The Better Angels of Our Nature

Why Violence Has Declined

By: Steven Pinker

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

“If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this - the most inspiring book I've ever read." - Bill Gates (May, 2017)

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year

The author of Enlightenment Now and The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives - the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away - and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2011 by Steven Pinker. (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Excellent Book All Over

I was quite pleased with this entire title. It proposes a very interesting point and attacks it head on. The way that it was brought across by the narrator was very pleasing to the ears. Overall a very nice production with some excellent points overall.

The argument that Violence has declined over time is one that I personally thought was a given if one were to think of it. Being a fan of Renaissance History it appeared to me that violence had declined. The author though uses this as well as a number of other points to brings across his point as to why this is so, using other factors such as religion, standard of living, etc. to provide insight on this fact.

The book has A LOT of information (useful information mind you) but it is a lot of information to process and I think this plays up it having a lot of replay value.

Judeo Eurocentrism hurt it...

While I like Steven Pinker's thesis and I agree that violence has gone down over time, I do not agree with a lot of his causation and some of his fact collection. The irony is that he put down Cultural Anthropology in chapter 1, yet this very thing could have saved him from fact errors. This Judeo Eurocentrism hurts his thesis, though it need not to. (His gaffe where he said "Muslim countries"... is an example of Judeo-Christian Ethnocentrcism. There are followers of Islam in the US and they aren't all violent.) Since I collected 20+ such errors, I will give a specific example of where looking outside of Western culture should have given him clues to real causations.

For example, he attributes the civil rights movements to the invention of the printing press, making works more available to the public. First off, Gutenberg did not invent the printing press anymore than Edison invented the light bulb or Bell wholly invented the telephone by himself--that is an easy fact to look up. Gutenberg invented adjustable brackets. Chinese invented the printing press and wood block printing, Koreans invented movable type (In the form of clay). Scholars in both countries for a long time were encouraged to learn to read and write. South Korean enjoyed a higher literacy rate than the US for longer at 99%. Yet, despite having both a printing press and a high literacy rate since the 1443 (which was when hangeul was invented), torture was still in place for a long time. And despite having a democracy, there are still some civil liberties that are currently not in place in South Korea. (which one would get from reading outside of the Western world. In which case, I would say the change in subsistence pattern and putting civil liberties into that of the state instead of the individual, would be the correct assumption--but such things take time because industrialization is a hard thing to handle and catch up with. Again, anthropology would help here.) I would propose instead of literacy rate or the printing press, it was freedom of speech that helped the civil rights movements in Britain, the United States, South Korea and Japan. This would account for the loss of civil liberties in such countries as North Korea in current times, despite the high literacy rate (99% literacy rate, BTW.), printing press and the potential for democracy. (Also accounts for Rome, Athens, Sparta and other city-states in Greece who were democratic and certainly literate with often extensive records.) It's the first amendment and something that at least *my* high school history classes covered extensively as one of the leading factors to civil change. It was the first civil liberty fought for. If one gets killed for speaking out, then the ability to speak to a larger audience becomes inconsequential and it won't reach anyone, especially if the government is regulating it. You can see this with the advent of using Twitter and Facebook to liberate Egypt and other parts of Africa--it's more the ability to speak out, organize and publish without the government looking over ones shoulder that causes civil change.

It's the little dropping of inaccurate facts that frustrated me--such as Witchcraft died because of the "Age of Reason" which is really unreasonable--it's Neolocal communities that do not have witchcraft beliefs. Many mobile forager groups do not have witchcraft beliefs and it is not to the degree that it was in Europe--with a little research he could have found that. (Éva Pócs' paper on witches, you find that out in undergraduate Anthropology class, Magic Witchcraft and Religion) In addition, early advances in science, like it or not were often tied to religion and following religion. Wallace, Darwin, Issac Newton and Linnaeus pursued science as a kind of devotion to Christianity. It's convenient for many people to skim over this in contemporary times since the division between religion and science became a strict line in around the 1930's. (I point this out, though I'm neither religious, nor a Christian.)

For these errors I knock off two stars because while his thesis is really good, it makes me cringe to hear so many inaccuracies. I hope that in the future, he reads outside of Europe--it's difficult, but not that hard given the way we are more and more connected to other countries and peoples--which I would attribute to the new civil liberties movements and the more liberal thinking minds of the younger generation. It's harder to say you hate all Z's if you happen to be acquainted with someone or someone of someone who is a Z and you didn't know it.

