The Myth of Violence?
Watch Steven Pinker's talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
"Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence."
What do YOU think?
What are the merits of his argument? What are some criticisms? Does the overall pattern of violence (whether high or low) matter if you are an abused child? What are the philosophical implications of overall violence prevalence at the level of the individual? Should we be heartened that violence overall may be falling? Or is injustice to one, injustice to all? Be thoughtful, compelling, and defend your point of view.
Right now I am taking Crime and Punishment with Professor Gorton so we've actually been talking a lot about the change in incarceration rates and violence rates. Many of the points that Pinker uses to defend his side we have discussed in my class. I think one of the major influences on violence and punishment would be political and moral viewpoints. After the 1960's people adapted more liberal view points on human individuality and less harsh punishment, which changed the way that people looked at crime and appropriate punishments for crime. Statistically, over time violence has declined while incarceration rates have increased. i think that the change in individualistic viewpoints had major impacts on what was considered violent within a community. In the past there was much more need for security and protection over your family so many people harmed others to protect their families and belongings. With advances in technology resources are not as scarce and people do not need to fight over basic necessities. Often times, in todays world the reason why violence occurs is because of need for resources. On the other hand, one of the reasons I would disagree with his argument is because the ways that people commit violence offenses is much different today then how they did now. People needed to commit violent crimes to help their families in the past, where as now people are committing crimes for different reasons such as retaliation. I think probably the same amount of crime is happening, but less violent crime is going on now because instead of killing someone for their things, people just burglarize their homes.
If the patterns of violence are running through families and continue through generations of families children are more likely to be abused. Violence is a learned behavior, so if children are seeing violence or being the victims of violence they will likely continue to carry on the violence as they grow up, either by being abused by others, or abusing others.
I think that people should be happy that violence has been decreasing over time, but not expect that it will always continue to decrease. Violence goes in waves depending on many other social factors. One important part of violence is the punishment side of thing and how punishment changes and is influenced by factors. People commit crimes when the benefits out weigh the consequences. If changes in punishment occur, changes in violent crime will occur as well. It's great that violence has decreased, but it's something that is ever changing.
While this talk was very interesting and Steven makes a lot of great points in his talk, I think that there are a couple different holes in the stance he chooses to take.
Most of what he reports on are things that we have seen in the news and that is highly reported. What about the things that are not reported? He doesn't consider the domestic violence that some suffer from, gang violence, bullying in the school and work environments, verbal abuse, or self-harm behavior. While it is true that there has been a considerable decline in the amount of wars throughout the years, violence on smaller scales has been just as strong as ever, if not worse.
Look at the happenings in Waterloo, for example. There were shootings rampant, stabbings, gang violence, and suicide all reported in a very small amount of time. Steven, unfortunately, does not take into consideration this kind of violence. Where do murders and gangs fall in what he is talking about? Steven does, in fact, mention homicide and murder in his talk, but how close does he get to our time today? And what about attempted murder, where violence was the intent, but just not gained? Like with the Gifford case. She was not murdered, but murder was clearly the intent. This could be due to higher security. However, the failed murder attempts are STILL violent and were not taken into account in the statistics he gave.
Also, I highly agree with what Stephanie said. If we accept the claim that violence is decreasing over time, that does not mean that violence will keep decreasing and eventually disappear. We cannot let our guard down and think that we are living in a utopian society.
It is great to think that there are optimistic people in the world today, but it is difficult to accept what Steven said as truth. This talk was also from 2007. Would his talk be the same if we were looking at ilfe in 2010 and 2011?
With what we know about violence, there are many different ways violence can be manifested and they are all still alive and well today. Steven seems to be just taking a look at major acts of violence that are known and seen worldwide. If we take a look at every possible event that we have already listed as being violent, I would bet money that we would not be seeing the decline that Steven claims there is. Sure, some certain acts of violence could be declining. However, violence overall has most likely stayed fairly consistent over periods of time.
Again, it is nice to know that there is someone out there who is very optimistic and is thinking very well of our current society, and I do not want to come accross like a pessimistic person. However, I think that he should take a look at the much larger picture instead of just major acts of violence like war and murder.
I would also like to comment on the very last argument that Steven made at the close of his presentation. To summarize, he had hinted that violence in ancient times was due to the fact that the victims were dehumanized or seen as being less human. By putting ourselves in the victim's shoes and realizing that they are people just like us, Steven thinks that this is what has also contributed to violence decreasing overtime.
While he is right that there is less dehumanization of victims, I do not think that this is the cause for the decrease in violence. In fact, some acts of violence that we see now days seem to be very personal.
The face of violence has changed greatly over the course of time and, quite frankly, I do not think that Steven did a great job of making that clear in his talk.
Yes, it is true that the major acts of violence have decreased over time and that there is less dehumanization of victims. However, this does not mean that violence has gone down. Just because we do not have violence like the Holocaust where the Jews were dehumanized and made out to be less than human or during the Civil Rights Movement where African Americans were seen as less than human and refused rights does not mean that there is less violence.
For example, hate crimes and gang violence. These are both very person acts of violence that may not have been seen as much back in history, especially Biblical times. But, they run rampant today.
The Matthew Shepard murder, for example, was very personal. He was killed purely for the fact that he was a homosexual. Homosexuals are not necessarily seen as less than human by the majority of people today. Some, yes, but not all. The people that comitted the murder were fully aware of the fact that he was a human being and had a family and life all of his own. But, they still did a violent act.
Bullying, as well, is another example of very personal violence that people encounter today. The people that bully know that the victims are people and have lives. They still do it, though.
Point is, people commit acts of violence for a multitude of reasons. And, just like the flu virus, violence keeps mutating and cropping up in different formats. Therefore, it is not fair to say that violence is decreasing over time. We need to stay alert and realize that violence is changing. If we don't, they we will end up suffering for it in the end.
While watching this video, it was very interesting and enlightening seeing such an informative perspective over the decrease in violence in the modern age. I would never have expected such a topic to be discussed, because it seems all we hear in the news anymore are violent related articles in the war or in daily life. However, Steven Pinker’s speech over decreased violence was very educational and I felt it gave people something to think about.
