6 ms·

That's not just a soundbite, it's a measurable fact. Even when we include the horrors of the world wars, the 20th century had fewer per-capita battle deaths (b

by ef4 13y ago

That's not just a soundbite, it's a measurable fact. Even when we include the horrors of the world wars, the 20th century had fewer per-capita battle deaths (both civilian and military) than the centuries before it. The same trend is detectable at decade timescales, and shows that we are still improving since the world wars. Stephen Pinker's book "The Better Angels of our Nature" goes into the underlying statistics to support these assertions.

hershel 13y ago
Some in the historical and anthropological community are critical of Pinker's approach and statistics: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1igscl/what_is_the_general_feeling_in_the_proffessional/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1igscl/what_i... http://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropology/comments/12gpj0/are_steven_pinkers_claims_about_the_high_levels/c6var92 http://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropology/comments/12gpj0/are_ste... There are plenty more if you search in reddit.com/r/askhistorians and reddit.com/r/Anthropology So i'm not sure this debate is settled yet.
- OvidNaso 13y ago
  There are two arguments that are presented in both of these comments. The first is that the historic and pre-historic data on violence is incomplete. For this, there is no doubt and Pinker spends a lot of time talking about this. This is true for a vast majority of topics and its unfortunate that there is just a whole host of things we will never be sure about due to the non-existence of preserved evidence. The second takes issue with his use of per-capita comparisons and suggests that an absolute rate may be a better measure. This is extremely silly and Pinker spends very little time discussing it because it really is absurd to entertain. For one, it implies the only true solution to any violence is massive population control. And two, it negates any comparison to cultural or behavioral change by simply pointing to the population size of the planet. Think of the statement, "Modern medicine has not advanced from the hunter gather days because more people under the age of 40 die every year than did 5000 years ago." Edit: The second comment brings up a third point that the lower rate of violence does not imply we are better off, and is therefore questioning what we should define as violence. Pinker again readily addresses this issue by explicitly defining the type of violence he is analyzing, physical, and repeatedly stating that these issues are outside the scope of his book.
  - hershel 13y ago
    I don't think your comment is an accurate summary of the the links i posted. For example, in the first link the author summarizes his long comment: " In short, he's extremely sloppy with his numbers and relies on almost no scholarly sources. I would not accept the type of work he puts in from an undergraduate.". So maybe Pinker does jump to conclusions that not necessary result from the data. The third point , about how do we define violence is crucially important. I wonder if you counted the homicide rate in nazi germany before wwii or in soviet russia after wwii , you've get much lower numbers than pre-history(per capita). But it's hard to tell with a strait face those are "better" or less violent than pre history.
    - CamperBob2 13y ago
      For example, in the first link the author summarizes his long comment: " In short, he's extremely sloppy with his numbers and relies on almost no scholarly sources. I would not accept the type of work he puts in from an undergraduate.". So maybe Pinker does jump to conclusions that not necessary result from the data. Is he forgetting that Pinker writes mass-market books, not journal articles?
      - hershel 13y ago
        Even in pop-science books, there's often a list of citations at the end.
apr 13y ago
Centuries or a single century (20th)? I have no access to the book and I would be interested to see the numbers. It's hard to outdo the 20th century with the jump in the military technologies (starting with the machine gun, the first weapon of mass destruction), and two massive world wars. How, for example, do we compare to the 19th century?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Pinker's claim is per capita deaths. I don't pretend to know if it is the correct measure, but it is at least an interesting measure of the human resources being put to war.
- OvidNaso 13y ago
  There are quite a few resources on Pinker's website about the work. The FAQ is probably a good place to start: http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-about-better-angels-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-abo... Here is a direct answer to the question. There's a ton more info on the topic and a huge portion of his book is dedicated to it: *Wasn’t the 20th century the most violent in history? Probably not; see chapter 5, especially pp. 189–200. Historical data from past centuries are far less complete, but the existing estimates of death tolls, when calculated as a proportion of the world’s population at the time, show at least nine atrocities before the 20th century (that we know of) which may have been worse than World War II. They arose from collapsing empires, horse tribe invasions, the slave trade, and the annihilation of native peoples, with wars of religion close behind. World War I doesn’t even make the top ten. Also, a century comprises a hundred years, not just fifty, and the second half of the 20th century was host to a Long Peace (chapter 5) and a New Peace (chapter 6) with unusually low rates of death in warfare.
  - apr 13y ago
    Thank you! The FAQ is very informative and indeed answers many questions.
apr 13y ago
To whoever does not have the book but wants to get a gist of it here is a talk given by Steven Pinker on the subject: http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker

