A decline in violence?

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/11/qa-steven-pinker-0

I've seen this guy's book linked to on some libertarian-leaning sites, crediting a supposed decline in violence worldwide to the state and capitalism (he's not the first to attempt that connection). In this interview he mentions Marxism, though:



I think that communism was a major force for violence for more than 100 years, because it was built into its ideology—that progress comes through class struggle, often violent. It led to the widespread belief that the only way to achieve justice was to hurry this dialectical process along, and allow the oppressed working classes to carry out their struggle against their bourgeois oppressors. However much we might deplore the profit motive, or consumerist values, if everyone just wants iPods we would probably be better off than if they wanted class revolution.

:sleep:

[jake williams]

Ugh Steven Pinker is such a tool.

"As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_unrest) following a police strike in 1969 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot)."

[citizen of industry]

Horseshit. The world is filled with violence. According to the WHO:


One person commits suicide about every 40 seconds, one person is murdered every 60 seconds and one person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds This from 2009.

I could add that 1 in three women are beaten or sexually abused during their lifetime.

All this under good ol' imperialism. Seems to me capitalism is the most violent force humanity has ever seen. Looking at the two world wars, the reason why the 20th century has such a high death toll comparitively, I don't find communism at the root.

[Skooma Addict]

Horseshit. The world is filled with violence. According to the WHO:

This from 2009.

I could add that 1 in three women are beaten or sexually abused during their lifetime.

All this under good ol' imperialism. Seems to me capitalism is the most violent force humanity has ever seen. Looking at the two world wars, the reason why the 20th century has such a high death toll comparitively, I don't find communism at the root.

You communists greatly simplify capitalism. Countries which you just brand as "capitalist" have different economic and social policies. Yes, these policies do make a big big difference.

[Lynx]

Less to gain from the use of violence? Tell that to the nation states that rule the world.

[Ocean Seal]

Read the title:
The violent dangers of ideology...
Realized that it would be a piece of bourgeois masturbatory: let's hold hands and not let the extremists win, and made this post.
Yep, I'm pretty sure I can almost predict what it had to say. Either the Stalin/Mao stuff or the look at those ruffians smashing windows.

Actually, I went back and skimmed through, and I was wrong. Its both the Stalin/Mao stuff and the ruffians smashing windows.


Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny

BTW anarchists and authoritarian socialists can unite here to say fuck him.

What a piece of idiocy, does he not realize that his democratic country was until recently engaged in three wars.

[Os Cangaceiros]

All this under good ol' imperialism. Seems to me capitalism is the most violent force humanity has ever seen. Looking at the two world wars, the reason why the 20th century has such a high death toll comparitively, I don't find communism at the root.

I think that the toll of WW1, WW2 and the cold war was off-set from the population growth during that century...

I'm more interested in how accurate one can actually measure rates of violence in antiquity.

[black magick hustla]

i dont know man, the periphery is embroiled in civil wars. i think the only reason in his favor is that there hasnt been a true inter imperialist war since wwii.

[Os Cangaceiros]

A couple people have mentioned (including in the comments section of that interview) that perhaps one of the only reasons there hasn't been another huge conflict involving major powers is the fact that few people actually want to see what a nuclear war looks like. And that's not exactly a testament to enlightenment ideals or reason, IMO.

[Kenco Smooth]

A couple people have mentioned (including in the comments section of that interview) that perhaps one of the only reasons there hasn't been another huge conflict involving major powers is the fact that few people actually want to see what a nuclear war looks like. And that's not exactly a testament to enlightenment ideals or reason, IMO.

The nuclear peace theory fails as an explanation in various ways.

Firstly is the fact that the development of more and more deadly weapons has never braked the march to war before. Indeed Alfred Nobel had claimed that "dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace". Clearly no such thing happened. The fear that poison gas dropped from airplanes could put an end to civilization and human life was a very real one in the 1930s yet it failed to prevent the build up to war.

The theory also fails to explain why countries which do not possess nuclear weapons have foregone war over the latter half the the twentieth century. It is unable to explain for example why the 1995 dispute over fishing rights between Canada and Spain didn't escalate into violence, or why the 1997 dispute between Hungary and Slovakia over damming the Danube never escalated into war when such disputes have often resulted in open conflicts or at the very least violent and destructive saber-rattling .

Also there's no reason to presume the notion of a nuclear war was so terrifying that it took completely different form than fears of a conventional modern war. The second world war showed that conventional warfare could reap unthinkable harm in terms of human life. Why would it be fear of Nuclear weapons and not simply conventional weaponry if the long peace is built upon fear?

Finally the idea of a nuclear peace seems to fall down when one considers that most of the wars involving Nuclear equipped nations involve non-nuclear nations provoking or at the least failing to surrender to the nuclear nations (quick note that I'm not saying they should have surrendered, simply that the notion of a nuclear peace suggests they would have). North Korea, North Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Panama and Yugoslavia would most likely have never defied the USA if there was even a possibility that their respective capitals would have been reduced to steaming radioactive wastelands. The complete taboo on the use of nuclear weapons, meaning no sane nation would use them in the face of anything less than an existential threat, removes them as an effective deterrent in any real way.


