The Better Angels of Our Nature

The Better Angels of Our Nature Plot Summary

Introduction

Throughout human history, violence has been a constant companion to our species. From tribal warfare to modern conflicts, the story of humanity seems written in blood. Yet beneath this grim narrative lies a surprising and counterintuitive truth: violence has been steadily declining over the centuries. This pattern of decreasing brutality represents one of the most significant yet underappreciated developments in human history. This book explores the remarkable journey of humanity's gradual taming of violence across different historical epochs. We'll examine how tribal societies once experienced casualty rates from warfare that would dwarf modern conflicts, how medieval Europe slowly developed norms and institutions that reduced interpersonal violence, and how the Enlightenment fundamentally transformed attitudes toward cruelty and human rights. The evidence presented challenges our common perception that we live in uniquely dangerous times, offering instead a more hopeful perspective on human progress. For anyone interested in understanding the true arc of human history, the forces that shape civilization, or the prospects for continued peace in our world, this exploration provides essential insights into our collective past and potential future.

Chapter 1: Violent Beginnings: Prehistoric Human Aggression

The story of human violence begins in our distant past, long before written records. Archaeological evidence from prehistoric sites tells a sobering tale - violence was commonplace among our ancestors. Excavations reveal human remains with clear signs of violent trauma: skulls fractured by blunt force, bones with embedded arrowheads, and skeletons bearing the unmistakable marks of torture and execution. Contrary to romantic notions of peaceful prehistoric societies, anthropological studies indicate that hunter-gatherer groups engaged in frequent warfare. In some prehistoric communities, as many as 15% of deaths resulted from violent conflict - a rate far higher than in modern societies. These early conflicts weren't formal battles with armies but rather raids, ambushes, and massacres where one group would attack another, often at dawn, killing the men and abducting women and children. The violence of prehistoric societies stemmed from practical concerns. Competition for scarce resources like hunting grounds, water sources, and fertile land drove much conflict. As philosopher Thomas Hobbes theorized, without a central authority to maintain order, humans existed in a "state of nature" where life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Archaeological evidence largely supports this view, showing that violence was a rational strategy in environments where resources were limited and no higher authority existed to resolve disputes. These early patterns of violence weren't merely random acts but followed predictable patterns that evolutionary psychologists have identified. Young men, particularly those seeking status and reproductive opportunities, were the primary perpetrators and victims. Violence served as both a means of resource acquisition and a deterrent against future attacks. Groups developed strong in-group loyalty and out-group hostility, psychological adaptations that persist in modern humans despite our vastly different social arrangements. The violence of our prehistoric ancestors wasn't the result of inherent human wickedness but rather emerged from specific conditions: the absence of centralized authority, competition for resources, and the strategic advantages that violence sometimes provided. Understanding these foundations helps explain why violence has declined as human societies developed more complex social and political arrangements that changed these underlying conditions.

Chapter 2: The Pacification Process: Early States Monopolize Force (5000 BCE-1600 CE)

The first major decline in human violence came with the transition from hunter-gatherer bands and tribal societies to the first agricultural civilizations and eventually to organized states. This process, which began around 5000 BCE with the Agricultural Revolution and continued through the rise of the first empires, represents what can be called the Pacification Process - the first systematic reduction of violence in human history. Archaeological evidence tells a compelling story. When comparing skeletal remains from pre-state societies with those from early state societies, we see a dramatic drop in violent trauma. Studies show that the percentage of deaths attributable to violence fell from an average of 15% in hunter-gatherer societies to approximately 3% in the earliest state societies. This represents a five-fold decrease in the likelihood of dying violently - the first major step in the long decline of violence. The key development driving this pacification was the emergence of the first centralized authorities with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. As Hobbes theorized, when people live under a common power that keeps them "in awe," they have less incentive to engage in private violence. Early states, while often brutal in their own ways, suppressed the endemic raiding and feuding that characterized tribal life. A citizen of ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia faced far less danger from neighbors than did members of stateless societies where vendettas and blood feuds were common. This pacification came at a cost. Early states were typically not democratic but despotic, with rulers using violence to maintain control. Paradoxically, the state's monopoly on violence reduced overall violence while creating new forms of it: public executions, torture of criminals, and military conscription. Citizens traded the constant threat of tribal violence for the more predictable violence of the state. Archaeological evidence from early cities shows fewer signs of interpersonal violence but more evidence of structured, state-sanctioned violence. The economic transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture also played a crucial role. While hunter-gatherers competed in zero-sum games for finite resources, agricultural societies could produce surpluses, enabling positive-sum interactions through trade and specialization. As people became interdependent through economic exchange, they had greater incentives to cooperate and resolve conflicts peacefully. The merchant had more to gain from trading with foreigners than from killing them. By the 1600s, most human beings lived under some form of state authority, dramatically reducing their chances of dying violently compared to their stateless ancestors. This pacification process represents the first major chapter in the decline of violence - not because human nature changed, but because new social arrangements channeled human nature in less destructive directions.

