The Decline of Violence

If you watch a lot of TV, and most of us do, you'd probably be surprised to hear what Steven Pinker has to say on the topic of violence in the modern world. After all, the amount of violence we see on a daily basis is astounding. Wars, terrorism, violent crimes—these things permeate the news. So when renowned Harvard evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker published his book "The Better Angels of Our Nature," and extensively documented how low rates of violence in modern environments are, he was opening our eyes to the true state of affairs when it comes to violence across human history.

Earlier this month, along with about 200 rogue academics and students who are passionate about evolutionary psychology, I was fortunate to attend the 9th annual meeting of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS) in Boston. The conference had many highlights—with one such highlight certainly being a keynote address by Dr. Pinker held in Boston's Old Meeting House. What this venue lacked in acoustics, it made up for in historical value. You see, a long time ago, General George Washington rallied the continental troops in that very room. Ironically, in the midst of a bloody, violent war. Having one of the world's most renowned academics rally a bunch of evolutionary psychologists at the start of an intellectually riveting conference in this same room was kind of a nice touch. Not to mention that Dr. Pinker's hair bears some resemblance to that of our first president!

In any case, as any good academic talk should do, this talk really got people thinking. The main thesis that Dr. Pinker presented is essentially this: In spite of the extraordinary amount of violence we are exposed to via the media all the time, it's in fact the case that we are living a time of relative pacifism. When rates of violence, as marked by such indices as murder rates per thousand people in a given population, are plotted across time, the pattern is clear—there has been an extraordinary drop since such records have been kept. Even the massive death tolls associated with the two great World Wars hardly begin to approach the levels of violence found centuries ago. Sometimes you need to hear a major talk by an elite academic to realize just how good we have it!

Sure, violence is hardly down to zero—and war is likely to continue to be a constant feature of our kind—but for several reasons documented in detail by Dr. Pinker (such as the emergence of large nations that include millions of people with shared interests and governments), the data are clear—we are living in a time of unprecdented pacifism. Regardless of what you might see on the news!

Evolutionary Mismatch is Not All Bad

As an evolutionary psychologist (see Geher, 2014), I've perhaps been guilty of overstating the liabilities of evolutionary mismatch—at least a bit! In a nutshell, evolutionary mismatch refers to situations in which modern contextual factors (such as modern food offerings that are highly processed) mismatch ancestral conditions (when processed foods (and concentrated sugars, etc.,) were not present). Yes, I still stand by the fact that there are many such mismatches that permeate our world—and I've published several pieces (such as one on 10 important evolutionary mismatches) speaking to this point. And evolutionary mismatch is a major problem in such realms as physical health, mental health, education, and politics.

This said, in his awesome keynote address at the NEEPS conference in Boston, Dr. Pinker got me to see the bright side of evolutionary mismatch! For the most part, folks like you and I don't have to worry about day-to-day violence like our ancestors did. Tribal warfare in my world is more likely to have to do with guys arguing about the rivalry between the Yankess and the Red Sox—and less to do with groups of young men from the other side of the mountain coming to plunder and kill my friends and family in a battle for territory and scarce resources.

And you know, that's not such a bad thing! I guess evolutionary mismatch isn't all bad—thanks to Steven Pinker for getting me to see that so clearly!

References

Geher, G. (2014). 10 Ancient Rules We Should All Live by Today. Psychology Today blog.

Geher, G. (2014). Evolutionary Psychology 101. New York: Springer.

Pinker, S. (2012). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Penguin.