The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker, a quick review

For all my gloom I have about the world, I find my spirits lifted by a magnificent book that says that there is a larger and much brighter reality that is there; we are living in one of the most peaceful times in human history with humane values having made more progress for civilization than you'd ever hoped.

That book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Prof. Steven Pinker. In this book, Pinker makes a powerfully compelling case about the advancement of civilization with a comprehensive study of human history through archaeology, anthropology, psychology and the statistical and anecdotal analysis of history.

At 700+ pages, the book can obviously explain the case far better than I can, but I can give a few examples. The most revealing is that World War II may the deadliest war in history in absolute numbers, but when you compare it to other "deadly quarrels" in history in proportion to the total world human population of their times, it barely makes the top ten compared to earlier conflicts with its far low population.

Also, you can look the psychology of violence in the past.  With cultures of honour that value the idea of automatically striking out at insults and finding horrific tortures like public execution and cat burning (It was exactly what it sounds; seeing an animal being burned alive) popular forms of entertainment, then you can see there is some real human progress by some definitions. Furthermore, you read some good examples that civilization is not as overrated as you might think when you read the news when you compare it to the nasty warfare raiding nomadic hunter-gatherer societies can indulge in.

While the clinical details of Pinker's argument in later chapters really gets into jargon, it still can be fascinating, especially when he explains the true nature of randomness and probabilities, which are more complex than you might think.

In case you're wondering, Pinker is not some starry eyed dreamer; he is the first to admit that this human progress could stop or reverse itself, but he has his evidence and the book is available at most libraries so you can read it for yourself, or you can do what I did and read the audiobook from Audible.com. In short, he simply saying, "So far, so good."


Anyways, don't take my word for it; check what Steve Paikin of TVO's The Agenda found out in this interview:

Regardless, he's great to listen to, either directly, or through a audiobook narrator and a source of considerable hope.