Chapter 3: The Civilizing Process: Medieval to Modern Europe (1200-1800)

Between the late Middle Ages and the 18th century, Europe underwent a remarkable transformation that the sociologist Norbert Elias called "the Civilizing Process." During this period, homicide rates in European countries plummeted by a factor of ten to fifty - from approximately 30-100 homicides per 100,000 people annually to just 1-2 per 100,000 in the most peaceful regions. This dramatic decline represents one of history's most significant reductions in violence. The transformation began with the consolidation of political power. Europe's fragmented feudal territories gradually coalesced into larger kingdoms with centralized authority. Knights and warlords who once engaged in constant private warfare were brought under royal control, and their violent impulses were channeled into court politics and military service. The "king's peace" extended to previously lawless regions, and royal courts of justice replaced private vengeance as the primary means of settling disputes. Alongside political centralization came an economic revolution. Medieval Europe's zero-sum economy, based primarily on agriculture and plunder, gave way to a positive-sum economy built on commerce, finance, and technological innovation. As people became more interdependent through trade networks, they developed stronger incentives for cooperation. A merchant had more to gain from maintaining peaceful relations with trading partners than from engaging in violence that would disrupt commerce. Perhaps most fascinating was the psychological transformation that accompanied these structural changes. Elias documented how standards of behavior changed dramatically during this period. Medieval etiquette books reveal a society where people routinely engaged in behaviors modern readers would find shocking: eating with hands, spitting indoors, relieving themselves publicly, and discussing bodily functions openly. By the 18th century, these behaviors had become taboo, replaced by more refined manners emphasizing self-control and consideration for others. This wasn't merely a superficial change in etiquette but reflected a profound psychological shift. People developed stronger internal controls over their impulses, including violent ones. The medieval personality, characterized by emotional volatility and quick resort to violence, gave way to a more self-regulated temperament. As Elias put it, behaviors that were once "second nature" to medieval people became repugnant to their early modern descendants. The civilizing process spread unevenly across Europe, with the decline in violence beginning earliest in England and the Netherlands before gradually extending to other regions. By 1800, Western Europe had transformed from one of history's most violent regions to one of its most peaceful, setting the stage for further declines in violence in the centuries to come.

Chapter 4: Humanitarian Revolution: Enlightenment Reshapes Values (1650-1900)

