Stevens Pinker The Causes Of Violence

We live in a society plagued by violence. The nature of aggression interwoven into our everyday lives, through violent media, assault, rape, or murder. Yet, there are some that argue that violence is at its lowest. Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard, argues that violence has been on the decline. This paper discusses and analyzes Pinker’s thoughts on the causes of the decline in violence and questions the validity of his claims. The 20th Century has an image of ferociousness marked by the continuous onslaught of mass killings in war ravaged countries such as Congo and Syria. Yet Pinker argues that violence has gradually decreased over time because of changing conceptions towards violence, enlightenment and with it a dawn of empathy, as …show more content…
The first being the “Pacification Process”. The pacification process refers to how humans governed themselves when they did not have a central government to oversee their actions. This era presents a lot of uncertainty as there are different theories about its nature. Some individuals like Hobbs believe that, “the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” while others thought that man was the most peaceful in our natural state. Pinker, however leans towards the ideology of Hobbs and believes that during that era there was higher levels of violence. He provides evidence for this theory through Forensic archaeology. Forensic archaeology studies the skeletons of humans from prehistoric times and looks for signs of physical trauma. Study conducted on the skeletons has found that around 60% shows signs of physical trauma such as bashed in skulls and femurs with bronze arrowheads in them. The study conducted showed that up to 60% of the skeletons showed physical trauma.
One element that enabled violence to blossom was the lack of a fair judicial system implemented to enable prosecution and as such another historical decline of violence can be explained through “The civilizing process”. This process outlines a shift from a consolidation of centralized states and kingdoms throughout Europe. Criminal justice was nationalized and the king’s justice replaced feuding. There was a higher penalty and …show more content…
He counters this belief by stating violence before the 20th was not assessed. He argues that the 19th century was not a peaceful era but was in fact one of the worst in history. He noted examples such as “the Napoleonic wars, with four million deaths, one of the worst in history; the Taiping Rebellion in China, by far the worst civil war in history, with 20 million deaths; the worst war in American history, the Civil War”. I agree with him to the extent that I do believe that the 19th century included several acts that are overlooked by society however, I also believe that pinker glosses over the magnitude of the acts carried out in the 20th century. Pinker was only considering the body count of individuals who physically fought in the wars but fails to consider individuals who have passed long after the war was over due to starvation, forced relocation, and injuries they may have acquired during the war. Moreover, Pinker stated that around 500 years ago, big nations were almost always at war and since the second world war there has been 0 wars between united states and the Soviet Union, between European countries and various large nations which is important to note because before 1945, western European countries initiated two new wars per year for more than six years. I believe that pinker fails to recognize that while large nations have stopped directly there are