Summary Of The Surprising Decline In Violence By Steven Pinker

In the TED talk, The Surprising Decline in Violence, speaker Steven Pinker discusses how, despite the common belief that humans have been incredibly violent in modern times, violence has actually declined significantly over time, and that we are “probably living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.” It can be viewed on both a micro-level and macro-level. In “Perceptions Haven’t Caught Up to Decline in Crime,” a New York Times article written by Justin Wolters, he presents data given by the F.B.I. that shows a great decrease in violent incidents per 100,000 people from 1993 to 2012. Seth Borenstein, writer of the Huffington Post article, “World Becoming Less Violent: Despite Global Conflict, Statistics Show Violence In Steady Decline,” discusses findings in Pinker’s book that show that the number of people killed in battle has decreased 1,000-fold over hundreds of years. In this talk, Pinker discusses two concepts about human/social behavior: people are inherently violent and always have been; humans have gradually become more empathetic and put a greater value on life today.

In the bible, there are several passages describing men raping and pillaging villages, as well as slaughtering innocent civilians. There are also passages that describe people being put to death for acts that would not be considered criminal in many societies today (idolatry, blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, etc.). In medieval times, stealing a loaf of bread could result in you being put to death or subjected to other cruel forms of capital punishment. Crimes that would normally result in minimal punishment today would have led to your hand or ears being cut off in medieval civilization. It is for these reasons that this concept