Angels, Illusions, Hydras, and Chimeras, Violence

Reviews in Anthropology
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Angels, Illusions, Hydras, and Chimeras: Violence

and Humanity
NAM C. KIM
To cite this article: NAM C. KIM (2012) Angels, Illusions, Hydras, and Chimeras: Violence and
Humanity, Reviews in Anthropology, 41:4, 239-272, DOI: 10.1080/00938157.2012.732511
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Angels, Illusions, Hydras, and Chimeras:

Violence and Humanity
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NAM C. KIM
Pinker, Steven. 2011. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
New York: Viking.
Sahlins, Marshall. 2008. The Western Illusion of Human Nature. Chicago: Prickly
Paradigm Press.
Anthropology has long been interested in violence and human

nature. Drawing on the research of two recent volumes, this review
article considers current scholarship on the subject. At its heart,
this topic deals squarely with a question that has been posed for
millennia. Are forms of violence attributable to the human condition, or are they the products of cultural development, behaviors
that can be controlled, mitigated, and unlearned? The arguments
presented in these two volumes have implications not only for how
we view humanitys past and present, but also for how we anticipate manifestations of violence in our future.
KEYWORDS
anthropology, human nature, peace, violence, war
INTRODUCTION
Researchers have long been interested in the manifestations of violence
within humanity. The subject has been, and continues to be, of monumental
interest and consequence for scholars, politicians, religious figures, parents,
and just about everyone in the world, as forms of violence have been part of
humanity throughout much, if not all, of our history as a species. Indeed,
violence constitutes one of the most important, complex, and confounding
research problems that we have ever faced. It is no Gordian knot easily
solved through the edge of a sword, as evinced by the innumerable research
Address correspondence to Nam C. Kim, Department of Anthropology, 5240 W. H. Sewell
Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Dr., University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706,
USA. E-mail: nckim2@wisc.edu
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studies, philosophical ponderings, essays, and commentaries devoted to

violence and war ever since humans began to record information textually.
Against this backdrop, researchers seek to understand the roots of the
phenomena and their diachronic trajectories. As an anthropological archaeologist, I share an interest with many colleagues in the potential of the material
record to offer insights about the earliest instances of both interpersonal and
collective forms of violence. Of particular interest are the ways in which forms
have emerged, evolved, and impacted cultures, societies, and humanity over
time. How far back into human history can we peer, and what can plumbing
these depths tell us? Are violent behaviors rooted in our biology, do they
represent adaptive strategies in reaction to exogenous variables, or is violence
attributable to both? For anthropologists, such exogenous variables can
include environmental or social circumstances, with culture being a significant factor in how threats are perceived, objectives reached, and actions rationalized by a multitude of actors and participants involved in violent struggles.
At the nexus of these questions is our own conception of humanity
how humans perceive humans. The two volumes being reviewed in this essay
speak directly to these questions, namely The Western Illusion of Human
Nature by prominent anthropologist Marshall Sahlins and The Better Angels
of Our Nature by influential psychologist Steven Pinker. In the former, Sahlins
examines how human nature is portrayed through the lens of past and contemporary Western society. He argues that Western civilization has mistakenly
conveyed the impression that, in the absence of enlightened governance,
humans have always lived, and would continue to live, in a state of untamed
anarchy. Pinker, on the other hand, engages research on the changing nature
of violence, contending that, living in anarchic conditions, our ancestors were
more violent than many of us in todays developed (mainly Western) nations.
Hence, the two researchers offer different and oftentimes opposed depictions
about human nature. While Sahlins insists that we should not castigate the
natural state of humanity, Pinker holds that our violent past needed to be
overcome. Specifically, Pinker believes a longing for a peaceable past is delusional, arguing that modernity is far more palatable. In the end, each author
makes a significant and noteworthy contribution to both the social sciences
and anthropology in regards to our understanding of human nature and
violence. In this review article, I will briefly address each authors main arguments, highlighting key implications for the anthropological and archaeological understanding of violence. As will be seen, more space is devoted Pinkers
volume, the significantly longer of the two.
THE WESTERN ILLUSION OF HUMAN NATURE

