodiness? One reason Pinker notes ress. Although the world has seen noth- is the tendency to whitewash history. Myths ing so horrific since then, readers of this of a better time in the past and portrayals journal will be familiar with the wars be- of our current era as degraded are common tween Iran and Iraq and between Eritrea among social critics on both the left and and Ethiopia, and any day’s newspaper re- right to goad us into shame—and action. veals numerous incidents of bloodshed. Our understanding of the massive slaughter Since they are happening now, they are and oppression levied by the dominance of very vivid, which makes it hard to maintain the Western world over less modern civili- a sense of proportion. Reading about the zations has magnified this propensity, and latest school massacre or serial killer grabs stressing how much violence there was in our attention more than the drab long-run earlier times, and in some contemporary statistics. Even if we are aware of the terrors non-Western societies, seems to stereotype of the distant past, we do not feel them in Others as barbarians. Ironically, the liberal our gut. worldview that Pinker credits with so much The wars of the twentieth century and of our progress involves a sensitivity to our the domestic mayhem caused by those ty- current and previous sins that encourages rannical leaders will lead many to ask how viewing distant societies such as the Ameri- previous eras could conceivably have wit- can Indians not only more favorably than nessed as many casualties at the hands of we did until recently but also more favor- oppressors or at the point of a gun. Well, ably than is warranted. they didn’t. But Pinker argues that what Related to this, the somewhat cynical is important for understanding social pro- spirit of our age makes us suspicious of cesses is not the absolute number of deaths claims about progress in human behav- but their proportion of the world’s popu- ior, especially because the plethora of such lation, which has greatly increased over claims by Western thinkers like Herbert time. To some, this will seem like a sleight Spencer and even Max Weber in the nine- of hand. In what way do tens of millions teenth and twentieth centuries failed to of deaths in wars and attempts to remake 56 The National Interest Reviews & Essays The fact—if it is accepted as a fact—that violence has declined so much in so many forms changes the way we understand our era and the sweep of human history. societies become less significant because of And this makes us resist Pinker’s analysis. the rise of world population, including in Most broadly, we see less progress than continents far distant from these atrocities? we should because we are prone to what Morally, they do not. But if one wants to can be called the conservation of fears. If use body counts as a way to understand the through effort or good fortune the problem extent of violence in the world, proportions we worry most about disappears, all the and ratios are a better measure than abso- others move up a notch. Terrorist incidents lute numbers.

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