The 'Violence of Humanity' Narrative is Wrong
‘Humanity is inherently sinful, evil, and culpable for the all that’s wrong with the world,’ says the religious authority.
‘Right,’ replies the secular liberal.
Wait…what?
It is the lament of too many of my fellow liberals that we are such a violent, self-destructive species, so malignant cancer on the Earth, that the sooner we go extinct, the better.
Better for whom?
For every other living thing, of course.
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To me, this attitude reeks of the ‘fallen man’ narrative of the Levantine religions.
I’m so sick of hearing it.
Is it wrong?
Of course it is.
What makes you think you know?
Who is this questioning me? Is it a pro-secular liberal or a religious authority? Can’t tell, can you? Does that depress you as much as it does me?
Let’s start with the facts.
Why Our Assessment is Wrong
First, as a species we are not the hyper-violent assholes that we appear to be on the news.
In fact, we are living in the least violent era of our history. For proof, I direct your attention to Steven Pinker’s book, ‘The Better Angels of our Nature.’
Who is Steven Pinker and why should I believe anything he wrote?
Steven Pinker is a Canadian-born U.S. experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist, and popular science author. He is a Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. (Wikipedia)
I think that means he has the requisite expertise to venture an informed opinion on the subject.
If violence is less prevalent now than it has ever been before, why does it seem like the opposite is true?
Two reasons, according to Pinker.
First, our exposure to violence though our ever-increasing access to information of all sorts, means that, today, we are exposed to incidents of violence more than we were yesterday, or last month, or last year. Why violence? Because peace isn’t buzzworthy unless it’s new.
This hardly gives us a complete and unbiased view. Things seem worse than ever.
Second, our tolerance for violence is getting lower every day.
Most humans today are sickened by a level of violence that our parents’ generation accepted as inevitable and normal. Our grandparents accepted even more severe violence as a natural part of the human condition, and so on. The farther back one goes, the higher the level of violence that was deemed acceptable.
That means we are getting better. Almost all of us.
Better, not worse.