BTW, Japanese are perfectly civilized with picking up their soup bowls and drinking the broth while slurping (Move Tampopo.) And contrary to popular belief, there are civil rights movements for women and other groups. I find Japan very civilized with its manners and rules of conduct.

I should note I have the same issues with the Language Instinct... only examine outside of English and mostly Indo-European languages when it was convenient to support the thesis, rather than read and examine other languages completely outside of that scope and use it to fact check the base thesis.

The performance, however, is excellent, so I gave that 5 stars... giving this audiobook overall 4 stars.

Excellent

First of all, superb narration. I don't think any one else could have presented this book so well. Morey made this book come alive in an interesting way. Pinker, of course, penned a wonderfully eloquent masterpiece but it might well have nosedived with a different narrator. I loved this book and a few close friends will be receiving a copy from me for Christmas.

Thank you for writing this!

I get very tired of the doomsayers who talk about how grieved God must be by our horrible society today.. I have said for a long time, there is a lot of good in this world, it's not all bad.. This book talks about why our society is actually better than it used to be.. It describes the kind of violence the world used to experience, and despite so much bad press about all the horror in the world these days, we are actually a kinder, more loving, less violent society than yesteryear.. Finally, someone has pointed out we aren't as horrible as you might believe..
Great listen.. it will leave you with the feeling that we aren't all that bad! It will give you hope for a better tomorrow and help you to appreciate our society a little better... I'm going to listen to it again...

Uplifting

Would you consider the audio edition of The Better Angels of Our Nature to be better than the print version?

A good thing about the print edition is the pictures and charts. But the audio edition is excellent nonetheless.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Well, there aren't exactly characters in this book. But I think Yahweh (God) with his genocidal spree, and Lancelot with his killing spree, deserve to be mentioned.

What about Arthur Morey’s performance did you like?

His voice is very clear and sober. He sounds like an experienced scholar. It matches the style of the book very well.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

I got some: there is no pattern in the temporal distribution of wars; every single form of human killing has systematically decreased (although we can't guarantee that for the future); economic relationships, democracy and information access were fundamental to decrease violence in the past and still are.

Any additional comments?

This book is really long, but it is worth every minute! Pinker explores many interesting topics to approach violence. As a scientist, he not only provides the evidence but also criticises his own conclusions. And, to top it all off, he provides great references for further reading.

mankind evolving

This is an unbelievably erudite book. It covers the entire history of mankind and most of the history of social sciences and science
There are 2 premises. That people are becoming more civilized thanks to the control of the Leviathan (Big brother). In other words individual man is evil but thanks to the benevolent big brother-democratic government-people are getting better. This is the exact opposite position to say, Ayn Rand and other Libertarians. To be honest not only is Dr. Pinker' s argument counterintuitive, but also hogwash. The problem is that Dr. Pinker starts with a premise and then bends every statistic and social science article he can find to support his view. He does reference the World War 1 and 2 and Stalin, Hitler and Mao, but calls them blips on the screen and statistical aberrations Needless to say I was not convinced by his casuistry.. On the other hand the same argument was made over 100 years ago by Alfred North Whitehead whom he fails to acknowledge once in this voluminous Tome.
The second premise is more interesting-That man is evolving into a more intelligent and gentler being.- A better angel. This argument is more persuasive but less well documented.
At least here I would hope that there is truth.

Life-changing

Probably the most uplifting, attitude-changing book I have ever read. Pinker makes a very strong case for how the world is getting less violent and predatory, how empathy and cooperation are slowly replacing the old, terrible ways we humans treat each other. A must-read!

Wonderful book!!

This was my first Pinker book, but I can HIGHLY recommend it!!! This is one of those books that will stay with you forever.

Wonderfully written and researched.

The sheer volume of research, facts, figures, and view points presented is an astonishing feat.

To any naysayer who wishes for the glory days of old they have only a romanticized fiction inside their minds.

Not only does this book give compelling logical arguments on the decline of violence but every notion put forth is further backed up by statistical research

Truly one of the most impactful, balanced, and well written books I have ever experienced.

Read to understand and reduce human suffering

A commitment worth making to a great work of technical writing. Pinker structures his arguments to draw in the reader throughout the book.