The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed a remarkable transformation in how Western societies viewed violence and human suffering. This Humanitarian Revolution, driven by Enlightenment thinking, led to the abolition of practices that had been commonplace for millennia: judicial torture, cruel punishments, religious persecution, witch hunts, slavery, and dueling. The change wasn't merely in laws but in moral sensibilities - practices once taken for granted became viewed as barbaric and unconscionable. At the beginning of this period, violence was woven into the fabric of European society. Public executions were festive occasions where crowds gathered to watch criminals being broken on the wheel, burned alive, or drawn and quartered. Torture was a routine part of judicial proceedings. Heretics and witches were systematically persecuted and killed. Slavery was accepted as natural and necessary. By the end of the 19th century, most of these practices had been abolished or drastically curtailed throughout the Western world. The intellectual foundation for this transformation came from Enlightenment thinkers who challenged traditional justifications for cruelty. Philosophers like Cesare Beccaria argued that punishment should deter crime, not satisfy vengeance, and that torture was both inhumane and ineffective. Montesquieu, Voltaire, and others used reason and empathy to question practices previously justified by tradition, religion, or necessity. Their writings circulated widely in the emerging "Republic of Letters," influencing both public opinion and government policy. The spread of literacy and reading played a crucial role in this humanitarian awakening. The 18th century saw an explosion in book publication and the rise of the novel as a popular form. Works like Samuel Richardson's "Pamela" and "Clarissa" invited readers to empathize with characters unlike themselves, potentially expanding their circle of moral concern. As the historian Lynn Hunt has argued, reading novels about diverse characters may have exercised people's capacity for empathy, making them more sensitive to the suffering of distant others. Economic and political changes reinforced these humanitarian sentiments. The growth of commerce created a society where cooperation was more valuable than domination. The rise of democratic ideals made it harder to justify treating any category of humans as inherently less worthy of consideration. And the declining power of religious authorities made it more difficult to justify cruelty in the name of God. By the late 19th century, the Humanitarian Revolution had transformed Western moral sensibilities. Practices once seen as necessary and just had become symbols of barbarism, and new institutions embodying humanitarian values - from abolitionist societies to the Red Cross - had emerged. Though violence certainly hadn't disappeared, a new moral framework had been established that would continue to shape attitudes toward violence into the modern era.

Chapter 5: The Long Peace: Great Power War Becomes Obsolete (1945-Present)

Following the devastation of World War II, something remarkable happened: the great powers of the world stopped fighting each other. This "Long Peace," as historian John Gaddis termed it, represents an extraordinary departure from historical patterns. For the first time since the emergence of modern states, the most powerful nations have gone decades without engaging in direct armed conflict with one another. The statistics are striking. From 1600 to 1945, hardly a year passed without the major European powers being at war with one another. On average, these powers fought each other in some combination every 3-4 years. Yet since 1945, there has not been a single direct war between any of the great powers - no war between the United States and the Soviet Union, between France and Germany, or between China and Russia. This absence of great power war represents the longest such period in modern history. The most obvious explanation for this peace was the development of nuclear weapons. The prospect of mutual assured destruction made direct conflict between nuclear powers potentially suicidal. As Winston Churchill observed, "Safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation." Yet nuclear weapons alone cannot explain the Long Peace. After all, countries have often gone to war despite facing catastrophic risks, and nuclear deterrence hasn't prevented all conflicts involving nuclear states. Deeper structural changes in the international system also contributed to this unprecedented peace. The spread of democracy created what political scientists call the "democratic peace" - the observation that established democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with one another. Economic interdependence through global trade made war between major trading partners increasingly costly. International institutions like the United Nations, while imperfect, provided mechanisms for resolving disputes without resorting to force. Perhaps most profoundly, attitudes toward war itself changed. The glorification of military conquest, once a staple of national cultures, gave way to a view of war as a tragedy to be avoided. As the historian James Sheehan has argued, European states transformed from "war states" to "civilian states" that derived their legitimacy not from military prowess but from providing security and prosperity to their citizens. The Long Peace has not meant global peace - civil wars, proxy conflicts, and smaller interstate wars have continued. But the absence of great power war has prevented the kind of catastrophic violence that characterized the first half of the 20th century. Whether this peace represents a permanent change in international relations or merely a temporary respite remains an open question, but its duration and depth already mark it as one of history's most significant declines in organized violence.