BY MARSHALL SAHLINS
According to Sponsel (1996), there has been a systematic bias in the number
of publications in recent decades favoring the study of violence and war over
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peace and cooperation. Underlying this bias is a negative view of human

nature and peace, one that sees humans as naturally aggressive with peace
being reduced to an absence of war (Sponsel 1996: 97). Where do such negative views come from? Is violent anarchy a natural condition? Faced with such
questions and prevailing sentiments about a human past dominated by
anarchic dispositions, where peace is often conspicuously absent, Sahlins
sets out to address the self-contempt inherent in Western ideas about
human nature.
His book is wonderfully written and concise and should be of interest
for both researchers and students. Examining the arc of Western Civilizations
outlooks on human nature, the volume capably shows how such perspectives have emerged, morphed, and persisted to the present day. In doing
so, the book helps illuminate a corresponding sublimation of anarchy in
the West, wherein anarchy and the pursuit of self-interest are seen as intrinsic
to all members of our species. Sahlins book attempts to account for this
view, and to demonstrate its fallacy.
According to Sahlins, Western metaphysics supposes a false opposition
between nature and culture, seeing primordial animal nature as something
that needs to be overcome. To trace the origins of this tradition of thought,
he relies on textual records dating back to ancient Greek Civilization. By
examining this trajectory of intellectual development, Sahlins criticizes
these perspectives for being oblivious to history and cultural diversity, for
ethnocentrically claiming Western customary practices as proof of universal
theories concerning human behavior.
In his sweep through Western intellectual development, Sahlins
impressively brings to light a common thread connecting many prominent
intellectuals, philosophers, and statesmen over the course of several millennia. Through their own writings, Sahlins shows how individuals separated by
time and space transmitted and inherited a common perception of human
nature, from Thucydides to Hobbes to John Adams. An implicit notion in
the writings of each is that the natural condition of humanity is one of anarchy, wherein individuals are generally motivated by egocentricity. Although
Thucydides was pessimistic about humanity, arguing that evils and suffering
related to power lust would be repeated throughout history if human nature
remained fundamentally unchanged, Hobbes saw a solution in the Leviathan,
and later Adams would see a balance of political power as the key to controlling anarchy. The main concern for each intellectual was the inherent, and
seemingly natural, self-interest of every human being.
This dichotomy between nature and culture would be addressed by
many of ancient Greeces philosophers and intellectuals, including Plato in
his prescriptions for a Republic ruled by educated elites whose rational soul
with its wisdom, virtue, and self-control, could keep in check the concupiscent soul, with its baser desires (Sahlins 2008: 30). The dualism between
physis (nature) and nomos (convention) that would eventually trickle down
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to later Western thinkers had their foundations in the sophists, if not earlier.
As legacy of what Sahlins calls native Western thought, the nature-culture
dichotomy suggested that culture acquired a sense of being constructed,
artificial or false in comparison to the authenticity, and reality of nature
(Sahlins 2008: 36). This viewpoint would serve, for instance, as a point of
departure for later Hobbesian or Rousseauean schools of thinking that privileged nature over culture, thus setting the agenda for mainstream Western
social thought for centuries to come.
As a consequence of this perspective, Western thinkers from the Middle
Ages through modern times have tended to look at society as a necessary and
coercive antidote for our inherent egoism, with European medieval monarchy finding an important raison detre (Sahlins 2008: 52). One objection I
would raise here, however, is that this is not a solely Western hangup or
phenomenon. There are examples of non-Western monarchies, theocracies,
and other ancient states in various regions emerging and existing to promote
peace, quell turmoil, and ostensibly suppress savagery. The Qin and Han
dynasties of ancient China, for instance, saw a clear distinction between their
agrarian, settled, and civilized lifeways and those of their nomadic, barbarian Xiongnu neighbors. To be sure, Sahlins acknowledges that similar
notions of an innate wickedness of humanity have been espoused in other
civilizations or cultural traditions. However, he argues that none can match
the sustained Western contempt for humanity: this long-term scandal of
human avarice, together with the antithesis of culture and the nature that
informs it (Sahlins 2008: 3). He may be correct, but this observation might
be a function of more readily accessible records providing a clearer picture
of Western intellectual development.