Horseshit. The world is filled with violence. According to the WHO:

This from 2009.

I could add that 1 in three women are beaten or sexually abused during their lifetime.

All this under good ol' imperialism. Seems to me capitalism is the most violent force humanity has ever seen. Looking at the two world wars, the reason why the 20th century has such a high death toll comparitively, I don't find communism at the root.

Do you not see what's wrong with trying to argue against the fact that there's been a decline in violence by stating the fact that violence still exists? Frankly it's ridiculous.

The very worst annual homicide rate in recent US history was 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980. that's a quarter of the rate for Western Europe in 1450, a tenth the rate of the traditional Inuit and a fiftieth of the average rate in non-state societies.

[robbo203]

The very worst annual homicide rate in recent US history was 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980. that's a quarter of the rate for Western Europe in 1450, a tenth the rate of the traditional Inuit and a fiftieth of the average rate in non-state societies.


I seriously question this claim. Where is the hard evidence to back it up. Pinker's whole thesis is appallingly sloppy and ill considered in my view - certainly as far as stateless societies are concerned

Rather than go through a point by point rebuttal Ill post here somethimng I posted on another forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldincommon/message/12147

------------------------------------------------
Without wanting to romanticize the "noble savage" I have to say I am skeptical of Pinker's thesis and part of the reason for my skepticism is revealed in the very words Pinker uses - namely "as opposed to the tribal process of retaliatory attacks and revenge murders". This is to equate hunter gatherer societies with tribal societies. Thats just not true. Tribal societies are merely a form of HG society known as complex HG societies and are quite different in structure from simple HG societies which are segmentary lineage band societies. I suspect most if not all of the evidence upon which Pinker bases his claims relate to complex HG societies not simple HG societies which existed far far longer than than the former and were the primordial form of social organisation of our species

On the difference between band societies and tribe societies see here

http://anthro.palomar.edu/political/pol_2.htm


Also check out this article:

http://soar.wichita.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10057/1889/LAJ%2029_p6-15..pdf?s\
\
equence=1 (http://soar.wichita.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10057/1889/LAJ%2029_p6-15..pdf?sequence=1)

and note this passage and the reference to warfare:

"This could possibly be the first step in the emergence of social
differention(Price and Brown 1985: 11). Increased territorial behavior was
identified by increased boundary defense. Warfare may have become a consequence of this boundary defense. Finally, there was also the rise of a hierarchical system that was often denoted by wealth and dietary differences (Price andBrown 1985: 12)."

In this connection look also at Tim Flannery's TV series "The Future Eaters"
particularly the middle film on the Maoris

http://www.abc.net.au/science/future/

Many moons ago on this forum this matter was discussed and I remember then posting something about it. Being a bit of a lazy sod, Ill just copy and paste that post below

Cheers Robin
----------------------------------------------------------
I think the evidence concerning hunter-gatherer violence is indecisive. You
cannot really make sweeping geneneralisation in my view. The myth of the warlike savage was mainly invented by Europeans to justify conquest and european expansion . However, this myth gave raise to another - the noble savage of the Romantics which was a backhanded criticism of emerging industrial capitalism.

Some HG groups like the Hiwi in Venezuela do exhibit high levels of violence
which has been much commented upon'; other like the !Kung and the Mbuti are charcterised by very low levels of violence and strong cultural disapprobation of volience. Kevin Duffy in Children of the Forest: Africa's Mbuti Pygmies contends that the Mbuti, "look on any form of violence between one person and another with great abhorrence and distaste, and never represent it in their dancing or play acting"

You also have to distingush between different kinds of HG societies - namely simple HG societies and complex HG societies. Check out this site for further elaboration :
http://foragers.wikidot.com/complex-forager-societies.

Complex HG societies as the introduction says are "characterized by the presence of elites, social inequality, warfare, and specialization of tasks". I suspect it is this form of HG society that data concerning high rates of violence refers to. These societies are, I think, transitional forms on the way to, if not yet, fully formed institutionalised class based societies. They were chiefdoms.

Simple HG societies were quite different. Pinker who if Im not mistaken bases his evidence of high levels of violence - 15 - 60% of males - in HG societies on research findings provided by individuals like the archeologist Lawrence Keeley. But even Keeley in his War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage referring to simple HG societies notes that "Truly peaceful agriculturalists appear to be somewhat less common than pacifistic
hunter-gatherers." and that "some of the most peaceful nonstate societies in the world had very low population densities… Most of these peaceable groups prevented intergroup disputes and conflicts from escalating into armed violence by fleeing from their adversaries. But this option can be exercised only under conditions where possessions are portable and essential resources, however scarce, are widely distributed." This option can be exercised less and less frequently as societies become more sedentary and populous. Simple HG societies by contrast were highly mobile and all their worldly wealth was portable.


A final point to bear in mind is whether one can legitimately make a sweeping statement about hunter gathering as a way of life based on the evidence of current HG societies. This is the evidence that Pinker uses to reach his startling conclusions but it is surely unrealistic to assume that after 500 years of colonalism and genocide the praxis of existing HG societies would remain unaffected. Constraints on the nomadic way of life - the imposition of political borders and the creation of special reserves - are just a few of range of different kinds of influences that would affect HG societies. I say nothing of booze and the bible.

