Junkyard Wisdom

Nicholas Kristoff commented that The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker was Pulitzer Prize worthy. Figuring that Kristoff was unlikely to lightly pass out such praise, I picked up a copy of the book.

The premise of the book is worthy of discussion: violence has steadily declined across the world over the centuries. Yes, there are hiccups along the way (World War II comes to mind), but the level of violence in society has progressively declined. Even wars have become smaller and more focused rather than spreading across the globe. In an era of non-stop media coverage of every bad thing that happens on the planet, the book offers an alternative to the accepted perspective that things are getting worse.

It’s a premise that has a lot of merit. Statistics seem to back it up, at least when looking at the percentages. And Pinker does a relatively good job of laying this out in the book.

But I had a lot of problems with the book. It’s very Western in its scope, for one thing. Seemed like almost all the data came from Europe of the USA. It also comes across as strongly anti-religion, though Pinker says that is not his intention. And the data seems anecdotal at times and not truly comprehensive. It felt Ivory Towerish, as if a professor in a safe and cozy office who had never seen a violent act in his life decided to lecture the rest of us about “the truth”. To be fair, I don’t know if that’s how Pinker operates … I’m merely saying it had that feel.

Another concern is that statistics are hard to come by for centuries past, and they may be unreliable. Even if you accept them as accurate, if millions of people die in a modern war compared to thousands of dead in wars of the past, yet statistically a smaller percentage of the population are dead in the modern wars, is that really progress? I’m not so sure.

So I, for one, take issue with Kristoff’s recommendation. I’m hoping the Pulitzer Prize people agree.