After watching the video and seeing all the statistics along with such well put information, it is much more believable that the world has decreased in violence. People do not often think in the same context as what was mentioned in Pinker’s speech. It is easy to forget about the standards with which we are so used to now might not be what was considered normal then; or the fact that restrictions in laws are so much different and less violent even one hundred years ago.
I think Pinker overall had a well formulated and easily understandable speech. There were statistics comparing modern day and more antiquated times, examples of possible reasons for differences in violence, answers to questions others might ask, and more. His examples were especially enlightening in helping one understand more how it could be possible to have less violence now than in more “ancient” times. One example of Pinker’s I liked was labeled: life is cheap. He then goes further to state people were probably more likely to inflict violence on one another because they would not live long anyways and would therefore be less inclined to care about others and what they did. As technology increased, so did our longevity, thus putting a higher value on life. The other example I found worth mentioning is the statement over how our standards have changed over time. As humans, Pinker said we have become discourage by the rampant violence in our lives and as we made laws to keep violence from being integral in our lives, it became that much more disgusting when we actually saw true violence now. Of course, there is always the chance it might not be true, but it still made for a compelling argument.
His entire speech was very research formulated. He did not have much about the harm of the individual or what could cause rising in the violent trends in certain areas now. Not mentioning harm caused towards individuals could have been purposefully planned, to keep the speech from becoming too emotionally-driven, but it would have been interesting for him to at least slightly delve into that area. Stating differences in violence with then and now was mentioned, but it would have been interesting to know if violent trends in certain areas were also somewhat mythical.
In regards to the overall pattern of violence mattering to an abused child, this could be a helpful statistic (if lowered) in the sense that it would make cases of child abuse less rampant. Also, maybe this could help a child who is abused better understand what violence is and what is or is not accepted in our society along with how they themselves might fit into the pattern.
It is encouraging to hear that violence is actually less than what it used to be, but that does not mean we should not be just as aware as before. However, I do think this is something people need to hear. It does not matter whether they believe the statement to be true or not, it can still be somewhat comforting to a person to hear that even with all the violence we hear about, it is getting better.
However, it does not mean other occurrences of violence happening at the moment should be ignored. It is very important at the same time to try and keep decreasing the violence within our nations, as well as understanding that violence still has not stopped. I think people should still try and help those considered to have an injustice.
This video was definitely very interesting and informative. Overall, I thought Pinker had a well-developed speech that was fairly easy for me to follow along with. After watching the video, I definitely think that more people should be thinking about what he was trying to say regardless if they agree or disagree with him. The information presented was definitely believable in that violence has decreased over time and I was left agreeing with most of what he proposed. I’ve also taken many criminology classes and in some of them, we have talked about the same topic. Overall, I’m not confident in saying I think the amount of crime has necessarily decrease but I think the amount of violent crime has.
Pinker had three general points he wanted to make in his speech: 1. our ancestors were much more violent than we are today; 2. violence has been declining for long periods of time; and 3. in today’s world, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species existence. I thought it was really interesting that Pinker used different time period scales to make his point. Doing this definitely put all the information into a bigger picture for me and only further helped me understand what he was trying to say.
A more specific point I think Pinker wanted to make was the changing perceptions of society related to crime and violence. For one, a lot of people think that rates of violence are so high because they see a lot of information through media such as newspapers and television shows which really only show stories about the worst kinds of violence—we hear more about murder rather than drug charges for example. Society’s standards of appropriate behaviors have also changed over time. Pinker made many references to the different types of sanctions imposed on people throughout history beginning Biblical times to the present. For example, it was common for people to be given a death penalty for homosexuality, adultery, and talking back to your parents during Biblical times. Today, society doesn’t think of these types of things as ‘crimes’. Another interesting example he used to prove his point that violence has been declining was his discussion about comparing hunter-gathering societies and our current society. According to research done by archeologists, the death rates of males during tribal warfare are exponentially greater than the death rate of males in the 20th century due to warfare. These types of statistics definitely speak for themselves.
The overall pattern of violence definitely matters for abused children. I agree with Stephanie’s comment about how if patterns of violence run through generations of families children may be more likely to be abused. Pinker’s speech didn’t exactly touch on violence at an individual level which I think would have been pretty interesting to hear about from his perspective.
Overall, I think people should be happy with the notion that violence has been decreasing over time while at the same time being cautious that violence might not keep declining. Pinker showed a diagram of violence levels over the course of a few decades depicting a wave—rates of violence went up and down over time.
I thought this lecture was extremely interesting and it was beneficial to listen to a different view of violence in today's world. Pinker has a very optimistic view of violence in the world. If you listen to this lecture with an open mind, he does make extremely verifiable points. He briefly discusses the influence of media today by saying we believe violence is increasing because there is a lot of coverage in the media. He states this is because the media knows what people want to watch, and people want to watch stories that create the shock factor. A critical aspect of the media that I feel Pinker is not considering is that maybe the media is contributing to the decline of violence. Many people are quick to attack the media for their tactics of dramatic coverage and I would not entirely disagree, but it is important to look at the opposing arguement. Crime/violence media coverage could be causing people to become more aware of violence and causing them to take more precautions to protect themselves. Crime/violence rates have continued to drop even as the media has intensified the coverage of crime and violence. I am not condoning the dramatic tactics used by the media, but I don't feel Pinker considered the beneficial effects the media has on the decline of violence.
Another mistake I feel Pinker made was that he failed to take into account the always changing views of what is violent. Although today we can look at acts in the past and think, that is extremely violent, that was the normal way of life for those people in history. Activities that we do in today's socitey that are not considered violent will most likely be considered violent in centuries to come. An example could be sports such as football, boxing, wrestling, etc.
As a victim of abuse, specifically an abused child, I do not think they would be satisfied with a researcher stating violence has decreased. A child who is a victim of abuse must live with the violent act for the entirety of their life. For them, even if violence has decreased, it is a prominent part of how they will view life. I feel the statement injustice to one is injustice to all is a good way to conceptualize violence. Violence, even if it does not affect us directly, affects every individual. We are all equal persons, and injustice is a threat to everyone. Pinker makes significant arguements pertaining to research and history, but he fails to recognize the indiviudal victims of violence.
Steven Pinker brings forth an argument that is well articulated, formulated, and organized. I think he is a strong speaker and presented the information in a way that was easy to understand and not one that makes you wish it was over already. I think this type of speech would usually bore me, but the way he presented it made me enthralled to hear how he could support his argument that we are living in the most peaceful time in our existence. I think that he covers the topic well, however there are a few points that I thought of during his talk.
