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Violence In Steve Pinker's The Better Angles Of Our Nature

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In The Better Angles of Our Nature, Steve Pinker uses extensive evidence to document that violence on Earth has declined over time. Bothe war and violent crime cause less suffering to the average human being than they did before. But he also shows that the decline has not been monotonic. He documents that the vast majority of war deaths are caused by great-power wars. Pinker explain the idea of long-peace, which decline violence. The period of the end of the second world war in which “the great power, and developed states in general, have stopped waging war on one another.” As a result of “this blessed state of affairs,” he notices two entire categories of war, the imperial war to acquire colonies, and it no longer exist. Pinker mentioned …show more content…

In addition, Pinker mentioned one theory of violence that supports his view is the “leviathan” theory. When there is a higher power making sure that everyone plays nice, violence is low. As people gradually learn to appeal to the authority rather than to settle their disputes between themselves, which requires doing preemptive violence to build up a fierce reputation. Beside God, there is no authority on Earth more powerful than great power countries, currently, the U.S., China and Russia. Therefore, when these countries fight, there is no one to stop them. And when they focus on war between each other, they are also unable to police the weaker nations. So, “leviathan theory” explains why great-power wars not only cause titanic amounts of destruction, but also lead to lasting rises in violence. Finally, through this theory we can tell how higher power countries are less to have wars between each other because they will destroy the all universe. Even thought, the future is unknown, which make it difficult to guarantee that no war will happens, but today the people are more educated and open mind based on the globalization, which kept the world connected and more wise in their

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