ABSTRACT
In 2012, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature to popular acclaim. The book marshals an incredible amount of data, and contains within it a range of interesting observations about the occurrence of violence in human societies. The book’s central claim is admirably straightforward. Despite the constant mediatisation of violence, despite the ubiquity of the terrorist threat, despite the persistence of war and political conflict, and despite the deep fear and social antagonism that pervade Western cities, Pinker claims that violence is in fact falling, and that we are locked on a long-term trajectory away from the barbarism of the past and towards a civilised future in which ‘the better angels of our nature’ triumph in their long-running battle with our ‘inner demons’. The book appears to have become popular because it contradicts our immediate, common-sense understanding of contemporary social reality. Surely violence and conflict must be rising? Don’t we see its social effects every day on our news broadcasts? If, as many social scientists now claim, we are more anxious and emotionally defensive than at any point in our recent history, is this not a reaction to a world in which potential threats and dangers appear to lurk around every corner? Pinker’s argument is that, despite all of these things and much else besides, human violence is falling.
