The Optimist's Handbook: A Taster

Violence (the decline of)

It’s easy to get the impression that we live in a more violent world but our perception of actuality can be distorted by our fear - or the cynical determination of those in politics and the media to make us fearful.

Any statistics can be challenged and those to do with risk and probability must always be treated with caution and are always subject to local variations - anyone who has lived through a war or been the victim of a violent crime may find it hard to find comfort in the larger picture.

But the facts seem to show that there are fewer violent conflicts than there once were and that the world, in general, has become less dangerous.

The Human Security Report, published in 2005 by a group of researchers based at the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, concludes that there has been “a dramatic, but largely unknown, decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuse over the past decade… the single most compelling explanation for these changes is found in the unprecedented upsurge of international activism, spearheaded by the UN, which took place in the wake of the Cold War.” The report writers note that human security is not the same as national security, a distinction our leaders often fail to make.

Chris Anderson of TED also believes that violence is diminishing: “Percentage of males estimated to have died in violence in hunter gatherer societies? Approximately 30%. Percentage of males who died in violence in the 20th century complete with two world wars and a couple of nukes? Approximately 1%. Trends for violent deaths so far in the 21st century? Falling. Sharply.”

Historical comparisons are useful, says Stephen Pinker, to remind us that we are, in general less brutal: “Cruelty as popular entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, genocide for convenience, torture and mutilation as routine forms of punishment, execution for trivial crimes and misdemeanors, assassination as a means of political succession, pogroms as an outlet for frustration, and homicide as the major means of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. Yet today they are statistically rare in the West, less common elsewhere than they used to be, and widely condemned when they do occur.”

We don’t know what has gone right, says Pinker, because we’re more interested in asking ourselves “why is there war?” instead of “why is there peace?” There are probably many answers: battle fatigue after two world wars and totalitarian experiments; the spread of democracy with its non-violent methods of preventing confrontation; our better understanding of psychology; the increase in communications making our fellow human beings seem real to us; wider and stronger trading links; improved living standards that we are reluctant to put in jeopardy even temporarily in order to fight a war. Or perhaps we’re at last getting the message that violence produces victims but no long-term winners.

Last updated January 2008.
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