I've read a lot of the discussions regarding Pinker's work in both books (but particularly his position in Better Angels), and I've always found his position to be slightly disconcerting.
Pinker attempts to make a specific argument, that violence has decreased over time.
Violence is not a first order phenomenon at a social scale - it's presence is predicated upon the existence of other key criteria, largely the existence of conflict within or between societies.
Better Angels indicates that violence has gone down, but does not sufficiently set out the basis to indicate that conflict is being better managed over time. If anything, it indicates that conflicts are being 'won' as the winners are increasingly able to ignore the plight of the losers.
On the micro-scale, in law we've been faced with a tremendous crisis - that of Access to Justice. In short, the courts are simply too expensive for normal people to avail themselves of, outside specialty practices like family or traffic issues. The result being that the majority of people do not actually have the ability to enforce their legal rights. The response of most legal institutions has been to decry the issue, then do nothing substantive to solve it.
We can pretend things are getting better but absent thinking about what 'better' means maybe the lid on the boiling pot is just getting heavier faster than the heat is being turned up.
Pinker attempts to make a specific argument, that violence has decreased over time.
Violence is not a first order phenomenon at a social scale - it's presence is predicated upon the existence of other key criteria, largely the existence of conflict within or between societies.
Better Angels indicates that violence has gone down, but does not sufficiently set out the basis to indicate that conflict is being better managed over time. If anything, it indicates that conflicts are being 'won' as the winners are increasingly able to ignore the plight of the losers.
On the micro-scale, in law we've been faced with a tremendous crisis - that of Access to Justice. In short, the courts are simply too expensive for normal people to avail themselves of, outside specialty practices like family or traffic issues. The result being that the majority of people do not actually have the ability to enforce their legal rights. The response of most legal institutions has been to decry the issue, then do nothing substantive to solve it.
We can pretend things are getting better but absent thinking about what 'better' means maybe the lid on the boiling pot is just getting heavier faster than the heat is being turned up.