Blog
Matthew Taylor
The RSA Great Room was packed yesterday lunchtime to hear Steven Pinker explain the core thesis of his masterwork: ‘The better angels of our nature: the decline of violence and its causes’. Unless you have hidden away from the radio, TV and serious newspapers for weeks you will by now be starting to recognise Pinker’s core argument: the five forces which he says are responsible for the irrefutable evidence of declining human violence: 1) the Leviathan (the rise of the orderly state, and particularly the democratic state); 2) gentle commerce (trade creates an incentive to avoid war and to cooperate with other nations and peoples); 3) feminisation (the rise of female-friendly values); 4) the expanding circle (globalisation, culture and mass media have expanded empathy beyond its biological span of kin, friends and peer group); 5) the escalator of reason (rising levels of education and intelligence are making the world’s population more capable of reflection and self-control).