A few days ago I wrote on this blog about Steven Pinker's latest book in which he discusses one of my favorite themes -- the progress of peace in the modern world. Here's the author himself talking about the book and its very important subject.
Showing posts with label a peaceful world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a peaceful world. Show all posts
Monday, October 10, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Pinker and the Progression of Peace
Something I have been blogging about for several years now -- the progressive decline in violence -- has finally hit the mainstream. World-class self promoter, Steven Pinker, has started to publicize it, so expect to see a lot of commentary on the phenomenon in coming months. Pinker writes:
-- The rise of hegemonic states that suppressed tribal warfare.
-- The centralization of power in national states, which suppressed brigandage, feudal conflict, and feuds by establishing an effective monopoly on violence
-- From the eighteenth century on centralized states have gradually abjured various violent practices [torture, slavery, death penalty, etc.]. Pinker attributes this humanitarian imperative to a rise in literacy which promoted an "enlightened" attitude first in Europe, then elsewhere.
-- The dramatic rise in world population associated with the industrial revolution which meant that even huge death tolls, such as were seen in the world wars, only affected a relatively small proportion of the total population.
-- The "long peace" that emerged after the world wars during which there have been no wars between major states. Pinker attributes this to the rise in the number of democratic regimes, the swelling of global trade and economic interdependence, and the influence of international organizations. I would cite other causes -- the balance of nuclear terror, the collapse of Soviet subversion efforts, and the expansion of American power -- but agree that recent decades have been perhaps the most peaceful in the human experience.
-- finally Pinker points to the "rights revolution" of recent decades that resulted in a decline of violence directed against ethnic minorities, women, children, sexual deviants, etc. [although I would see this more as a consequence and extension of the "enlightenment" process he outlined earlier, rather than a new development].
Pinker then identifies what he considers to be the causes of the long trend toward peace, both international and domestic. They are the rise of the leviathan state; the expansion of free trade; and the development of popular cosmopolitanism associated with the rise of literacy and global communication.
It's an interesting piece, one with which I largely agree. Take some time to read it, or listen to Pinker's lecture here.
Believe it or not—and I know most people do not—violence has been in decline over long stretches of time, and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence. The decline of violence, to be sure, has not been steady; it has not brought violence down to zero (to put it mildly); and it is not guaranteed to continue. But I hope to convince you that it's a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years, from the waging of wars and perpetration of genocides to the spanking of children and the treatment of animals.Pinker identifies six major periods [actually processes] that promoted pacification:
-- The rise of hegemonic states that suppressed tribal warfare.
-- The centralization of power in national states, which suppressed brigandage, feudal conflict, and feuds by establishing an effective monopoly on violence
-- From the eighteenth century on centralized states have gradually abjured various violent practices [torture, slavery, death penalty, etc.]. Pinker attributes this humanitarian imperative to a rise in literacy which promoted an "enlightened" attitude first in Europe, then elsewhere.
-- The dramatic rise in world population associated with the industrial revolution which meant that even huge death tolls, such as were seen in the world wars, only affected a relatively small proportion of the total population.
-- The "long peace" that emerged after the world wars during which there have been no wars between major states. Pinker attributes this to the rise in the number of democratic regimes, the swelling of global trade and economic interdependence, and the influence of international organizations. I would cite other causes -- the balance of nuclear terror, the collapse of Soviet subversion efforts, and the expansion of American power -- but agree that recent decades have been perhaps the most peaceful in the human experience.
-- finally Pinker points to the "rights revolution" of recent decades that resulted in a decline of violence directed against ethnic minorities, women, children, sexual deviants, etc. [although I would see this more as a consequence and extension of the "enlightenment" process he outlined earlier, rather than a new development].
Pinker then identifies what he considers to be the causes of the long trend toward peace, both international and domestic. They are the rise of the leviathan state; the expansion of free trade; and the development of popular cosmopolitanism associated with the rise of literacy and global communication.
It's an interesting piece, one with which I largely agree. Take some time to read it, or listen to Pinker's lecture here.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
A More Peaceful World
Josh Goldstein has an excellent piece in Foreign Policy dispelling many popular perceptions regarding the incidence and character of war in the modern world.
The first of these is a point I have frequently made -- that contrary to popular perception war is becoming far less common in recent decades.
Moreover not only the incidence, but also the lethality of wars has been declining over time. Goldstein writes:
So far, so good. I find nothing with which to disagree in Goldstein's account, but now he turns to more theoretical concerns.
First, he disputes the argument that the collapse of American and Soviet hegemony will lead to greater regional conflicts as rising powers jostle for influence. So far, that has been true -- but there are disturbing trends in a number of areas. The rise of belligerent powers such as Iraq [under Hussein], Iran, and China, could easily provoke regional conflicts.
And, as Goldstein admits, there is little reason to suppose that democratization will produce a more peaceful world in the future. While it is true that historically full-fledged democracies have never engaged in full-scale war with each other, it is also true that democratic movements are often more belligerent than the authoritarian regimes they displace.
And, Goldstein places, in my opinion, far too much trust in the efficacy of international organizations and their peacekeeping efforts. He notes that such efforts were as likely to fail as succeed in the 1990's, but that their record in the new century has been much better. However, I would point out that there is simply not enough information available to sustain that argument and that the relative success of peacekeeping efforts in recent years could easily be attributed to the broader decline in conflict rather than to the international organizations themselves.
Goldstein also asserts that many longstanding conflicts that have previously been thought to be intractable have now settled into relatively stable, if uneasy, truces that might in the future become durable peace arrangements. We shall see..., we shall see. In some cases, like Northern Ireland, that is certainly possible, even likely, but I am not so optimistic regarding such places as Kashmir and Israel.
Finally, he argues that the major reason for the decline in violence is a shift in public attitudes similar to the one that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regarding slavery, or regarding colonialism in the past century. War, once viewed as a glorious or necessary undertaking is increasingly seen as a disreputable, even disgraceful one by many people.
This, to my mind, is nonsense. The de-legitimization of slavery and colonialism are both complex subjects that are very much a product of profound conflict. International opinion is far more a reaction to than a shaper of historical developments.
Whatever you think of the arguments the article is interesting and well worth the time to read. Check it out here.
The first of these is a point I have frequently made -- that contrary to popular perception war is becoming far less common in recent decades.
Moreover not only the incidence, but also the lethality of wars has been declining over time. Goldstein writes:
[T]he last decade has seen fewer war deaths than any decade in the past 100 years, based on data compiled by researchers Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Worldwide, deaths caused directly by war-related violence in the new century have averaged about 55,000 per year, just over half of what they were in the 1990s (100,000 a year), a third of what they were during the Cold War (180,000 a year from 1950 to 1989), and a hundredth of what they were in World War II. If you factor in the growing global population, which has nearly quadrupled in the last century, the decrease is even sharper. Far from being an age of killer anarchy, the 20 years since the Cold War ended have been an era of rapid progress toward peace.And as for the idea that America has been becoming more warlike as the rest of the world is becoming more peaceful, he writes:
America's decade of war since 2001 has killed about 6,000 U.S. service members, compared with 58,000 in Vietnam and 300,000 in World War II. Every life lost to war is one too many, but these deaths have to be seen in context: Last year more Americans died from falling out of bed than in all U.S. wars combined.Moreover warfare, contrary to the assertion of some peace activists, is not becoming more lethal to civilians. The ratio of civilian to military casualties has not changed over time despite significant changes in the technology and tactics of war.
So far, so good. I find nothing with which to disagree in Goldstein's account, but now he turns to more theoretical concerns.
First, he disputes the argument that the collapse of American and Soviet hegemony will lead to greater regional conflicts as rising powers jostle for influence. So far, that has been true -- but there are disturbing trends in a number of areas. The rise of belligerent powers such as Iraq [under Hussein], Iran, and China, could easily provoke regional conflicts.
And, as Goldstein admits, there is little reason to suppose that democratization will produce a more peaceful world in the future. While it is true that historically full-fledged democracies have never engaged in full-scale war with each other, it is also true that democratic movements are often more belligerent than the authoritarian regimes they displace.
And, Goldstein places, in my opinion, far too much trust in the efficacy of international organizations and their peacekeeping efforts. He notes that such efforts were as likely to fail as succeed in the 1990's, but that their record in the new century has been much better. However, I would point out that there is simply not enough information available to sustain that argument and that the relative success of peacekeeping efforts in recent years could easily be attributed to the broader decline in conflict rather than to the international organizations themselves.
Goldstein also asserts that many longstanding conflicts that have previously been thought to be intractable have now settled into relatively stable, if uneasy, truces that might in the future become durable peace arrangements. We shall see..., we shall see. In some cases, like Northern Ireland, that is certainly possible, even likely, but I am not so optimistic regarding such places as Kashmir and Israel.
Finally, he argues that the major reason for the decline in violence is a shift in public attitudes similar to the one that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regarding slavery, or regarding colonialism in the past century. War, once viewed as a glorious or necessary undertaking is increasingly seen as a disreputable, even disgraceful one by many people.
This, to my mind, is nonsense. The de-legitimization of slavery and colonialism are both complex subjects that are very much a product of profound conflict. International opinion is far more a reaction to than a shaper of historical developments.
Whatever you think of the arguments the article is interesting and well worth the time to read. Check it out here.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Progress of Peace
In the past I have noted studies that show, contrary to popular perception, that the world has been getting more peaceful in recent years. One study, funded by the United Nations, attributes this to the spreading influence of international nongovernmental institutions; another study attributes it to the spread of American influence after the collapse of the Soviet Union; another attributes it to the end of the Cold War. [See here, here, and here]
Stephen Pinker has noted the same phenomenon and argues:
First, the seemingly endless dispute between Hobbes and Rosseau has been finally settled. Hobbes famously argued that the natural state of mankind is "nasty, brutal, and short." Rosseau, on the other hand, posited the existence of a "noble savage" uncorrupted by civilization. It seems that Hobbes had it right -- the progress of civilization has been accompanied by a decline in the incidence of violence.
Second, theories intended to explain short-term declines in violence are inadequate to explain the long-term trend emerging from several independent studies. Pinker notes three alternative explanations that have recently been offered.
1) Increasing peacefulness results from the rise of centralized states that enforce a monopoly on the use of violence.
2) Prosperity makes lives more worth living and decreases our willingness to inflict death.
3) A progressive increase in knowledge about the world increases our willingness to accord moral status to others.
None of these seems to me to be very satisfactory, but they represent the current state of thinking on this important subject.
Third, how can general perceptions be so wrong? Pinker asks:
Stephen Pinker has noted the same phenomenon and argues:
Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth.This long term trend has several important implications.
....
The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon, visible at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and years. It applies over several orders of magnitude of violence, from genocide to war to rioting to homicide to the treatment of children and animals. And it appears to be a worldwide trend, though not a homogeneous one. The leading edge has been in Western societies, especially England and Holland, and there seems to have been a tipping point at the onset of the Age of Reason in the early seventeenth century.
First, the seemingly endless dispute between Hobbes and Rosseau has been finally settled. Hobbes famously argued that the natural state of mankind is "nasty, brutal, and short." Rosseau, on the other hand, posited the existence of a "noble savage" uncorrupted by civilization. It seems that Hobbes had it right -- the progress of civilization has been accompanied by a decline in the incidence of violence.
Second, theories intended to explain short-term declines in violence are inadequate to explain the long-term trend emerging from several independent studies. Pinker notes three alternative explanations that have recently been offered.
1) Increasing peacefulness results from the rise of centralized states that enforce a monopoly on the use of violence.
2) Prosperity makes lives more worth living and decreases our willingness to inflict death.
3) A progressive increase in knowledge about the world increases our willingness to accord moral status to others.
None of these seems to me to be very satisfactory, but they represent the current state of thinking on this important subject.
Third, how can general perceptions be so wrong? Pinker asks:
How could so many people be so wrong about something so important?Here there are several possible answers. I won't spoil them for you. Read Pinker's little essay for yourself here. I will, however, note his final point because it is both true and important. Our pessimism, born of a mistaken perception that the incidence of violence is rising, has led us to ask the wrong questions. Instead of asking why there is war, we should be wondering why there is peace. Instead of lamenting the things that go wrong, we should be trying to understand what it is that we are doing right?
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