1. Technology makes violence less needed. Today North Korea can monitor its citizens, make them rat out each other and only torture and kill a handful of them to keep its grip on power. In earlier ages such fine tuned control wasn’t technologically possible. The tyrant had to wait until a province or village tried to rise up and then slaughter them by the millions.

2. We have only a very short blip of history that can be described as ‘modern’, say from the 1700′s onwards and even then that’s only the tiny portion of the world. Ever declining rates of violence might simply be one leg of a perpetural cycle of ups and downs.

3. A somewhat related possibility; a certain amount of violence is caused by material depreviation, ignorance, unsophisitication etc. As those things disappear, the violence they cause disappears. But once you’ve achieved that level of work, you’re still left with some core level of violence that you won’t get rid off by just making things more ‘enlightened’. Think of height. The average height of people has been going up over the last 100 plus years as living conditions improve. Yet it’s simply not the case that humans will grow to infinite height by just being able to eat more and more fresh meat and veggies and having better antibiotics. At some point the declining violence trend may bottom out and stay there rather than continuing to go down just as the increasing height trend tops out.

The quote I found interesting from that link:

…why did Pinker not include the tens of millions who died in some of the most vicious and deadly examples of twentieth- century warfare? In his discussion of “our most peaceful age,” he makes no mention of the Rape of Nanking, the entire Pacific theater of World War II (including the detonation of two nuclear bombs over Japan), the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s killing fields in Cambodia, several consecutive decades-long wars in Vietnam (against the Japanese, French, and Americans), the Chinese revolution and civil war, the India/Pakistan separation and subsequent wars, or the Korean war. None of these many millions are included in his assessment of twentieth-century (male) war fatalities.

Nor does Pinker include Africa, with its never-ending conflicts, child soldiers, and casual genocides. No mention of Rwanda. Not a Tutsi or Hutu to be found. He leaves out every one of South America’s various twentieth-century wars and dictatorships infamous for tor- turing and disappearing tens of thousands of civilians. El Salvador? Nicaragua? More than 100,000 dead villagers in Guatemala?

The US is a better comparision. During the Civil War it raised a military greater than any in Europe. That gives us 145 years or so. If you consider the US a successor to the British Empire, then you have at least a few centuries of history to compare to the Roman Empire.

While the Roman Empire was no Nazi Germany or even Stalinist Russia, it doesn’t compare very well to modern times. And the world would be many more times as bloody today if it followed Rome as the model.

But then again its not clear that the ‘rates of violence’ really tell the story. It’s a fair criticism that advances make a lot of violence unnecessary. For example, today an occupier has a lot of high tech tools at his disposal to suppress rebellions and insurgencies. If Rome had that maybe they wouldn’t have used the ’10% policy’ as much as they did.

They did not rape and pillage

Er… well, the most you could say is “they did not rape and pillage” as much.

The main strength of what is presented there is for the last 65 years. Of course, the Pax Americana has reigned during that time, Europe having exhausted itself during WWII. The graphs show another downturn in 1990. I would link that to the collapse of the Soviet Empire. So we know the immediate causes of the limited peace of the last 65 years.

The USSR collapsed in the 1990′s but still had a huge amount of firepower. Several serious wars were fought between the Communist bloc and the US between the late 1940′s through the 1970′s, the death rate due to war was still less than WWII and previous eras. It certainly wasn’t the case that they lacked the ability or weapon firepower to do much more killing. It’s been about 20 years now since the USSR collapsed and despite areas of instability, 9/11, the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq the world still appears much more ‘mellow’ than it did in previous eras.

You’re right that this may just be a tiny blip in the data. 65-100 years is a very tiny sample compared to human history spanning maybe 5,000 + years. But then if the world has made a major shift, we’d only have 65 years or so of data. Imagine a prediction made about new religions in 165 AD

Centurian Pinker has written a new scroll arguing that Christianity will be the main religion of Europa for the next thousand years. He bases this on projections from its currently high rate of growth. But he only has maybe 50 years of data and we can say this obscure Jewish sect has seen its growth because putting down the revolution in Israel has spread Jewish thinkers throughout the Empire. No doubt it will soon burn itself out. The religion with little connection to traditional polytheism of either Roman or Greek origins, from a rather obscure backwater tribe which was barely noticed as our expanding Empire rolled over them has little hope of sustaining its growth. Now if you wanted to bet on future religions my boy, bet on Zoroastrianism. This fast growing religion comes right out of Persia, smack in the middle of the vast network of commerce over the silk road between the Roman Empire and China. Perfectly placed to spread with commerce to become the first global religion. Buy shares of it now!