Chapter 6: Rights Revolutions: Expanding the Circle of Empathy (1960-2000)

Since the mid-20th century, a series of interconnected social movements have dramatically reduced forms of violence and oppression that were once commonplace: racial discrimination, domestic abuse, cruelty to children, violence against women, persecution of sexual minorities, and mistreatment of animals. These "Rights Revolutions" represent a profound expansion in humanity's circle of empathy and concern. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States serves as a paradigmatic example. In the 1950s, African Americans in many states faced legally sanctioned discrimination, routine violence, and systematic exclusion from political participation. Through nonviolent protest, legal challenges, and moral appeals, civil rights activists transformed American society. Lynchings, which had claimed thousands of Black lives in previous decades, virtually disappeared. Legal segregation was dismantled. While racial inequality persists, the most overt forms of racial violence have declined dramatically. Similar transformations occurred regarding violence against women. Practices once considered private matters - domestic abuse, marital rape, sexual harassment - were reconceptualized as serious crimes. Between 1993 and 2010, rates of domestic violence in the United States fell by more than 60%. Other Western countries saw similar declines. These changes resulted from feminist activism, legal reforms, changing cultural attitudes, and economic shifts that increased women's independence and options. Children, too, benefited from this expansion of moral concern. Corporal punishment, once universal in schools and homes, has been increasingly restricted or banned outright in many countries. Child abuse and neglect, previously ignored as family matters, became the focus of protective services and criminal prosecution. Child labor, once economically necessary, has been largely eliminated in developed nations and significantly reduced worldwide. The rights revolution extended to sexual minorities as well. Homosexuality, criminalized throughout much of the 20th century, has been decriminalized in most developed nations. Violence and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals, while still problematic, have declined substantially in recent decades as cultural attitudes have shifted toward greater acceptance. Even non-human animals have been included in this expanding circle of concern. Cruel practices in animal agriculture, scientific research, and entertainment have faced increasing regulation and opposition. While billions of animals still suffer in human systems, the recognition of animal welfare as a legitimate moral concern represents a significant shift in ethical thinking. These rights revolutions share common features: they reframed violence against marginalized groups as moral problems rather than natural or necessary conditions; they used both legal reform and cultural persuasion; and they expanded the application of universal principles of dignity and rights to previously excluded groups. Together, they represent one of history's most significant reductions in violence and suffering.

Chapter 7: Psychological Transformation: How Minds Changed Toward Peace

The historical decline in violence reflects not just changing institutions but evolving psychological tendencies within human beings. Our minds contain both "inner demons" that drive violence and "better angels" that promote peace, with the balance between them shifting over time as different faculties are activated or suppressed by cultural and environmental factors. The psychological roots of violence begin with predatory tendencies - the willingness to harm others for personal gain. Humans, like other primates, possess neural circuits for aggression that can be triggered by opportunities for exploitation. Dominance is another powerful driver, particularly among males, who evolved to compete for status and resources. Our brains contain testosterone-sensitive regions that specifically process dominance challenges, explaining why insults often trigger violence among young men. Revenge represents perhaps the most common psychological trigger for violence. Experiments show that people experience genuine pleasure (visible in brain scans) when punishing those who have wronged them. This revenge instinct evolved as a deterrent against exploitation but easily spirals into cycles of retaliation. The "moralization gap" - where perpetrators minimize their offenses while victims maximize them - further fuels these cycles, as each side believes justice demands further retaliation. Yet humans also possess psychological faculties that counter these violent impulses. Empathy allows us to experience others' suffering vicariously, creating powerful inhibitions against harming them. Self-control enables us to override aggressive impulses in favor of long-term interests. Our moral sense generates rules against violence that we internalize and enforce. And our capacity for reason helps us recognize the futility of certain conflicts and develop institutions that reduce their likelihood. Historical declines in violence have occurred when social arrangements amplify these peaceful faculties while dampening violent ones. The spread of literacy and commerce expanded people's circle of empathy beyond immediate kin and tribe. Stronger governments reduced the need for violent self-help justice, allowing self-control to flourish. Changing moral norms delegitimized many forms of violence previously seen as acceptable. And the application of reason to social problems led to institutions designed specifically to prevent conflict. Psychological research confirms these historical patterns. Studies show that people with stronger cognitive abilities and better self-control commit fewer violent crimes. Experiments demonstrate that taking another's perspective increases empathy and reduces aggression toward them. And cross-cultural surveys reveal that societies emphasizing self-restraint and universal moral principles experience less violence than those emphasizing honor and tribal loyalty. The psychological dimension of violence reduction offers both hope and caution. Our capacity for peace is as deeply rooted in human nature as our capacity for violence, suggesting that peaceful societies aren't fighting human nature but channeling it. Yet our violent impulses remain part of our psychological makeup, ready to reemerge when social conditions change. The challenge for modern societies is to maintain and strengthen the social arrangements that have allowed our better angels to prevail over our inner demons.