There are also environmental factors as well. I remember reading Colin Turnbulls classic work "The Mountain People" years ago which was an introductory text for the anthropology course I was doing. This was a study of the near total social disintergration of a society and its whole value system under the impact of extreme drought. Extended families broke up and drfited apart. The very old and the very young were abandoned and some instances left to die. I cant remember the exact details as its such a long time since I read the book but it does go to show that you cannot really make a judgment on HG societies without taking into account the specific context in which they operate. Rates of homicide for
example may say less about the nature of the society in question than external factors like drought that are brought to bear upon it.

The apparent warlike character of present day Maori culture , for example
stems,from the period when game became increasingly scarce through over hunting. HG societies can adapt and acquire new charactertics and I suggest the impact of europeans could well have head a similar effect leading to increasing levels of violence which people like Pinker cite as evidence for the essentially violent nature of HG societies.

Anyway thats just my ha'pennysworth...

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've seen this guy's book linked to on some libertarian-leaning sites, crediting a supposed decline in violence worldwide to the state and capitalism (he's not the first to attempt that connection). In this interview he mentions Marxism, though:

Well the first problem with his arguments (and analogous ones) is that it looks at violence (or any human behavior) in the abstract, as inherent percentages of human behavior. One of his book titles, "The Blank Slate" apparently argues that human behavior stems from "psychological adaptations" whatever that means. I think it probably means, that "capitalist greed" is a beneficial evolutionary adaption and all of our behaviors today stem from scratching out a living in pre-history. A synthesis of the "human nature" argument with social-Darwinism? I don't know and probably wouldn't be bothered to read his stuff beyond this interview.

The second, related, problem is what is violence in the abstract? Are we talking about organized killing for territory or people getting in fights over ill feelings or jilted lovers etc? They guy who wrote "Guns Germs and Steel" makes a similar argument to Pinker's that law and order, "states" have made daily life more safe even though it has increased organized mass warfare. It's a more nuanced version of this argument and his evidence is all the tool-inflicted wounds found in ancient grave-sites and the oral traditions of remaining band societies. No doubt life was harder, smaller injuries more deadly and I'd even buy that people brawled more in the past before you could easily pick up something kill someone with some sharp iron.

But on the whole, I'd have to see some really convincing evidence to say that daily life was more violent in older kinds of societies. The reason for this in band societies is because if you are living in subsistence and gathering food, then more labor is better than stealing someone's little extra daily amount of food. There is no surplus in society to control (even if you took it all, it'd rot before you could eat it) no settled agricultural land to protect or raid. People may have fought over territories, but usually these early societies were so sparse that it's much easier to move on and collect more food then wage a battle over land that's essentially up for grabs anyway.

If your society is based on agriculture, however, then you have a surplus, you need armed men to protect that surplus, you need some people to count and keep track of that surplus and you can "steal" the labor of others to create surplus for you. Now there is concrete reasons to fight and take from others or fight to your death to protect your whole family's ability to maintain itself (ag land). If your society is based on trade, then you don't need other people to help with labor, in fact anyone else is a competitor and so you might as well burn down a village of other trappers so that the French have to come to you. This is why contact between some band societies and europeans changed the nature of those band societies even if on the surface the band still kept all the traditions. If your social base goes from a more egalitarian, "we all have to work together to keep the band going" life to "My family can get more tradeable goods if there was less competition from other families in this area where I catch and skin animals". Even good anthropologists without an overt agenda have often looked at the surface of , say, native American band life, and said, "the types of clothes and stories and language and traditions are the same as the archeological records of similar bands from 100 years before the Colombian exchange, so how they live now must be the same" and yet the whole social basis of that band has changed and their behaviors and interests along with it.

So violence is not a question of human nature - at least that's not the defining part of the equation since human societies (and relative levels of violence) have changed much more rapidly and frequently than our biology has in the same amount of time. So from a materialist perspective, the question of violence is whose violence and for what purpose and why? Which then takes you to Marxism which would argue that violence in society is related to the means of production and who controls and organizes it. In other words violence in modern society created by the ruling class to "steal" another country or enforce trade rules or a friendly government are not related to interpersonal violence of stealing someone's cell phone or enforcing your personal will onto someone else. That interpersonal violence may be less or more, but there's no question that as class societies advanced the tended to need more repression and violence to maintain their order both internally and externally.

The author claims that that kind of violence is due to ideology, but then strangely also claims there's a relationship between religion and violence, but religion doesn't cause it... so some ideologies cause violence, but some specific forms of ideology don't really? Weird.

[NGNM85]

ramBFRt1Uzk

[Caj]

I just read a review of this book by Edward S. Herman about 5 minutes ago. He referred to it as "a propaganda windfall for the leaders and supporters of the U.S. imperial state[.]" I haven't read it (yet), but based solely on the review, it seems like an accurate description.


"As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_unrest) following a police strike in 1969 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot)."

:rolleyes:

I remember reading this. He clearly had no understanding of anarchism as a teenager.