Peace through Caring, Caring through Empathy, Empathy through Media

[Yarn]

It is argued by, among others, Stephen Pinker in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature that one of the sources for reduced rates of violence over the past several centuries has been that modern media, something which has been on the rise since the Gutemburg press was invented, fiction and much nonfiction alike extolls us to put ourselves into other people's shoes and therefore come to appreciate the world from their perspective. In contrast, historically we were unable to do this because modes of mass communication were very limited and most space was reserved for religious purposes. True interpersonal understanding was therefore limited to close acquaintances and was therefore primarily present only for family and friends. And it has indeed been scientifically shown that while only people in some cultures, i.e. advanced ones, display universal sympathy towards the suffering of anyone, all cultures display sympathy towards family and friends. This latter tendency makes evolutionary sense because it protects those individuals with whom you share the most DNA or else with whom you have the greatest symbiosis. If Pinker were right, it would be logical to suppose that modern morality is the result of an innate instinct for compassion for those closest to you expanding into compassion for all of humanity.

OF course, mass media can be used to dehumanize strangers as well as to humanize them. In this former capacity, it was largely responsible for much of what was worst with fascism and communism. However, especially as of late, the dehumanizing form of mass media seems dead and gone in most places at most times. Western Europe is now the most peaceful place in all of human history, with homocide rates as low as 1/100,000 and no internal wars.

[barts]

I wonder, Yarn, if Pinker is confusing correlation with causation. Could as valid an argument be made that the apparent relative peace since World War II is a consequence of increased literacy and the increase in women's participation in civil society? Perhaps if the reduction in violence is real it is a consequent of improved food resources.

Lastly, while I appreciate the argument about "reduced rates of violence over the past several centuries", I wonder how valid it might be. Even since WWII there have been some enormously violent wars, particularly in Africa--a continent that the western media seems to have little interest in.

I'm skeptical about the credit Pinker affords the media.

[grandpa]

I wonder, Yarn, if Pinker is confusing correlation with causation.
Could as valid an argument be made that the apparent
relative peace since World War II is a consequence of
increased literacy and the increase in women's participation in civil
society.

Why not a combination of Pinker's view and this? It seems like a nice summary of the argument.

I also think there's a basic factor: Over time, more people developed reason, which can keep society in check. We see it on here, to some extent.

At the very least, the government is aware that most people want to be compassionate:
"One way that ITI has conducted these activities is through
mobile teams that travel to remote areas
of Iraq and provide women with health and social
services, crisis and abuse intervention, as well as
with information on democracy and civic
participation. More than 8,000 women have
access to these services."
Iraqi Women Empowered - us.military.army | Google Groups

USAID has been criticized for various things, but it brings attention to serious issues nevertheless.

Grandpa h.

[Yarn]

The World Wars represent recent spikes, but another thing Pinker points out is that even WW2 is only the 9th worst war or atrocity in history relative to global population. At the extreme end, according to the median estimate of credible authorities, the An Lushan Rebellion in China killed the 1940 proportional equivalent of more than 400 million people. Ghengis Kahn killed the equivalent of more than 200 million. And the list goes on.

We emphasize the World Wars only because they were recent, they were European, and, in the case of WW2 but not WW1, the absolute number killed was the worst. Indeed, if you look back at hunter gatherers, on average 15% of the population dies by murder. Civilized societies almost never exhibit this level of violence.

Pinker notes many different plausible contributing factors towards ever increasing peace. Amongst them of course is that as societies became wealthier and advanced, law enforcement became more effective. And as political entities became ever larger, the distance from the frontier was such as to insulate the bulk of the population from foreign enemies (in a hunter and gatherer society, foreigners are enemies by default; guilty until proven innocent; and they live damned close by). And as capitalism displaced fuedalism, crime was no longer so necessary to get ahead socially and materially.

However, during the enlightenment, the average person was not wealthier than they had been before the enlightenment. Real per capita economic gains really only started kicking in with the onset of the industrial revolution. Yet a lot of moral progress was made in the 17th and 18th centuries before that happened. Witches stopped being burned, punishments were made less severe. Torture (infinitely worse than waterboarding, used routinely to obtain confessions, and to exact punishments) largely abated, executions were outlawed for more and more crimes and were made quick and less painful, religious and other forms of toleration became more and more popular. The homocide rate fell somewhere in the neighborhood of 90%. All of this happened in some places before others, and it has yet to happen everywhere even today. But the idea is that reading may have had something to do with the alterations in people's morality because unlike wealth, literacy and the availability and number of books is something which improved drastically during this time. And one thing reading and other forms of media usually, though not always, contribute to is empathy.