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The Better Angels of Our Nature
Why Violence Has Declined
- Read in 25 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 16 key ideas
Synopsis
The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012) takes a close look at the history of violence in human society, explaining both our motivations to use violence on certain occasions and the factors that increasingly restrain us from using it – and how these factors have resulted in massive reductions in violence.
Key idea 1 of 16
Predation: Violence is a simple, natural way to get what we want, but it’s also risky and crude.
In the first five blinks, let’s look at what motivates humans to commit violence – our so-called “inner demons.”
The first of these is rooted in the fact that violence is a simple way to gain an evolutionary advantage.
Through natural selection, all organisms have evolved to compete with one another for the survival of their genes.
In this competition, organisms are sometimes forced to oppose one another – for instance, when resources are limited or there’s a short supply of potential mates. Using physical force is an effective way of securing those resources, so organisms prone to violence do have an advantage. This kind of instrumental violence is called predation and it’s a pragmatic means to getting what we want.
For humans, too, this violent tendency is natural and commonplace. In fact, it can even be seen in young children: studies have shown that the most violent stage of development is toddlerhood, when children express behavior like biting, kicking and hitting.
The tendency persists as we mature, too: in a survey of university students, up to 90 percent of men and 80 percent of women admitted that they’d fantasized about killing someone in the past year.
This violent streak seems to have a neurological basis. Studies have found that artificially stimulating a certain area of the brain known as the “rage circuit” triggers feelings of aggression.
But even though we have a natural propensity for violence, from an evolutionary standpoint our instincts for violence need to be kept in check, because acting on them is often a bad idea:
Harming our kin, for example, would be counterproductive because they have inherited our genes.
Also, violence is risky, because even if a particular organism wins a battle, it may still suffer injuries which could lower its chances of surviving and passing on its genes in the long run.
For this reason, humans tend to employ violence selectively.
Key ideas in this title
- Predation: Violence is a simple, natural way to get what we want, but it’s also risky and crude.
- Dominance: Violence can also be used to bolster one’s social position, making access to resources or mates easier.
- The desire for revenge fuels violence around the world and it probably evolved as a deterrent.
- Sadism is a rare and perplexing phenomenon which seems to be an acquired taste.
- Ideology: Well-meaning efforts to bring about a better world have spawned horrific amounts of bloodshed.
- Empathy evolved for us to take care of our families, but we can also learn to have empathy for other groups.
- Self-control helps us resist violent impulses and it can be strengthened or weakened by practice.
- Our sense of morality can encourage or discourage violence, but thankfully it’s tilting toward the latter.
- Reason drives us to seek peace and nonviolence, and our faculty for reason is increasing.
- The pacification process began 5,000 years ago, when states began to monopolize violence.
- As states grew and trade flourished, gaining wealth through honest toil became more attractive than through violence.
- The Humanitarian Revolution reduced violence by preaching that even despised people deserved humane treatment.
- The long peace after World War II followed an overall 500-year decline in conflict.
- The New Peace after the Cold War has seen further reductions in conflict, genocide and terrorism.
- The Rights Revolutions of the 1960s decreased violence against marginalized groups, like women and racial minorities.
- Final summary
