Does Better Angels of Our Nature Hold Up as History

Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature defends Norbert Elias’s “civilization thesis”: the idea that violence has declined gradually in human societies over the millennia. As history, however, Pinker’s defense is flawed. First, the data gathered by historians do not show long-term declines in individual or collective violence. Second, the historical forces that Pinker believes have suppressed violence can also increase violence, depending on historical conditions. And third, neurology, endocrinology, and primatology may contribute more in the long run than evolutionary psychology to the understanding of the history of human aggression

Aggression · Archaeology · Civilization · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · History of science · Primatology · Sociology · Anthropology · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sociology and Norbert Elias

• Is War in Decline

  Open Access•Tanisha M Fazal•Annual Review of Political Science•2025

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