Summary

The decline of violence across human history reveals a profound yet counterintuitive truth: despite the headlines that bombard us daily with images of war, terrorism, and crime, we are living in the most peaceful era our species has ever known. This decline hasn't been steady or uniform - it has occurred in fits and starts, with horrific reversals along the way - but the overall trajectory shows an unmistakable downward trend in virtually every form of violence, from warfare and homicide to domestic abuse and cruel punishments. This transformation didn't happen by accident. It resulted from specific historical processes: the emergence of states with monopolies on legitimate violence; the growth of commerce that made positive-sum cooperation more valuable than zero-sum conflict; the spread of literacy and reason that expanded empathy and challenged traditional justifications for cruelty; the development of international institutions that reduced the incentives for war; and the expansion of rights to previously marginalized groups. These developments didn't change human nature - we still carry the same capacity for violence as our ancestors - but they changed the incentives, opportunities, and norms surrounding violence. The lesson is both humbling and empowering: peace isn't our natural state, but neither is violence inevitable. The structures we build, the values we promote, and the choices we make can either unleash our worst tendencies or channel our energies toward cooperation and mutual flourishing. Understanding this history gives us both hope and responsibility - hope that further progress is possible, and responsibility to preserve and extend the institutions and values that have made our world, for all its problems, far less violent than the worlds of our ancestors.

About Author

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Steven Pinker

Steven Arthur Pinker is a prominent Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and author of popular science. Pinker is known for his wide-ranging explorations of human nature and its relevance to language, history, morality, politics, and everyday life. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and is the author of numerous books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and most recently, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.He was born in Canada and graduated from Montreal's Dawson College in 1973. He received a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from McGill University in 1976, and then went on to earn his doctorate in the same discipline at Harvard in 1979. He did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a year, then became an assistant professor at Harvard and then Stanford University. From 1982 until 2003, Pinker taught at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, and eventually became the director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. (Except for a one-year sabbatical at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995-6.) As of 2008, he is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard.Pinker was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and one of Prospect and Foreign Policy's 100 top public intellectuals in 2005. He has also received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Surrey, Tel Aviv, McGill, and the University of Tromsø, Norway. He was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, in 1998 and in 2003. In January 2005, Pinker defended Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University, whose comments about the gender gap in mathematics and science angered much of the faculty. On May 13th 2006, Pinker received the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year award for his contributions to public understanding of human evolution.In 2007, he was invited on The Colbert Report and asked under pressure to sum up how the brain works in five words – Pinker answered "Brain cells fire in patterns."Pinker was born into the English-speaking Jewish community of Montreal. He has said, "I was never religious in the theological sense... I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew." As a teenager, he says he considered himself an anarchist until he witnessed civil unrest following a police strike in 1969. His father, a trained lawyer, first worked as a traveling salesman, while his mother was first a home-maker then a guidance counselor and high-school vice-principal. He has two younger siblings. His brother is a policy analyst for the Canadian government. His sister, Susan Pinker, is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the author of The Sexual Paradox and The Village Effect. Pinker married Nancy Etcoff in 1980 and they divorced 1992; he married Ilavenil Subbiah in 1995 and they too divorced. He is married to the novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, the author of 10 books and winner of the National Medal of the Humanities. He has no children.His next book will take off from his research on "common knowledge" (knowing that everyone knows something). Its tentative title is: Don't Go There: Common Knowledge and the Science of Civility, Hypocrisy, Outrage, and Taboo.

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