In his lecture Monday night, Steven Pinker said that violence has been on the decline since World War II. Seemingly equal ratio of adults and students filled Ryan Auditorium to hear Pinker give his lecture, “A History of Violence,” the first in NU’s Contemporary Thought Speaker Series. Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard University and a best-selling author of multiple books on the decline of violence in recent times. He spent much of the lecture explaining statistics that prove the amount of violence in the world has decreased in the last century. After his lecture, Pinker took questions from the audience, most of which implied a disbelief in the decline in violence. Check out the highlights after the jump.
On the numerous crimes punishable by death in 18th century England:
“There were 222 capital offenses including poaching, counterfeiting, robbing a rabbit warren, and being seen with gypsies.”
On the decline in violence in the 20th century:
“Since 1946, there have been 0 wars between the US and the USSR, 0 deployed nuclear weapons, 0 wars between the Great Powers, 0 wars between Western Europe, and 0 wars between developed countries.”
On the decrease in matricide being greater than the decrease in uxoricide since the women’s rights movement:
“The women’s rights movement has been very very good for husbands.”
On the effect of intelligence on violence:
“People and societies with higher intelligence are more classically liberal.”
On the impact of one violent person:
“If Hitler had been gassed a little more thoroughly during World War I, then there might’ve never been World War II or the Holocaust.”
On the increasing fear of terrorism sweeping the US:
“A person is far more likely to die by drowning in a bathtub than by a terrorist attack.”
On the increasing emphasis on violence in the media and how it is used to promote nonviolence:
“No one ever gained adherence to a cause by saying ‘things are getting better.’”
Amen. We’re so fucking lucky to live in the modern world and it seems like fewer and fewer people really appreciate how far we’ve come (including, often, myself). Just 60 years ago Douglas MacArthur was proposing a series of nuclear strikes across China in response to the Korean War. Just 30 years ago you couldn’t walk the streets of New York without being legitimately fearful for your life. Now I can take the subway at 4am and think nothing of it.
Progress.