Just five weeks before the start of the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address given on March 4th, 1861 appealed to Americans to look beyond past and future bloodshed to a tranquil nation "touched by the better angels of our nature."
Lincoln's rhetorical flourish foreshadowed a humanity becoming more peaceful. Indeed this is not an elusive dream. Can this observation be taken seriously?
Both carefully coordinated and executed terrorist acts and the random acts of violence constantly fed to us in most news cycles state otherwise. The media saturates our sensory inputs with stories and images of violence. Violence permeates otherwise mundane settings such as Christmas shoppers each year on Black Friday stomping employees and other shoppers to death lest someone else snatches the last piece of highly coveted merchandise at a Wal-Mart. Or, violence serves up another cliched shattering of innocence whether its the massacre of students in Columbine, Colorado in 1999 or terrorists murdering 380 people mostly children in Beslan Russia on the first day of school in 2004, or the more recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. The shock these images create may shock us less than the notion that we are becoming less violent.
Dr. Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, argues in his latest book The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined that despite the ubiquitous images of violence flickering in front of us, we are becoming more peaceful.
Pinker makes a compelling case using empirical data covering centuries. The declining ratio of population to violence offers proof that humans can evolve, civilization is more than a construct adorned with high fashion. Furthermore, if Pinker is right, civilization demythologizes Rousseau's noble savage. Rather, man is more noble and less savage. This conclusion though given the importance of the subject matter warrants our reviewing Pinker's evidence more thoroughly.
The rapid descent into genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forced mass deportations warrants against our marching too boldly lest we overlook history's killing fields. Pinker's research by implication shows us, for instance, that Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia reveal barbarism's futility to reduce humanity to a mutable mass destined to serve the whims of a dictator. This sanguinary tone offers no consolation to the two million victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. But a silver lining shines more brightly on humanity's upward surge. Pol Pot can bury two million victims, but evolution is burying him.
Pinker's thesis invites a predictable chorus of criticisms: what about the: Third Reich,? Soviet Gulags? The Great Leap Forward? genocidal attempts in Rwanda and Sudan?, ethnic cleansing the former Yugoslavian Republics? These tragedies fill the collective consciousness and memory of the 20th century, psychologically scarring us. Consequently, this scarring penetrates our collective memory so that we have a strong impulse causing us to doubt evidence that we are progressing into a more peaceful civilization.
We should see examine the causal factors explaining declines in rates of violence. But, hopefully Pinker's most optimistic adherents keep these rates in perspective. Numbers are abstract and lifeless, which is why many may reflexively doubt Pinker's conclusions. On the other hand, scholarly literature exists that casts some doubt on Pinker's vindication of Hobbes' view of what was needed to pacify man. Douglas P. Fry identifies how Pinker's truncating of the time period used in his study weakens his overall claim that barbarism and violence mostly characterized prehistoric man:
We should see examine the causal factors explaining declines in rates of violence. But, hopefully Pinker's most optimistic adherents keep these rates in perspective. Numbers are abstract and lifeless, which is why many may reflexively doubt Pinker's conclusions. On the other hand, scholarly literature exists that casts some doubt on Pinker's vindication of Hobbes' view of what was needed to pacify man. Douglas P. Fry identifies how Pinker's truncating of the time period used in his study weakens his overall claim that barbarism and violence mostly characterized prehistoric man:
Pinker is only able to make his sweeping claims seem plausible by omitting everything that occurred before the agricultural revolution (circa 10,000 BCE). He is sneaky about this, too, arguing, for instance, that reports of violence from his own self-selected “nonstate” societies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would somehow reflect levels of violence prior to ten thousand years ago—i.e., a time when all of humanity lived as nomadic foragers.The worldwide archaeological record contradicts the presumption that early humanity lived in a Hobbesian war of all against all. There is no evidence of warfare anywhere on the planet older than the ten-thousand- to twelve-thousand-year mark. In addition, numerous archaeological sequences show the birth of war on a regional scale occurred within the last ten thousand years.It’s far from clear why The Better Angels of Our Nature fails to adopt a more sophisticated and intellectually rigorous approach that accommodates these facts. Pinker could have easily maintained his position that human violence has indeed declined in recent millennia without ignoring humanity’s peaceful egalitarian past. This omission is doubly surprising coming from a writer like Pinker, who has long professed a strong interest in evolutionary issues. [1]
Its critical to recognize flaws in Pinker's claim that prehistoric man was a barbarian from which we through civilizing institutions have evolved. This delusion may create both a false sense of reduced capacity for violence, and an acceptance of Pinker's flawed privileging organizing society too much from Hobbesian views. Yes a strong sovereign has and does create stability, but is that definitively the best and only option to organize society to enable peaceful coexistence?
I certainly do not intend to refute Pinker because the evidence supports his claim insofar as the reduction in violence has occurred since 10,000 BCE. But, we must not allow our acknowledgment of this civilizing trend to see barbarism as a relic, an object for amusement, an anthropological artifact. Instead, this awareness of barbarism should still remain in our consciousness, an impulse intrinsic to our being which we must suppress. Thus, if by chance Pinker's claims materialize further or are repudiated by other research, my skepticism of institutions of power and the virtues of human nature will not change. As a layman, my stubborn intuition shapes my thinking more than the most extensive research showing human nature is shedding its vices. Yes, Pinker's claim has merit that humanity is becoming more civilized, but he errs by arguing that humanity has followed a linear trajectory from predominant barbarism to more peacefulness. A more detailed review of Pinker's sources used in his study is found in Ferguson. R. Brian. "Pinker's List: Exaggerating Prehistoric War Mortality." War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views. ed Douglas P. Fry. Oxford UP. New York, NY 2013. pp 112-26.
