Stephen Pinker reminds us that a certain important kind of irrationality is on the decrease -- violence.
Despite recently publicized warfare and civil strife, statistics reveal a rather astonishing decline in violence throughout recorded history. How have humans tamed their warlike drives? Pinker is optimistic...
Optimism on Peace -- by Stephen Pinker
Harm is caused by indifference and hate/anger/violence. The primary problem is indifference which most certainly is not decreasing. Certainly the opposite.
Violence is a (generally dysfunctional) response to the perception of harm caused by indifference. Violence is decreasing because of a greater power divide. When you've no hope of 'success' at using force to right perceived wrongs then people just don't bother trying to right perceived wrongs.
To only look at violence instead of the bigger picture which is tied to it (isolation, unhappiness, life expectancies, poverty, length of work week, etc) is to hopelessly muddle any possible worthwhile understandings.
Posted by: emphryio | Jul 18, 2009 at 02:05 PM