Thank you for all of this, Natalia. I may try to get the book. I've read
Pinker's "The Blank Slate" in which he argues that we are programmed at birth
to learn language and all kinds of things that comprise socio-cultural
behavior. I may try to get "The Better Angels...".
Ed
________________________________
From: D & N <darna...@shaw.ca>
To: "RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION"
<futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 9:54:08 PM
Subject: [Futurework] was: OMG OMG...is now "peaceful" times we live in
The discussion between Ray and Steve, with Ray briefly mentioning that war may
include peace, but does not include the essential peace process, reminded me of
a CBC radio one talk show today on human nature, with one author speaking of us
as naturally warring, and the other insisting that warring people are
culturally influenced. Couldn't get either party's name because I was in and
out of the car as the show went on.
Tried to search it on CBC website, but found this guy's book
instead. He may have been the one I found rather interesting. Both
positive and negative reviews included at the end.
Perhaps some of you have already read it?
Natalia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature
(The book title refers to some quote by Lincoln.)
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a 2011 book by
Steven Pinker arguing that violence in the world has declined both in the long
run and in the short, and suggests explanations why this has happened.[1]
The phrase "the better angels of our nature" stems from the last words of
Lincoln's first inaugural address. Pinker uses the phrase as a metaphor for
four human motivations that, he writes, can "orient us way from violence and
towards cooperation and altruism,"[2] namely: empathy, self-control, the "moral
sense," and reason.
Thesis
Pinker presents a large amount of data (and statistical analysis thereof) that,
he argues, demonstrate that violence has been in decline over millennia and
that the present is probably the most peaceful time in the history of the human
species. The decline in violence, he argues, is enormous in magnitude, visible
on both long and short time scales, and found in many domains, including
military conflict, homicide, genocide, torture, criminal justice, and the
treatment of children, animals, racial and ethnic minorities, and gay people.
He stresses that "The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth; it has not
brought violence down to zero; and it is not guaranteed to continue".[3]
Pinker argues that the radical declines in violent behavior that he documents
do not result from major changes in human biology or cognition. He specifically
rejects the view that humans are necessarily violent, and thus have to undergo
radical change in order to become more peaceable. However, Pinker also rejects
what he regards as the simplistic nature versus nurture argument, which would
imply that the radical change must therefore have come purely from external
("nurture") sources. Instead, he argues: "The way to explain the decline of
violence is to identify the changes in our cultural and material milieu that
have given our peaceable motives the upper hand".[4]
Pinker identifies five "historical forces" that have favored "our peaceable
motives” and “have driven the multiple declines in violence.”[2] They are:
* The Leviathan - The rise of the modern nation-state and judiciary
"with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force,” which “can defuse the
[individual] temptation of exploitative attack, inhibit the impulse for
revenge, and circumvent…self-serving biases.”
* Commerce - The rise of “technological progress [allowing] the
exchange of goods and services over longer distances and larger groups of
trading partners,” so that “other people become more valuable alive than dead”
and “are less likely to become targets of demonization and dehumanization”;
* Feminization - Increasing respect for "the interests and values of
women.”
* Cosmopolitanism - the rise of forces such as literacy, mobility, and
mass media, which“can prompt people to take the perspectives of people unlike
themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them”;
* The Escalator of Reason - an “intensifying application of knowledge
and rationality to human affairs,” which “can force people to recognize the
futility of cycles of violence, to ramp down the privileging of their own
interests over others’s, and to reframe violence as a problem to be solved
rather than a contest to be won.”[5]
Etc._______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
