The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

There are moral panics, but history changes, and sometimes panics are justified.

One of the really interesting things that happens with the rise of the novel, right? So Steven Pinker famously in The Better Angels of Our Nature, a influential book that was published decades ago now, argues that...

He's trying to explain in the book why there was this massive decline in violence between the medieval period and the 19th century, in Europe in particular.

One of the theories he offers is, is, is reading, is that it, it sort of encourages people to be more empathetic.

Yeah.

[laughs]

No, do you know what? I, I think it's a re- I think you make a really good point, and Steven Pinker makes a similar point in The Better Angels of Our Nature.

I, i- in my book, I cite this research that's done about the declining length and complexity of speeches in the British Parliament.

Eventually, people have to live on what those words produce.

Steven Pinker argues in The Better Angels of Our Nature that over long stretches of history, violence has gone down.

not in a straight line, and not because people suddenly got nice.

Empathy, reason, human rights, and stronger institutions helped hold back some of our worst impulses.

Like Frederick Douglass writes, like, "Nobody thought, like, a Black man could be intelligent, and then I showed them that I could be intelligent and other Black people, and that changed a lot of public opinion." And so when Uncle Tom's Cabin came out, just in fictionalized form, but showing people kind of the truth of slavery, as these things became clearer and you could actually read about it, and as you can see videos from across the world as we've gone further in time, that actually helps.

And Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature talks about the rise in literacy and kind of humanitarian sentiment coming out of that because people were able to share experiences, take people's perspectives.

And you're right.

I, I, there is this, though, the rationality is not, it's not everything, and it, and it can't be everything.