Patrick

They were certainly cruel: in a newly conquered territory, 10% of the population would be executed in order to discourage rebellion. But it was exactly 10%. They did not rape and pillage, but conquered orderly and methodically.

The population of the USSR in 1991 was about 293M. Just say the US military had defeated the Soviet military in 1990 and conquered all of the USSR. If it had applied the above, ‘orderly’ principle, they would have killed 29,300,000 civilians methodically for no other purpose than as an insurance policy against possible rebellion. If Hitler killed 6M Jews then the US would have had to have done nearly 5 times that if it was operating at the same rate as the ‘enlightened’ Romans.

Also, I think you’re friendly view of Roman Power applies only to its more easy conquests. Look at what they did when they ran into more serious opposition, Carthage for example was completely destroyed. That wasn’t the case for West Germany or Japan. It wasn’t even the case for East Germany and the Soviet bloc in Europe (and the USSR had more reason to be pissed at Germany than Rome had for being pissed at Carthage).

I think the ‘Pax Americana’ theory is pretty much refuted by the history of Rome. When Europe had a hedgemon it was still pretty violent. Simply having a single great power controlling large areas rather than numerous small nations does not ensure peace and non-violence.

Be that as it may, the industrialization of war undermines the faith in rationalistic progress that Pinker adheres to….

well there’s two questions at play here. The first is Pinker right that we have become less violent as a species. The second is why? Pinker may be right on the first but partially right or wrong on the second. For example, I could come up with a evolutionary hypothesis that has nothing to do with the enlightenment. As humanity advanced its knowledge of technology, ‘war mongering’ genes got selected out. Why? Because nations filled with war mongering leaders and people got exactly what they wanted, wars, and advancing tech. ensured that they got wiped out by wars. What’s left was a more peaceful gene pool that has fewer wars for the same reason Europe hasn’t seen any serious plagues since the Black Death. The genes for being vulnerable to plague all got wiped out when the Big Plague came to town.

A couple of points. First, it was a point of pride for Roman soldiers to be well-trained, disciplined, dispassionate, and precise professionals. The Roman army virtually invented military organization, clear rank structures, standardized uniforms, etc. They were certainly cruel: in a newly conquered territory, 10% of the population would be executed in order to discourage rebellion. But it was exactly 10%. They did not rape and pillage, but conquered orderly and methodically. Moreover, they did so based on the theory that people would be better off under Roman rule, not out of racial hatred. Many of the generals and emperors of the later empire came from peripheral provinces, so they must have learned to appreciate Roman government.

Be that as it may, the industrialization of war undermines the faith in rationalistic progress that Pinker adheres to. Merely increasing our powers of reason, without correction by religion, does not necessarily lead to a better world. For every advance we make in medicine, transportation, and material comfort, there is a corresponding advance in our ability to kill and destroy.

The main strength of what is presented there is for the last 65 years. Of course, the Pax Americana has reigned during that time, Europe having exhausted itself during WWII. The graphs show another downturn in 1990. I would link that to the collapse of the Soviet Empire. So we know the immediate causes of the limited peace of the last 65 years.

Graphs going back from there are suspicious in my mind. One in particular stands out. It plots the 100 worst wars of known human history. WWII is only among the worst. Why? The metric is deaths per 100,000. For WWII we know the number of deaths within 10s of millions. At least, the highest figure is within 100% of the lowest proffered by historians. For ancient history, the battle estimates are, not infrequently, known only within an order of magnitude. To put it simply, the data presented is widely varying in its quality. Even given the apples and oranges data measured by a curious yardstick, the trend — except for the last 65 years — looks distinctly flat.

I agree with some of Pinker’s context. We as individuals seem no less violent in the heart than we ever have been. The Pax Americana may be a temporary fluke. But, put gently, his comments that the perceived trend derives from civilization and enlightment seem facile at best.

Could you point me to the relevant sections? I searched for Dresden, Tokyo, and fire bombing and found none of them.