Rate declines of violence means we fill fewer body bags, But, does that mean we are decreasingly serving less as subjects to dictatorships? Pinker's research does not touch on metaphysics of dictatorship. Rather than dictatorship being something exercised from above and imposed on the masses below, the masses have complied to a significant degree with the expectations of those in power. Sheldon S. Wolin describes this phenomenon as "inverted totalitarianism."[2]
The "inverted totalitarianism" in America in particular features a change in consciousness wherein people have internalized indifference to abuses of power to a point where blatant coercion is unnecessary. Will America mount an "Occupy Washington" movement to resist the U.S. government's marching us to a police state?
That term "police state is invoked often as hyperbole to criticize government exercising authority in many circumstances. In this case U.S. President Barack Obama signed The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. A specific counter-terrorism provision generated controversy. This provision authorizes the U.S. military to take terrorist suspects into custody indefinitely without formally charging them and bringing them to trial. The passage of this act is troubling because the language in Section 1022 states:
1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States. [3]
This wording may seem reassuring to even the most sensitive civil libertarian. But, our parsing of this language should draw our focus on the word requirement. A requirement does not imply that this law imposes a strict prohibition preventing the military from detaining U.S. citizens. Rather, by Congress not imposing such a requirement, their language possibly gives to the military the option to take U.S. citizens into custody. President Obama's signing of this act betrays the image of him during 2004 when then U.S. Senate candidate Obama cautioned the American people in his speech delivered at the Democratic Convention in Chicago:
If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief...I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper...that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.[4]What a contrast. Candidate Obama can speak in glowing platitudes, but; nonetheless, he signed a law filled with vague language, expanding the legal range of actions permissible to the military under law.
If his intent was to ensure that no U.S. citizen could be detained by the military under the provisions of this Act, then why didn't he state such concerns in his Statement of Administration Policy S. 1867-National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012 wherein he expressed his other concerns about the aforementioned Act to Senator Carl Levin, current Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee? [5] Instead, the White House expressed their view that prior legislation already vested such power to them. Most important, as stated above Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012 that is filled with grammatical vague language that does not exclude the possibility of the military detaining any citizen. To illustrate this point further, take note of Glenn Greenwald's warning expressed during the Congressional debate about this Bill's Section 1022:
That section — 1022 — does not contain the broad disclaimer regarding U.S. citizens that 1021 contains. Instead, it simply says that the requirement of military detention does not apply to U.S. citizens, but it does not exclude U.S. citizens from the authority, the option, to hold them in military custody. Here is what it says:The only provision from which U.S. citizens are exempted here is the “requirement” of military detention. For foreign nationals accused of being members of Al Qaeda, military detention is mandatory; for U.S. citizens, it is optional. This section doesnot exempt U.S citizens from the presidential power of military detention: only from the requirement of military detention. [6]
How is this relevant to a review of Pinker's recent research? Well‚ no decline in rates of violence should comfort us when the state possesses this kind of arbitrary power. And, they invert, distort, and stretch language to mask such a corrupt power grab. Such a question may sound like a weak polemic that is unrelated to the empirical validity of Pinker's research. Maybe but ample research findings thus far justify our questioning Pinker's vindication of Hobbes.
Does the decreasing rates of violence that began after the onset agricultural revolution circa 10,000 BCE render irrelevant the study of less violent societies existing before then? Maybe, But, it also is just as likely that we can develop insight into human societies living relatively peacefully without the strong arm of the sovereign. Such insight may not be applicable to us today, but we shouldn't paper over it without examining further such prehistoric societies.
So Pinker's research helps our visualizing the familiar illustration showing man evolving from the pre-biotic soup to civilized human being. But, when your eye peers to the most advanced creature in that illustration, we still need to see a man goose stepping. That is the irony: the hauntingly rhythmic stomp of goose steps must sting our eardrums in order for us to hear the better angels of our nature sing to us. While we take note of our progress, we should always remember what we have been. And, while being consciously aware of that progress, be wary of claims that such progress portends humanity transforming into a higher consciousness void of any vestigial violent impulses. Otherwise, we can just trust blindly Pinker's conclusions. I am not ready to do that.
1. Fry, Douglas P. "Peace in Our Time: Steven Pinker offers a curiously foreshortened account of humanity's irenic urges." Bookforum. Dec/Jan 2012. http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_04/8575
2. Wolin, Sheldon, S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton UP, 2008.
3. H.R. 1540- National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. 1 Dec. 2011. Web 23 Dec. 2011 https://www.opencongress.org/bill/hr1540-112/show
5. Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget. Statement of Administration Policy: S. 1867-National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012. 11 Nov. 2011. Web. 23 December 2011. https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saps1867s_20111117.pdfThe Administration articulates in this document their concerns about the aforementioned Act. They, however, express no concerns about the impact that implementation of Sections 1031 and 1032 would have on civil liberties or whether they would violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
6. Greenwald, Glenn. "Three myths about the detention bill." Salon. Dec 16, 2011. http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/
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