The first thing that stood out to me was when he was discussing the millennium scale. He talked about how the chances you will be killed by another man have decreased significantly. He used the examples of hunter-gatherer tribes where you were likely to be killed by another man, up to 60% likely. He then said that the chance in the U.S. today is very small compared to it. I did not catch it, maybe he said it, but my thought was that maybe this percent statistic could be due to the fact that since those OLD days, the population has exploded. Maybe back then you had a higher chance because there were less people around, while today there are so many people that the same amount of people might be getting killed, yet it is only a blip on the radar. The only thing I can think of that would correct this is if he was talking about number of persons per 100,000 (or some related ratio). Without knowing if that is what the statistics were based on, it sounds to me like the data is being skewed in a way to make his argument correct.
I also had a problem with the way he discussed the decline in deaths per year per war from 1950-2005. He explained that since there was significantly fewer war deaths, violence has gone way down. I do not agree. I think that since technology has advanced so much since 1950, there very well could be AS much, if not more, violence in war, yet the deaths are down because medical capabilities are that much better. Violence does not equal death. His statement comes off to me as, if they do not die, there is no violence associated with war. While I think he is a well-educated, smart man, I think he falls prey to what many sociologists, criminologists, and any researchers do, the expectation bias. He expects to find data that shows him violence has gone down, so he reports data that way, without even knowing it. It is not his fault, but I think that one should always look at data from several sides to make sure that it is being represented accurately and fairly.
I also noticed that he focuses on macro level violence a lot. While man to man murder is more micro, he does not talk about violence that is individual or smaller. One example that he could have discussed is the amount of family violence, domestic abuse, and child abuse. I think that these are vital components in the violence system. I am not necessarily saying that there is more of it today, but that it is something that should be looked at to see how the rates of abuse in those settings has changed. It may be hard, because, as some others have said, perception of violence has changed dramatically over time. Now, family violence, domestic abuse, and child abuse are seen as violent acts. Way back when, they were seen as the customary practice for certain things. If your child didn’t behave you’d hit them. If your wife didn’t do something or did something they weren’t supposed to, you’d abuse them. This brings me into my next point about how societal acceptance has changed over time.
I don’t think you can definitively say that we are less violent because we don’t exact the same punishments as we used to. If we still viewed violence as we did back then, we would see the world as a HORRIBLY violent place, probably even worse than it was then. There are things that are socially accepted now that weren’t then, such as different punishments for smaller crimes. I think it is important to note that back then there was a view that if you commit a crime, you should be hurt for it. I think that these forms of punishments started a cycle of violence. People saw the government doing it, so it must be the right thing to do, thus people would take authority unto themselves and punish others the way they were taught is right. As time has progressed, we have begun to see that there are better and other resources to get what we want. I don’t think that it is that we are less violent in nature, but that we didn’t have the options back then to get what we want. We only had one means. Now we have more. The government has changed the way they punish individuals, then people see that, it affects them, and the cycle replenishes itself. I may be completely wrong here, but that is how it makes sense to me. I guess it all depends on how you define violence. I think that we are still an extremely violent people, by nature. I don’t think we are less violent that way than we were a millennium ago. Do we act out that violence less? Probably. If that is what his view of violence is, then I think he did a very good job at showing that. I think that as a people we are more concerned about ourselves in this society today than we used to be. We are materialistic, which is something that was not as big of a problem and concern back then. They did not have those things to be so materialistic about. I think that he was right about why we have become less expressive of our violence. I hope that it continues. I do wonder what he would think of today. I would like to hear him update his data and speak again.
I think that the overall pattern of violence does and does not matter to an abused child. I think that in the long run of things, abused children as a whole have a benefit of a pattern of low violence. In the now, I do not think that this pattern matters to a specific abused child. The child is being abused and hurt, something that will affect them for the rest of their lives most likely. They are not thinking, “Yay, violence as a trend is going down, maybe it will rub off on Mom or Dad.” They have been hurt, and even if violent rates go down, they still have been hurt. In the long run, however, I think that it can affect abused children either way. If violence goes up, children are more likely to be abused and thus creating a pattern that will most likely continue through generations. Children that see it, hear it, experience it, and are more likely to grow up abusing others and probably their own children. If violence rates go down, people are less likely to do this, having a reverse effect on the previous reasoning.
I don’t think we should be heartened, because violence is something that is volatile. It changes over time, as has been shown from research after research. The types of violence change over time. I don’t think there can be a way for it to cease. I think that we can have a little hope that things will change for the better, but should not get excited at it. Doing that will only lead to hurt and heartache if things do not go as planned. That would be like seeing all your neighbors on the street get a puppy, one after another. You expect you will get a puppy and get excited and happy. You do not get a puppy. You are crushed and maybe even angry. I think that it can have severe negative effects to get heartened about something that could easily go the other way. This is not to say that you should not get excited about things you expect to happen. I think that caution needs to be exercised when looking at something such as violence before getting too enthusiastic about it. While Pinker’s argument was enthralling and hope-instilling, I am not going to get excited. I am going to take it with a grain of salt. I can hope it will get better over time, but everything has two sides to it, so I am going to be cautious.
I can believe Pinker’s argument to a certain extent. Obviously we’re not all sitting around saying WWI was birthday cake and rainbows. If you have ever taken any kind of history class, you know how violent the past was. However, I don’t think we can compare ancient hunter-gatherer times to now. I think the context of times is important. When we talk about one person killing another during hunter-gather times, it was probably done for survival purposes. When we think of one person killing another today, murder comes to mind. I also think that we know more now. We know more in terms of what is “right” or “moral” and we know more about what is going on in our world. There are always anti-bullying commercials on. Also, media today makes it seem like there is so much violence going on when in reality we are just hearing about it more immediately so we think it gets worse and worse.
On the other hand, today’s violence may just be more isolated instead of being wars. Violence does not necessarily mean killing someone. Now we have things like cyber-bullying. Locally, I have seen a lot of gang violence. The news has a new story every week about some shooting in a neighborhood. Also, there is more recognition of abusive relationships so more people may talk about their experience with it.
I think overall level of violence does matter to an abused child especially if the child lives in a particularly violent neighborhood or city. If the child sees violence as an everyday occurrence (not just at home but all around them) they are more likely to see the violence as normal. This could lead to children not telling anyone if they are being abused. It could also lead that child to be more violent currently or in the future. Another point to make is that (as talked about in my last post) violence is can be intergenerational. It can keep getting passed down and around by family members and this will affect the children.
Even if violence is falling, I don’t think it is okay to just sit back and take a sigh of relief. If violence is on the downward fall, it is because of the attention we have given to it not to the ignorance of it. We need to continue trying to reduce violence in every way. This is not the time to stop. I don’t think we should feel good about the violence levels today even if they are lower than the past. Like I said before, it’s about the context of the times. We have to work even harder to stop violence because people are smarter now and are able to use that knowledge negatively (different techniques/strategies of violence) or positively (helping reduce violence).
I think now we see violence towards one person much more serious than in the past. If a king got killed in the past, it’s probably what the people wanted and they flooded the streets to watch him be beheaded. If a king got killed now, the person who killed them would be severely punished and the act would be shocking. By this point, most know that violence creates more violence which is why I don’t understand wars but they continue to happen. I think being more aware of violence and viewing killing someone as more violent than in the past allows us to call the violence now more severe. Maybe we don’t line up in the streets to watch a beheading anymore but we still have the death penalty. People are still being put to death by the law. I think this is worse because we in a sense “know better” now. I think we just need to continue learning about violence and continue trying to create a more peaceful, less violent world.
The discussion Pinker presents was very interesting and thought-provoking. Compared to our ancestors, the barbaric forms of violence have declined significantly. As society has become more educated and informed, we have seen a major shift from the cultural acceptance of sanctioned violence for petty crimes to a more humane approach of a less violent approach to retribution in our legal system. This is evident when we view the historical ideologies of our ancestors who thought all criminal acts were caused by some demonic possession. Their magical/ mystical beliefs led to the widely accepted method of Trial by Ordeal. For those of you who are not familiar with the term “Trials by Ordeal,” it is a historical method courts used to determine innocence or demonic possession through incredibly sadistic methods of torture. Today, this tactic would be viewed as incredibly barbaric and inhumane and the reasoning behind it pure insanity. However, during that time period, it was a perfectly acceptable practice to use.
My first criticism with Pinker’s argument is the types of violence he recorded. To me, it feels that the data he gathered was not reflective of all types of violence. As we established in class, there are forms of psychological or emotional violence. Currently, we have no macro-level records of data that would show its prevalence throughout society. It is plausible to suggest that as we continue to intellectually develop as a species that psychological violence could be slowly replacing incidents of physical violence. On a much more micro-level, we can see this increase as we hear more reports of the increase in the bullying epidemic that is plaguing our nation’s schools. Additionally, with the introduction of the internet and social networking sites, the anonymity of its use also has led to an increase of what we now call “cyber-bullying.”
Continuing on from the previous criticism, Pinker made reference to the historic culturally-accepted forms of violence (the example of people gathering around to watch a cat dropped into a fire pit). He did not discuss whether this form of violence was included in the data he presented or not. If it was, then I would wonder if current forms of culturally-accepted violence (such as boxing, football, MMA fighting, and other full-contact athletic sports) were included in his data. This could also potentially raise the current rate of violence tremendously because you would not only have to include professional athletics but every collegiate, high school, middle school, elementary school, and amateur-level athletics. Given the population of the world today and the general acceptance of these sports, I would suspect that the rates of violence would match those of the historical data, if not surpass it.
Another criticism I had with Pinker’s argument revolves around the quantitative aspects of his argument. That data he presented dated back into periods before oceanic travel occurred. We know from our Western Civilization and high school history courses that large numbers of native tribes inhabited lands that had not been discovered until a much later date. Not to mention, people and tribes were so spread out throughout the Eastern part of the hemisphere that it is quite possible that entire towns or groups of people could exist and not be known about. With that in mind, it is impossible to come close to a realistic estimate of the number of people that inhabited all continents of the world which is a key component to figuring out actual rates (formula: number of crimes divided by population multiplied by 100,000). This could potentially hurt or help Pinker’s argument in that if there were millions of more people (or less people) living during time then what was estimated, the rates of violence could change dramatically.
The overall pattern of violence really doesn’t matter if you are an abused child. All that really does matter is that you are the one experiencing high levels of stress and trauma at the hands of the person who is supposed to love you. People are naturally egotistical (though the levels of the egotism vary from person to person) in that we think of ourselves before we think of others. When faced with a high emotionally taxing situation (such as physical and/or emotional abuse), we tend to increase our level of self-interest because of our hedonistic nature. It doesn’t matter that society as a whole is seeing less violence, you’re still the one getting hurt and feel powerless to stop it.
Overall, whether there is or is not a decline in the level of violence in the world, it doesn’t negate the fact that millions of people are still becoming victims of some form of violence each year. This is not something that we should ignore or view as less important because the overall level of violence is potentially declining. Compared to our ancestors, we as a society are more intelligent, more educated, and more advanced. We should not be satisfied solely that violence is declining. If we allow ourselves to, we may be inclined not to work as hard at continuing the trend and that to me, is very frightening.
Quite honestly, I need to complain just a little bit. I thought Pinker came off as arrogant and a know-it-all. Part of that was undoubtedly his less-than-subtle digs at the Bible. Also, he doesn’t understand what he’s reading in the Bible. Just because he doesn’t agree with something, doesn’t mean that it’s not fair and not called for. In this case, we’re talking about a very immoral tribe who also was trying to destroy the Israelites. What the heck were they supposed to do, let their nation be destroyed because the Midianites didn’t like them? How dumb is that? His other comment about the women being raped just shows his lack of knowledge. They didn’t kill these women just because they were virgins; they spared them because of the meaning of their virginity. It meant that they hadn’t engaged in the immoral culture and hadn’t given themselves up to the gods that the married women had. In other words, they weren’t trying to kill the Israelites. By the way, rape was explicitly outlawed under ancient Jewish laws, and the punishment, if caught, was severe (in most cases, death). I very much doubt that these women were brutally raped. One last thing, just because something is in the Bible, doesn’t mean it’s in there because we’re supposed to do it. Some of the things in there are there to serve as warnings… as in: Don’t do this!!! It’s not good, and it leads to bad consequences. I would submit that many of our laws have roots in the Torah because they are good laws.
Sorry for the rant, but it really upsets me when people use facts out of context (no matter where the facts came from) to support their own biases. If someone is going to use an example, they really need to make sure that they know what they’re talking about. Otherwise, it really hurts their credibility. Pinker’s arrogance and misunderstanding of the Bible aside, he did make some good points about the rest of his information. He was right when he said that violence has fallen over the decades. This is a trend I’ve studied in several classes. Also, it is true that ancient civilizations were much more prone to warfare then we are today. I liked that he pointed out that punishments for relatively minor things were severe and sadistic, since that’s something that’s not often mentioned and is very true.
Other than my lengthy criticism above, there were a few other things I noticed. One was that he used the few hunter-gather societies of today to claim that we have a good idea of what the past hunter-gather societies looked like then. I’m not quite sure that’s legitimate. I understand that these societies are very unchanged from the past, but I’m sure there have been some changes. Not to mention that there were hunter-gathers from around the world, and using a few to represent all creates methological problems like the sort we see in studies done in psychology. Another thing I noticed was that he used mostly information from the U.S. and Europe. He didn’t use information from Asia, South America, or Africa. I know that their records aren’t as good as ours, but when you’re comparing the whole world from the past to just a little bit of the world in the present, it seems like maybe the violence isn’t as less as he’s making it seem. Lastly, he only counted it as violence if people died. A lot of people who are victims of violence today don’t die, thanks to medical technology. Also, even in the past, violence didn’t just count if you died. The definition of violence, then and now, is much more broad, and he’s leaving out a ton of data by limiting violence only to man-to-man killings.
None of this information matters to a child who is being abused or who was abused. What matters is that THEY were. A little bit of violence can be just as damaging as a lot of violence. The big point is that the child was abused, and they are going to need help to get past that. Perhaps, when they are older and have overcome some of their experiences, they can say, “Well, it wasn’t that bad. It could have been worse.” When they’re in the situation, especially as children (who don’t have the same mental capacities as adults do) it can’t get any worse.
The philosophical implications of violence falling are that we should feel safer and more secure. Ironically, I’m not sure that many of us do. There could be several reasons for that. One is that we are constantly bombarded with images of violence. These images don’t make us feel like violence is going down. Another reason could be that, as Pinker suggested, we don’t remember how violent the past was. We only concentrate on the present. Another implication is that we may lower our guard and awareness. Just because violence is decreasing doesn’t mean it’s gone. We need to work just as hard to make sure that we help those who are affected by violence, and by making sure we are teaching our kids (if and when we have them) that they are better answers to problems than violence. I want to insert a point here: there are times when nonviolence doesn’t work and the only answer is violence (and I’m talking more like self-defense here). We can’t teach our kids to lie down and let whatever happens happen, but we also can’t teach them that just because someone says or does something they don’t like, it’s okay to beat the crap out of them. There is a balance.
I think that we should be heartened that violence is falling. However, I think that we need to focus on areas were a lot of violence is occurring, and work to reduce those areas of violence. I don’t think we will ever be able to eliminate violence. But reducing the problem sure does make it easier to try to.
I think that this speech had a lot of information packed into a very short amount of time. Although it appears that Steven Pinker was well informed and knowledgeable about the historical implications supporting his notion that violence has decrease, I do not think that there was enough thought provoking information for me to fully believe his arguement. I am not very familiar with the history of violence in relation to his speech so for me personally, there was a lot of information presented that I could have benefited from having further explaination on.
On main concern I have regarding this arguement is that I believe that the views and "definition" of violence has significantly changed over time. Given this, I do not believe he can effectively compare violence starting from biblical times to the violence that is occurring today. Awareness regarding what is considered violence has increased significantly and may have been overlooked throughout history.
I agree with a lot of the blog that Colleen wrote. It is very discouraging to see that conclusions regarding such important information such as violence are being condensed by somewhat one sided research. In my opinion, in order to effectively report and analyze such an important topic it is best practice to consider and address as much research as possible and identify the differing view points that may be present. I also have concerns regarding his analysis of the bible, while his interpretations may be relevant, there are probably many other interpretations regarding the information he cited during the speech.
In regards to the patterns of violence mattering to an abused child I think it is rediculous to assume or make judgements on the effects of the children based on the patterns being high or low. Any abuse that a child endures is a serious matter. Although the actual incidents may vary in societies definition of severity, the effect on the child can be profound.
I would love to be "heartened" by the notion that violence is falling, but in reality I do not believe this is true. One issue that Pinker discussed was the effect that standards of living are a factor. Unfortunately I believe that it may appear that violence is decrease because as a society we are becoming more tolerant of unacceptable behavior. He discussed that historically, an individual could be killed for stealing a loaf of bread, but in today's society a parent can be convicted of killing their child and not face the same consequence. This is very disturbing to me. Again, I believe this reinforces my feelings that I do not believe that violence has decreased, but has more to do with how violence is perceived in society.
I think this lecture was rather interesting. The main points of Pinker's arguments seem to include general societal standards, cultural, and other practices of different periods of time. He gave several examples of barbaric violence in biblical times, the middles ages, and other previous decades. He also presented several statistics about homicides in different countries throughout previous periods of times. His data seems very convincing on the surface, however I am not convinced that we are living in the most peaceful time.
One criticism of his lecture is that his examples given are in different periods of time that had different cultural values and ideas. In other words, these periods of time were rather barbaric compared to the time we are currently living in. For example, in some periods of time, murder may not have been punishable by law, but in some cases, actually encouraged. An example given by Pinker was a verse from the Bible that in warfare, stated to kill everyone except virgins. If these acts of violence were punishable by law as they are now, would those people still have committed these acts of violence?
This brings me to my next point. I believe that having laws against violence helps prevent violence from occurring. Most of these periods of time had some sort of law system, but it was very underdeveloped. In today's society, we have laws against all types of violence, from physical battery and assault to verbal harassment. We simply live in a more advanced, controlled, and sustained society. In philosophy, we would describe our society as not being one of a state of nature. In a state of nature, it is every man for himself. There is no law preventing one man from killing another. In this barbaric state of nature, it can be estimated that people would kill one another or act violently when competing for resources or power of any type.
In today's society, many other types of violence have been operationally defined. For example, emotional abuse and violence probably often occurred in these other periods of time, but was not viewed as violent behavior. I think the decrease in warfare is not necessarily a decrease in violence. We have simply moved on to other types of violence, and deemed those actions to truly be violent. We have also made these acts punishable by law, which is probably keeping people from committing them.
When you're an abused child, I do not think the overall pattern of violence matters. It has been proven in our textbook that childhood abuse can lead to very problematic things in life, such as emotional regulation and future abuse on others. We have also discussed that some children, no matter how much violence they witness or endure, are very resilient to it and turn out to be just fine. Others may experience very little violence, but it may affect them a great deal. It all depends on the individual child.
I think we should feel secure that we live in a time and place where we are safe. We have laws and people to enforce those laws that protect us. However, it does not eliminate the possibility of experiencing either these types of violence or other types of violence. At any given time, any person may be subjected to some type of violence or another. Although these laws exist, it is difficult to sometimes prove, prevent, and stop violence. This is especially difficult for victims of child abuse. Children will often be scared to tell someone that they are being abused. They will also sometimes have the mixed attachment to their abuser, and not necessarily want that person out of their lives. Child abuse can be difficult to prove when parents "put on a show" for Department of Human Services or Social Services evaluations.
Overall, I think that Pinker does have convincing points about warfare and homicidal violence. However, he fails to acknowledge other types of violence that are now recognized. He also fails to acknowledge the prevalence of these types of violence. Speaking specifically about child abuse (since it is this week's topic), it was not considered abuse in previous time periods. Children were not seen as individual people, but rather as obedient inferiors who would someday grow up to take on the role of commanding superiors over their own families. However, children are now viewed as important members of our future society who will, through their own experiences and knowledge, create the world that future generations will live in.
Before listening to this lecture I really did believe that we are more violent today then we have ever been. It doesn’t help that the media covers violence on a daily basis, and that violence seems to be the only topic ever discussed on the news. It was somewhat refreshing to hear someone claim that we are not really that violent today, because that is all I seem to hear about in political and social discussions. Therefore, I do believe that Steven Pinker does have some good points and evidence. According to Pinker, we are in a lesser state of violence when compared to eras such as biblical, medieval, hunter- gatherer times, etc. It seems as though Pinker is trying to convince us that those times are far more violent then they are perceived to be, and that our society today is seen as more violent because of the media, and the technology that makes us live longer (and the fact that we don’t go around seeing who can kill each other first, to an extent).
Since Pinker was mainly speaking of how we are not as violent as we used to be throughout his whole talk, it was somewhat hard to come up with some criticisms of his presentation. So, I looked at the blogs posted below the video. First off, the value of life is far greater than it was 200-300 years ago, so you do not usually see people run around on the streets killing other people for stealing, lets say a simple item such as an apple. Pinker also touched on poverty and how poverty is a form of violence. I do agree with that somewhat; I believe that the poor in the United States are trying to “get out of a rut” ( which is how a blogger put it). The poor can’t afford education or healthcare, so they seem to be more violent.
I believe that the overall pattern of violence matters if you are an abused child. I also think that abused children experience a steady stream of low violence, with the occasional peak of high violence. The steadiness of low violence makes it harder to forget, because it may be all the child has ever known. Even though the “violence trend” is going down, it isn’t going to affect the already abused child.
I don’t think that we should back off and assume that violence is falling. We still need to take certain measures to prevent violence. Overall, violence is injustice to all and not just one person. For it affects one, it affects the rest of the people involved in that person’s life.
Okay, so it’s clear that Steven Pinker has researched and spent a lot of time on this topic and I’m sure he is accurate in his findings. I on the other hand, do not have the knowledge he does as far as historically speaking on violence except for what basic knowledge we learn in the history books. Therefore, I’m going to try not to bash his research too bad, as to not sound completely ignorant.
Looking at the big picture can be important and relevant. I get that. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the individual experiencing the violence, decreased statistics in violence probably doesn’t matter much. A victim of violence may not be able to see the big picture because their life has been turned upside down. Assuming his research is completely accurate; of course it’s great that violence may be decreasing. Although I am not going to rejoice in that because violence is still immersed into our society and violence still occurs too much. As long as violence is still taking or affecting the lives of humans, we should all be concerned.
From a historical perspective, it appears as though numbers of victims from violent actions have decreased over time. We see punishments of the past to be barbaric in nature and cannot fathom that kind of treatment to be just in our mature times. So yes, numbers may have fallen in his research. My thought process goes to—WHAT was considered violent in those times and were those actions even reported accurately? I say this because the definition of violence could have changed over time. Were rapes reported and documented in a central location by the government hundreds of years ago? Hate crimes? Child abuse? The list goes on because there was not the same terminology back then for what we document now. One of his arguments regarding why so many people are wrong about violence was due to better documentation. So yes, we have a system in place now that is more accurate than what is was years ago, so yes we may think that violence is more prevelant now because we have the statistics at our fingertips. But that same argument can be used against his theory. There are so many violent acts that have been defined as violence now that was not even thought of as a problem years ago. My whole point is that sure…violence may have decreased if you are looking at numbers of people being killed. But these days with scientific and technological advances, we can’t really say that we are much less barbaric can we? Instead of hanging people in a public square, we stick a needle in them and watch behind a window. Instead of being on the front line in war, we have nuclear bombs and automatic weapons that allow us to kill from a further distance to make it less personal. Instead of hanging someone from a tree and letting them rot because of their skin color, we institutionalize the prejudice to make discrimination appear less violent. So sure, numbers have dropped. But does it really matter if a barbaric mentality still exists?
I think that Steven Pinker has many very good points. I think that it takes a lot of abstract thinking and research to come to the points of view that he has created, and I think that his findings and thoughts on the subject definitely deserve some recognition and respect. At the same time, I can see where his thoughts would be seen as controversial, especially in our present situation with the Iraq war. As we have discussed in class, it all in how your values match with the current sociatal values. Culture and values make all the difference when trying to understand the depths of violence, as we have discovered when looked at the dissimilarities of Western culture and Eastern way of life. Pinker takes these differences to another level by comparing violence today with violence in the past. His research shows us that the changes in our culture have created a more peaceful way of life in comparison to the more b arbaric times in the human race.
I also really liked when Pinker talks about the instinct to attack someone before they attack you, something that seems to be a simple concept. He gives the example of the burgelor in the basement of a man’s house, who “as a good American” keeps a gun in his nightstand and confronts the intruder. He desribes how neither one of the men (the burgelor or the man who lives in the house) wants to kill the other, but out of our natural instinct of survival their thoughts automatically jump to the conclusion that the other man will kill you if you don’t kill them first. I think that this is a very good point that can be overlooked, as uncertainty is many times the enemy when it comes to these types of situations. I think that the unknown is often something that brings out fear in most everyone, which can definitely lead to a more violent situation.
If I were to think about this talk in a critical way, I think that pointing out that much of our society does think that we live in violent times shows that we could use some improvement. This is the type of thing that is based on society’s general notion or view on the topic, and many people think that the rates of abuse, murder, and other forms of violence is much too high. Yes, they have been higher in the past, but at that time society’s view of vioence was different. Hitting your children for punishment and sexual abuse towards women were much more widely accepted than they are today. Because our society has moved to a less violent mind set, we see the violence in our day to day lives and on the news as really high numbers. I think that this is why our society needs to work to continue to decrease the violence in our world, regardelss of how far we have come in comparison to the past we still have a long way to go to living in a truly peaceful world.
In class we have also discussed how violence to one person can have an effect on everyone around that person. I think that this is and important aspect when discussing this topic of falling violence rates. If we can decrease the numbers of violence in our world it’s one thing, but why does that matter to the one person who is constantly abused by their father? It takes an entire change of mindset to elimiate violence completely, something that is not likely to happen. Our natrual instincts to defend ourselves, as well as the many other sources of violence that we have talked about (psychological disorders, chemical imbalances, history of abuse, etc), make our race one that is highly capable of violence. Reducing violence overall in our community gets us one step closer to changing the mindset of the rest of our culture, and future generations.
I think that Steven Pinker has many very good points. I think that it takes a lot of abstract thinking and research to come to the points of view that he has created, and I think that his findings and thoughts on the subject definitely deserve some recognition and respect. At the same time, I can see where his thoughts would be seen as controversial, especially in our present situation with the Iraq war. As we have discussed in class, it all in how your values match with the current societal values. Culture and values make all the difference when trying to understand the depths of violence, as we have discovered when looked at the dissimilarities of Western culture and Eastern way of life. Pinker takes these differences to another level by comparing violence today with violence in the past. His research shows us that the changes in our culture have created a more peaceful way of life in comparison to the more b barbaric times in the human race.
I also really liked when Pinker talks about the instinct to attack someone before they attack you, something that seems to be a simple concept. He gives the example of the burglar in the basement of a man’s house, who “as a good American” keeps a gun in his nightstand and confronts the intruder. He describes how neither one of the men (the burglar or the man who lives in the house) wants to kill the other, but out of our natural instinct of survival their thoughts automatically jump to the conclusion that the other man will kill you if you don’t kill them first. I think that this is a very good point that can be overlooked, as uncertainty is many times the enemy when it comes to these types of situations. I think that the unknown is often something that brings out fear in most everyone, which can definitely lead to a more violent situation.
If I were to think about this talk in a critical way, I think that pointing out that much of our society does think that we live in violent time’s shows that we could use some improvement. This is the type of thing that is based on society’s general notion or view on the topic, and many people think that the rates of abuse, murder, and other forms of violence is much too high. Yes, they have been higher in the past, but at that time society’s view of violence was different. Hitting your children for punishment and sexual abuse towards women were much more widely accepted than they are today. Because our society has moved to a less violent mind set, we see the violence in our day to day lives and on the news as really high numbers. I think that this is why our society needs to work to continue to decrease the violence in our world, regardless of how far we have come in comparison to the past we still have a long way to go to living in a truly peaceful world.
In class we have also discussed how violence to one person can have an effect on everyone around that person. I think that this is an important aspect when discussing this topic of falling violence rates. If we can decrease the numbers of violence in our world it’s one thing, but why does that matter to the one person who is constantly abused by their father? It takes an entire change of mindset to eliminate violence completely, something that is not likely to happen. Our natural instincts to defend ourselves, as well as the many other sources of violence that we have talked about (psychological disorders, chemical imbalances, history of abuse, etc), make our race one that is highly capable of violence. Reducing violence overall in our community gets us one step closer to changing the mindset of the rest of our culture, and future generations.
Pinker has obviously done his homework. The numbers are there staring us in the face. There is no doubt that there are less murders now than in past centuries. My complaints have more to do with our conception of time rather than the big picture Pinker is basing his research on. When someone tells me that there is more or less violence now than there was in the past I don't think on a timeline that stretches back past to pre-modernity. I can assume i'm not alone in this. I had to ponder on this a bit to figure out why it would make anysense for me to distiguish between what is a past I can compare our current state to and a past that I find to be comparitively irrelevant. Pinker touches on this a bit in his talk when he discusses the way life use to be led in times when people lived in tribes or other forms of small groups. The violence experienced in these times was survival based, collecting food was a competition in many ways. you had to be the fastest, the bravest, you needed skills and logic. Bringing dinner home meant you were faster than the other guy, you were strong enough to run the thirty miles it took to wear down the antelope, and it took a special kind of person to do all this and survive. I have never had to run the five miles to the grocery store and wrestle down the cow I wanted to make burgers out of. Our existance is so drastically different than that of our ancestors I find it ludacris to compare the two. So in my mind, these people can be as violent as they please. That Violence was different than what we experience today. What I do compare todays violence to is that 100 years ago, 50 years ago, the past decade. Violence of the hunter gatherer era was based on a drive to ensure one's offspring could continue to exist. Survival today is not always the top motivator for perpetrating violence. The school bully will survive without punching another little child, an abusive partner will be just fine without hitting their spouse, and an abusive parent seems to go against our biological drives to protect our offspring and promote their survivial. This is the sort of violence we hear about now. Rape, murder, abuse... none of these fit the same purpose as they may have centuries ago. War is about the only form of violence that serves nearly the same purpose as it did then, mainly to protect one's family, home, and values. But as Pinker pointed out, deaths from war have gone down too.
An abused child in todays society may not feel any comfort about this decline in violence. Being one of an even smaller group of kids suffering from abuse makes them even more unlucky than they were already. If we look at how children were raised in the past we see that many children were subject to quite aggressive forms of punishment and discipline. I wonder if the rates of child abuse have really gone down or if it is merely one of those labelling technicalities. What use to be a parents right to discipline is now considered abuse and illegal (not that this is bad, I am in no way saying beating a child is a good technique to keep them in line). We also face the question of actual prevelance rates because of the cases of abuse that never were reported then and now.
I am very curious about the upswing in violence Pinker finds in the 60's. After watching the clip in class from "Freakonomics" I wonder what the cause of increase was. And this drop in violence found at the tail end of the 90's, is this the drop in crime that can be possibly attributed to legalized abortion? Our modern times are so full of random variables to be messed with, is there some other factor that could lower crime rates even farther, and how will we know what it is if we find it? The connection to abortion rates wouldn't have been anyones first guess as to a solution to lowering crime and wasn't even untill decades after laws were passed.
The lowered rates of violence are only mildly impressive to me. Iwould love to feel as if I lived in a world which was becoming more peaceful, but I have to be more realistic. I am aware that the speed of which bad news travels is ever increasing and we are constantly exposed to stories that are more horrific than we can imagine. Trying to put this aside, I wonder if with all the great new developments in our world is it a possibility that violence and aggression are just changing form? We could be so focused on conceptualizing violence in certain ways we overlook others. Human interactions are not the same as they use to be. We have to be open to the idea that agression in one form may be lowered but developing in another way. As I said, I'd love to believe violence is on it's way out from our existance, that would be a beautiful thing. I feel like in our modern world there should be no reason for anyone to have to suffer at the hands of another. I think it all goes back to my mental seperation of historical and modern violence. I can find justification for historical violence and modern violence seems so senseless in most cases.
I think a lot of the viewpoint depends on how violence is perceived nowadays. I think we have a totally different attitude toward what is considered violent. I think the fact that he is a linguist is interesting in that he should/could approach it from the angle of how we define violence. We have discussed in this class what is considered an established definition of violence, but there is inevitably variation within individual mindsets. I feel it’s nearly impossible to create a definition that can be universally agreed upon by everyone so that we are all comparing apples with apples.
People aren’t killed for stealing a loaf of bread anymore because that is seen as a minor offense. I think one of the differences is our law system, as in, the fact that we have one. Medieval times didn’t take the time to give a fair trial to a criminal. Yes they had jails, but it was “Ok, you did something wrong, throw em in jail for a while” and that ‘while’ was an arbitrary amount of time decided by some not-so-good people themselves. Today, we have an actual system that tries to give fair treatment to everyone, even the criminals (innocent until proven guilty). We put those accused on trial and present evidence/proof to help decide whether or not they are guilty and deserve to be punished. We don’t just resort to violent capital punishment as our first choice.
I also think our level of technology in today’s world makes a huge difference too. How easy is it for a world leader to push a button and send missiles all the way to another country and blow up whole villages at a time? Back in the day, you had to travel by wagon, horseback, or even by foot to go attack another village. You then had to fight one on one combat, sword to sword with another person. Battles took a long time, and casualties took forever to build up. Today, we can wipe out thousands of people in less than a second. In a sense, that seems less violent because we are not seeing the direct impact that a shotgun blast or swipe of a sword would illicit.
When Pinker showed the graph of casualties/ probability of being killed by another man, he compared US & Europe with different indigenous peoples. I look at the life goals of the indigenous people compared to ours. If your main focus is to be a hunter-gatherer and there are other tribes around competing for the same resources, it is likely you will run into each other and have a potentially violent encounter. However, today we meet people different from us all the time. We don’t kill them just because they’re from a different place than us. We instead interact with them on many levels, not just the primal need for food and shelter.
In order to deter groups from attacking, people will publicly announce their dominance (don’t mess with us). Pinker points out that this only works if you back it up and follow through with threats. Another side of the deterrence is to preemptively strike your neighbors before they strike you. This form of defense doesn’t seem like it would be much help, because you instead might become somewhat paranoid and then just piss off the other groups anyway. Then, as Pinker mentioned, you may develop the cycle of vendettas, constantly getting each other back for the last attack.
As far as Pinker listing statistics of death rates, I believe it is difficult to compare current numbers to the numbers of the 19th century as they may not be the most accurate records. I do agree when he said today’s record keepers are much more accurate and visible to make these occurrences of violence known. I think in looking at all these numbers together, it does seem that technically there is less violence today as far as the sheer number of lives lost. However, I see that there are many more wars or feuds happening around the world ongoing all the time. The difference is today, we have the technology to be aware of those things happening, and so we are witness to so much more violence every day. Sure, there was a ton going on hundreds of years ago, but it was not so readily available to us to be witness to at any point in time.
I think his speech speaks on the later years, but doesn't consider the fact that our population was smaller back then, and the different groups that were slaves. It also seems as though he's speaking more on the "killing" aspects of violence and not considering fist fighting, which if a poll was taking for every fist fight that happens in every school in the world, I believe the percentage would turn out higher than the violence statistics for back then. Of course violence is reported much better in this day and age than back in the 1400's (other earlier centuries also). But not all violent acts are reported today still, and I believe there are more ways to commit violent acts today then there was back then. How man prisons are there in the United States? Does he consider how much violence goes on inside of the prisons? They don't put violent acts that happen inside of prisons on the news, because nobody outside of prison really cares as long as it's not affecting their lives.
I don't believe that we should be heartened that it is "said" that violence is falling, because I don't believe it is. Having family in some of the roughest cities in the United States, I know that there are a lot of murders and other violent acts that don't go reported or documented when they happen. No I don't believe that injustice to one is injustice to all, because not every race or ethnicity can understand what the others go through. Caucasians can't completely understand what African Americans go through in this country where African Americans can't understand what hispanics go through even though they are both minorities in this country. When Segregation and the violent acts that came with it were going on, there were whites that were not racist at that time and were all for desegregation, but even though they were nice and supportive of blacks, they still could never feel the pain and suffering that they went through during the process. Those are just a few examples. But after taking this class and understand everything that is considered as violent that I didn't know before, I honestly do not believe that we are living in the most peaceful time of our existence, let alone that violence is decreasing. I just don't see it.