by ef4 13y ago

hershel 13y ago

Some in the historical and anthropological community are critical of Pinker's approach and statistics: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1igscl/what_is_the_general_feeling_in_the_proffessional/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1igscl/what_i... http://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropology/comments/12gpj0/are_steven_pinkers_claims_about_the_high_levels/c6var92 http://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropology/comments/12gpj0/are_ste... There are plenty more if you search in reddit.com/r/askhistorians and reddit.com/r/Anthropology So i'm not sure this debate is settled yet.

OvidNaso 13y ago
There are two arguments that are presented in both of these comments. The first is that the historic and pre-historic data on violence is incomplete. For this, there is no doubt and Pinker spends a lot of time talking about this. This is true for a vast majority of topics and its unfortunate that there is just a whole host of things we will never be sure about due to the non-existence of preserved evidence. The second takes issue with his use of per-capita comparisons and suggests that an absolute rate may be a better measure. This is extremely silly and Pinker spends very little time discussing it because it really is absurd to entertain. For one, it implies the only true solution to any violence is massive population control. And two, it negates any comparison to cultural or behavioral change by simply pointing to the population size of the planet. Think of the statement, "Modern medicine has not advanced from the hunter gather days because more people under the age of 40 die every year than did 5000 years ago." Edit: The second comment brings up a third point that the lower rate of violence does not imply we are better off, and is therefore questioning what we should define as violence. Pinker again readily addresses this issue by explicitly defining the type of violence he is analyzing, physical, and repeatedly stating that these issues are outside the scope of his book.
- hershel 13y ago
  I don't think your comment is an accurate summary of the the links i posted. For example, in the first link the author summarizes his long comment: " In short, he's extremely sloppy with his numbers and relies on almost no scholarly sources. I would not accept the type of work he puts in from an undergraduate.". So maybe Pinker does jump to conclusions that not necessary result from the data. The third point , about how do we define violence is crucially important. I wonder if you counted the homicide rate in nazi germany before wwii or in soviet russia after wwii , you've get much lower numbers than pre-history(per capita). But it's hard to tell with a strait face those are "better" or less violent than pre history.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    For example, in the first link the author summarizes his long comment: " In short, he's extremely sloppy with his numbers and relies on almost no scholarly sources. I would not accept the type of work he puts in from an undergraduate.". So maybe Pinker does jump to conclusions that not necessary result from the data. Is he forgetting that Pinker writes mass-market books, not journal articles?
    - hershel 13y ago
      Even in pop-science books, there's often a list of citations at the end.

apr 13y ago

Centuries or a single century (20th)? I have no access to the book and I would be interested to see the numbers. It's hard to outdo the 20th century with the jump in the military technologies (starting with the machine gun, the first weapon of mass destruction), and two massive world wars. How, for example, do we compare to the 19th century?

maxerickson 13y ago
Pinker's claim is per capita deaths. I don't pretend to know if it is the correct measure, but it is at least an interesting measure of the human resources being put to war.
OvidNaso 13y ago
There are quite a few resources on Pinker's website about the work. The FAQ is probably a good place to start: http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-about-better-angels-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-abo... Here is a direct answer to the question. There's a ton more info on the topic and a huge portion of his book is dedicated to it: *Wasn’t the 20th century the most violent in history? Probably not; see chapter 5, especially pp. 189–200. Historical data from past centuries are far less complete, but the existing estimates of death tolls, when calculated as a proportion of the world’s population at the time, show at least nine atrocities before the 20th century (that we know of) which may have been worse than World War II. They arose from collapsing empires, horse tribe invasions, the slave trade, and the annihilation of native peoples, with wars of religion close behind. World War I doesn’t even make the top ten. Also, a century comprises a hundred years, not just fifty, and the second half of the 20th century was host to a Long Peace (chapter 5) and a New Peace (chapter 6) with unusually low rates of death in warfare.
- apr 13y ago
  Thank you! The FAQ is very informative and indeed answers many questions.

apr 13y ago

To whoever does not have the book but wants to get a gist of it here is a talk given by Steven Pinker on the subject: http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker