A quick reflection on the Steven Pinker event that just finished.
He looked great. Sharp pinstripe suit, impressive mane of curly silver hair, and a poppy, as if his message that the world has become more peaceful wasn't enough.
I was glad to see he struggled ever so slightly with his power point slides, which tempered the ambient envy in the room.
Highlights for me were being reminded of the great Voltaire quote: "Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities."
I also enjoyed the idea that "violence is now a problem to be solved, not a conquest to be won."
And I liked the reference to Kant's essay on Perpetual peace, where he argued that three things would reduce violence: trade, democracy and international community.
Perhaps the best point was his claim - in response to a question about morality not being the cause of reduced violence - that the moral sense has done more harm than good. He backed this by saying that most homicides are justified on moral grounds, and that most aggressors think of their cause as morally justified.
I asked a question, which amounted to: If you define violence as human on human activity, then the argument flows beautifully and your data seems to back it. But if you give a broader definition of violence, including forms of 'structural violence' in social and economic systems, violence against other species in the form of factory farming and violence against nature in the form of environmental degradation, it is not so clear that we have become less violent.
His answer was basically that these things are not really violence as such, and he slightly ridiculed the environmental point by comparing killing somebody to polluting a stream, which is rather different from entire islands disappearing and their population being displaced, or Darfur being the first of many climate change wars.
Had Matthew not asked for questions to be brief, I would have linked my question back to Kant. If you reframe violence not as direct human on human contact, but on the way our exploitative instincts manifest in the economy, towards other species and towards the planet, is it not the case that democracy, trade and international community may be responsible for the increase in violence, of a form that threatens our way of life? This idea of the world as a 'resource to be used' rather than something to stand in reciprocal relation to resonate with McGilchrist's argument about the increasing dominance of a left hemisphere perspective on the world.
But then I listen to myself, and wonder if I am one of those people Pinker was talking about when he said that, for social critics, good news is bad news.
Maybe I am, but if the decline of violence is to be a measure of the success of modernity, as Pinker wants, then surely we need to give it its broadest possible definition?
Is it even possible that our violent impulses are being projected away from each other, and towards impersonal systems and structures that cannot retaliate?
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excellent thoughtful piece thanks - I agree re the limitations of the human on human violence definition - (but that does not negate its significance in human development)
if we can use the building international community element (of Kant's essay) to the full then we may perhaps begin to expose, contain and ameliorate the effects of our species violence on biosphere 1...
The notion that we are worse at damaging animals/life/landscape other than human now than at previous times in history is only a reflection of the power of industrial scale on these events - the intentions and actions of pre-industrial ages were perhaps even more violent and careless, they just didn't have the planetary consequences...
Thanks.
In response to your first point, I agree my examples are slightly confounding. Perhaps I am trying to say that the human/nature distinction is ontologically untenable. I don't think you need to get into deep ecology, arguing that nature has intrinsic value beyond its value for humans, to say that, for instance, knocking down a forest containing life that doesn't exist elsewhere is bad. I can see why an analytic philosopher would want to draw lines between humans, animals and non sentient life, but my point is that doing so is positional and political, not apriori. If you want to say human on human violence has reduce, fine- you can make an empirical case, as Pinker has, but if you want to say that only human on human violence constitutes 'violence' you are making a value judgement that cannot be justified on empirical grounds alone.
My answer to the second point is similar- we don't need the thing that we inflict violence on to experience it as violence- I don't see that as crucial at all.
I think violence is something to do with objectification- about the severance of our sense of relatedness, and that relatedness does not have to be reciprocal.
This is just the beginning of an answer- happy to hear what you think.
1. "His answer was basically that these things are not really violence as such, and he slightly ridiculed the environmental point by comparing killing somebody to polluting a stream, which is rather different from entire islands disappearing and their population being displaced, or Darfur being the first of many climate change wars."
If an entire island's population is forcefully uprooted because of human action, or people kill other people because of climate change induced famine, then that's violence by Pinker's human-centred definition, and isn't an objection to that definition as such. What you need is an example of violence with zero adverse consequences for any humans. You might say the Apollo 11 astronauts were violent towards the Moon, I suppose. Would you really want to pursue that line of argument?
2. "Is it even possible that our violent impulses are being projected away from each other, and towards impersonal systems and structures that cannot retaliate?"
I'm afraid I don't understand this point. If they are not persons - not even in some extended sense - how can these systems and structures be said to have any experience of violence acting upon them? Surely that's what crucial.
Nature can certainly inflict massive violence on us - if that counts as "retaliation". A single gamma ray burst from a nearby dying star would sterilise the entire planet in a flash, for instance. But it would do so blindly, with no malice aforethought. That's what nature's like. It's not a person. It just is.
1. "His answer was basically that these things are not really violence as such, and he slightly ridiculed the environmental point by comparing killing somebody to polluting a stream, which is rather different from entire islands disappearing and their population being displaced, or Darfur being the first of many climate change wars."
If an entire island's population is forcefully uprooted because of human action, or people kill other people because of climate change induced famine, then that's violence by Pinker's human-centred definition, and isn't an objection to that definition as such. What you need is an example of violence with zero adverse consequences for any humans. You might say the Apollo 11 astronauts were violent towards the Moon, I suppose. Would you really want to pursue that line of argument?
2. "Is it even possible that our violent impulses are being projected away from each other, and towards impersonal systems and structures that cannot retaliate?"
I'm afraid I don't understand this point. If they are not persons - not even in some extended sense - how can these systems and structures be said to have any experience of violence acting upon them? Surely that's what crucial.
Nature can certainly inflict massive violence on us - if that counts as "retaliation". A single gamma ray burst from a nearby dying star would sterilise the entire planet in a flash, for instance. But it would do so blindly, with no malice aforethought. That's what nature's like. It's not a person. It just is.
Tell that to Kant...
I am broadly with you, but there are other views of morality that cannot be dismissed lightly.