The Better Angels in Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes
| Date | 01 May 2012 |
| Published date | 01 May 2012 |
| Author | Douglas Bulloch |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2012.00186.x |
The Better Angels in Our Nature: The Decline of
Violence in History and Its Causes by Stephen Pinker.
London: Allen Lane, 2011. 832 pp., £30.00 hardback, 978
1846140938
The question of violence is addressed in many different
ways in the social sciences, but rarely is the engagement
so multifaceted or polysourced as in this thick volume.
Stephen Pinker attempts to demonstrate that, far from
the conventional wisdom, violence is diminishing, and to
all intents and purposes, this has been a continuous pro-
cess for hundreds of years. What is more, he presents a
great deal of evidence in support of his thesis. The book
has chapters devoted to different forms of violence, from
war all the way down to petty crime, and examines sev-
eral social and political contexts in which violence was
or is endemic and how this was overcome. The result is
an impressive and compelling, even perhaps iconoclastic,
work that provides a great deal of food for thought, par-
ticularly for social scientists. One extremely important
omission is any mention of ‘structural violence,’ however,
this does not ultimately detract from an otherwise exten-
sive synthesis of a wide range of academic literature. In
fact it allows for some lateral research directions to
emerge, for this book is as important for what is only
implied as for what is directly stated.
The main thesis will prove uncomfortable for many,
particularly in international relations, and there is no
question that it reconstructs a basic liberal sensibility on
the question of historical progress. Furthermore, there
are some parts of the analysis that are fairly anecdotal. It
is, however, a very big topic, and the general argument
is rhetorically reinforced, at least, by the anecdotes. The
hard data that is brought to bear on the problem is
largely restricted to the era of modernity, but it is none-
theless pretty conclusive on the issue of the decline of
direct violence.
On the question of structural violence, it is left to the
reader to conclude that much of the decline in direct
violence has been driven by institutional processes that
have turned the commonality of direct violence into the
restraint of violence held in reserve by legitimate actors.
These institutional processes are associated with the mo-
nopolisation of violence through the agency of the state,
the gradual emergence of law governed states and the
rise of democratic accountability within those states.
Pinker’s description of these processes as ‘civilizing’ will
ruffle a few feathers, as will the notion that European
imperialism served as a vector for the spread of these
civilizing norms, but it is language borrowed from Nor-
bert Elias, and is – at least – refreshingly direct.
The later chapters of the book bring Pinker back to his
familiar ground of psychology, providing a sophisticated
parallel explanation for the broad social and historical
description of the earlier parts. Pinker’s views on the
subject of human nature are rather more complex than
he is often given credit for, but it is nevertheless surpris-
ing that a proponent of the importance of human nature
in explaining social phenomena has produced a work
that argues so strongly for the significance of social insti-
tutions, civilising processes, and just plain old humanism
in making the 21
st
century a much safer and happier
place in general than is commonly understood. Not
everyone will agree with him, but this book should at
least provoke some interesting responses. It is certainly
good enough to demand them.
Dr Douglas Bulloch
Dr Douglas Bulloch is Visiting Fellow in International
Relations, LSE and Affiliated Scholar, Shanghai School of
International Relations.
Zoopolis: a political theory of animal rights by Sue
Donaldson and Will Kymlicka. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011. 325 pp., £18.99 hardcover, 978 0199599660
Most books advocating animal rights build their case
from first principles. In Zoopolis: a political theory of ani-
mals rights Donaldson and Kymlicka instead attempt to
describe the correct moral relationship between animals
and political communities. Taking as their starting point
that the argument for animal rights has been won, they
argue that viewing humans as merely having duties of
non-maleficence towards non-human animals is unreflec-
tive of the reality of our shared lives. Indeed, they claim it
is both possible and desirable for humans and non-
humans to live mutually enriching lives whilst interacting
in a variety of different ways – ways that respect the fun-
damental rights of animals. The moral dimensions of
these different interactions, they assert, can best be cap-
tured by finding analogues between human and animal
situations and applying familiar political models to them.
Thus, they seek fair terms of cooperation between politi-
cal communities and wild animals by granting them
sovereignty rights; domesticated animals are to be con-
sidered citizens of the nation state; and those ‘liminal
animals’, such as pigeons, urban foxes, mice, and so forth,
that live alongside humans but not with them, are to be
accorded a denizenship status similar to that of long term
migrants or opt out communities such as the Amish.
Donaldson and Kymlicka’s contribution builds upon
attempts by others to extend justice to non-human
animals in an original and compelling manner. They
convincingly demonstrate that theories of animal rights
lacking a political component are inadequate, and that
traditional citizenship theory wrongly excludes many
potential coauthors in the destiny of democratic
Reviews 255
Global Policy (2012) 3:2 ª2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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