Steven Pinker: Humans are less violent than ever
Steven Pinker: Humans are less violent than ever
Pessimists, anti-capitalists, conservatives and greens, take note – we are much more peaceful now than we used to be, says the psychologist
Interactive graphic: The 20 worst things people have done to each other
What got you interested in the history of violence?
I was struck by a graph I saw of homicide rates in British towns and cities going back to the 14th century. The rates had plummeted by between 30 and 100-fold. That stuck with me, because you tend to have an image of medieval times with happy peasants coexisting in close-knit communities, whereas we think of the present as filled with school shootings and mugging and terrorist attacks.
Then in Lawrence Keeley’s 1996 book War Before Civilization I read that modern states at their worst, such as Germany in the 20th century or France in the 19th century, had rates of death in warfare that were dwarfed by those of hunter-gatherer and hunter-horticultural societies. That too, is of profound significance in terms of our understanding of the costs and benefits of civilisation.
