Editing Violence (section)

=== ''The Better Angels of Our Nature'' ===
[[Steven Pinker]]'s 2011 book, ''[[The Better Angels of Our Nature]]'', argued that modern society is less violent than in periods of the past, whether on the short scale of decades or long scale of centuries or millennia. He argues for a paleolithic homicide rate of 15%.

Steven Pinker argues that by every possible measure, every type of violence has drastically decreased since ancient and medieval times. A few centuries ago, for example, [[genocide]] was a standard practice in all kinds of warfare and was so common that historians did not even bother to mention it. [[Human cannibalism|Cannibalism]] and [[slavery]] have been greatly reduced in the last thousand years, and [[capital punishment]] is now banned in many countries. According to Pinker, rape, murder, warfare and animal cruelty have all seen drastic declines in the 20th century.<ref name=Pinker>{{cite book |author=Steven Pinker |title=The Better Angels of Our Nature |isbn=978-0670022953 |year=2011 |publisher=Viking |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/betterangelsofou00pink |author-link=Steven Pinker }}</ref> Pinker's analyses have also been criticized, concerning the statistical question of how to measure violence and whether it is in fact declining.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bookreview-steven-pinker-the-better-angels-of-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined |title=Book Review |author=R Epstein |magazine=Scientific American |date=October 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914140139/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bookreview-steven-pinker-the-better-angels-of-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined |archive-date=2016-09-14 }}</ref><ref name="Laws">{{Cite journal |url=http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=702 |title=Against Pinker's Violence |first=Ben |last=Laws |journal=[[CTheory]] |date=21 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512052358/http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=702 |archive-date=12 May 2013 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/03/the_big_kill?page=full |title=The Big Kill – By John Arquilla |magazine=Foreign Policy |date=2012-12-03 |access-date=2013-01-22 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130107171044/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/03/the_big_kill?page=full |archive-date=2013-01-07 }}</ref>

Pinker's observation of the decline in interpersonal violence echoes the work of [[Norbert Elias]], who attributes the decline to a "civilizing process", in which the state's monopolization of violence, the maintenance of socioeconomic interdependencies or "figurations", and the maintenance of behavioural codes in culture all contribute to the development of individual sensibilities, which increase the repugnance of individuals towards violent acts.<ref>{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CaWFQgAACAAJ | last = Elias | first = N. | year = 1994 | title = The Civilizing Process | location = Oxford | publisher = Blackwell | isbn = 978-0631192220 }}</ref> According to a 2010 study, non-lethal violence, such as assaults or bullying appear to be declining as well.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Finkelhor | first1 = D. | last2 = Turner | first2 = H. | last3 = Ormrod | first3 = R. | last4 = Hamby | first4 = S. | year = 2010 | title = Structural Trends in childhood violence and abuse exposure: Evidence from 2 national surveys | journal = Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine | volume = 164 | issue = 3| pages = 238–42 | doi = 10.1001/archpediatrics.2009.283 | pmid = 20194256 | doi-access = free }}</ref>

Some scholars disagree with the argument that all violence is decreasing arguing that not all types of violent behaviour are lower now than in the past. They suggest that research typically focuses on lethal violence, often looks at [[homicide]] rates of death due to [[warfare]], but ignore the less obvious forms of violence.<ref>Gorelik, G., Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A., 2012. Resource Acquisition, Violence, and Evolutionary Consciousness. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes- Shackelford, V.A. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 506–524</ref>