The sociological theory that the world is no more violent than it was in the past is wrong on many accounts. The truth is of course that human civilization has grown more pacifist and less dependent on violence as a means to resolve problems as time has passed.
In Stephen Pinker’s study on the history of violence for example, Pinker has proved that hunter-gatherer tribes, who are assigned many romantic notions about having lived in a relatively more peaceful world than ours, are shown to have engaged in battles to the death more often, with a higher percentage of men in the population engaged in battles, and with higher death rates, “If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million” (Pinker, 2).
Reason for the Decrease
Violence has decreased most importantly of all because of the emergence of the state. This seems contradictory at first since we only have to look at last century for examples of the state engaging in the worst instances of violence including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass executions.
But the truth is that the state has created an environment for order through chaos, “The state’s monopoly on violence makes the use of violence more or less calculable, and forces unarmed men in the pacified social spaces to restrain their own violence through foresight or reflection” (Elias, 423). To justify itself as the only legitimate user of violence the state had to become even more violent which inevitably resulted in state violence rather than interpersonal violence in pre-state civilizations.
Change as Violence
Change from a state ordained ‘peace’ inevitably means ‘non-peace’ and thus violence. It is change that has amounted to the greatest violence in human civilization as can be seen through the religious controversies all over the world throughout the ages, the revolutions in Europe through the 16th and 17th centuries and the Communist and other ideological revolutions of the 20th century which inevitably prove that “violence in the international system is to a great extent a reflection of the political state of affairs of the system. More specifically, when the system is characterized by instability and intense political disputes it is also characterized by widespread and intense violence” (Denton & Philipps, 182).
Civilization
The decrease in violence is also due to the need to act 'civilized'. This was a direct result of Western European thought which occurred at the Age of Reason in the seventeenth century and as a consequence saw, “a more or less continuous refinement of manners and social standards ... together with an increase in the social pressure on people to exercise stricter, more even and continuous self-control over their feelings and behavior” (Dunning, 66).
An important part of this morality change also had to do in part with religion. The early church sanctioned and justified violence which can be proved by the conflict resolution once prescribed in the Bible which included, “death by stoning as the penalty for a long list of nonviolent infractions, including idolatry, blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, disrespecting one's parents, and picking up sticks on the Sabbath” (Pinker, 2). This was not only accepted but became the normal way in which infractions were dealt with in medieval and premodern society.
But the church too was changed by the age of enlightenment during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the justifications for violent conflict resolution where turned on their head and were now deemed to be sins which should be condemned.
Conclusion
Is is then fair enough to conclude that it is not that we are less violent as a human race or that society is less violent as a result but that we are now more conscious of violence and are more likely to repress violent urges because of negative personal consequences. In Pinker’s studies for example he cites research that shows that “at least 80 percent of people have fantasized about killing someone they don’t like” (Pinker, 3) and obviously the majority of these 80 percent have not acted on their impulses which is progress.
Works Cited:
- DENTON, F & PHILLIPS, W. “Some patterns in the history of violence” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Volume 12; Issue 182, 1968, pp. 182-195.
- DUNNING, E. “Sociological Reflections on Sport, Violence and Civilization” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Volume 25; Issue 65, 1990, pp. 65-80.
- ELIAS, N. “The Social Constraint Towards Self-Constraint” Contemporary Sociological Theory, London: Blackwell Publishing, 2002, pp. 419-428.
- Normal0MicrosoftInternetExplorer4PINKER, S. “A History of Violence” The New Republic; Date Published: 19 March 2007, pp. 1-4.