Importantly, Sahlins believes an important transition occurred with the
emergence of the state and its encroachments on the natural bonds of kinship
(2008: 43). In his opinion, anthropologies of many non-Western societies
have revealed alternative ideas about the nature of kinship, wherein persons
do not see themselves and each other as distinct and separate individuals, but
as the locus of multiple other selves with whom he or she is joined in mutual
relations of being (Sahlins 2008: 49). Thus it is the advent of state societies
that contributed to an erosion of such common bonds and built-in grounds
for empathy. This is a vital point, as it stands in contrast with the idea promoted by Pinker and others that anarchic violence required the state to suppress it, a point to which I will return later. In any case, a foundation had been
laid for the Western notion that self-interest was a natural phenomenon, one
in which numerous thinkers, writers, economists, and statesmen, such as
Machiavelli, Hobbes, James Madison, and John Adams, would accept as an
underlying part of human nature. Indeed, Sahlins (2008: 7577) writes that
many of our countrys founding fathers openly discussed the wickedness
and depravity of human nature, thus requiring a solution which involved
the balancing of oppugnant powers. He persuasively presents evidence
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showing early American leaders were heirs to these basic premises, weaving
these considerations into the foundations of our system of governance.
By the 20th century, self-interest was not just considered natural but also
a necessity for maintaining social equilibrium, an important basis for society
and not its nemesis. With the onset of capitalism, the selfish system
espoused by Montaigne, Hobbes, and others would eventually trump the
social system, which saw the better moral nature of humankind (Sahlins
2008: 8485). However, as pointed out by Sahlins, this is not a universally
shared notion, nor is the idea that humans are wholly distinct from the natural world. Citing ethnographies of non-Western societies, Sahlins maintains
that Western conceptions about humanity being distinct from other aspects
of the natural world are not widely shared. For others, like the Maori, the universe is one big kindred, consisting of living peoples, deceased ancestors,
and other life forms and inanimate objects (Sahlins 2008: 90).
According to Sahlins (2008: 98), the Western view of humanity is an
illusion because there is nothing in nature as perverse as our idea of human
nature it is a figment of our cultural imagination. In fact, few societies
known to anthropology, besides our own, make the domestication of infants
inherent anti-social dispositions the issue of their socialization. On the contrary, the average common opinion of mankind is that sociality is the normal
human condition (Sahlins 2008: 100). In the end, culture, society, and civilization were not necessary to tame our biological tendencies and inner
demons. Instead, culture is older than Homo sapiens, and was a fundamental
condition of the species biological development, as indicated by various
forms of material culture in the paleontological record of hominid evolution.
For thousands and maybe millions of years, we have evolved biologically
under cultural selection (Sahlins 2008: 104).
In the end, Sahlins may have over-emphasized the uniqueness of
Western traditions of thought on human nature, not detailing the ways in
which Western societies have been shaped or influenced by interactions with
non-Western civilizations. Western textual records are not alone in recognizing a potential savagery of humankind. And, of course, the book could have
benefitted from the incorporation of archaeological evidence addressing
questions of prehistoric violence, though Sahlins (2008: 3) clearly states
that he is only dealing with textual records. Nevertheless, the book offers
an insightful overview of Western perspectives and potential biases on
humanity. For better or worse, the modern, globalizing , and increasingly
capitalist world in which we live today has inherited the notion that pursuits
of self-interest and zero-sum competition are not only natural parts of the
human condition, but that they are, at least for some people, somehow more
natural than cooperative behaviors that minimize competition and promote
collaboration and compromise. Such notions have fueled unprecedented
economic growth and technological advance, while simultaneously resulting
in tremendous levels of social inequality and wealth disparities. Undoubtedly,
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the ideas offered by this volume are particularly salient in todays world, and
they are also relevant for any wishing to understand the intellectual milieu
within which many Western scholars currently study violence.
THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE BY STEVEN PINKER

This is an enormously fascinating, ambitious, and important book. As
impetus for the volume, Pinker seeks to explain why many forms of violence
appear to be declining on different scales of time and magnitude, and why
we may be living in what he calls the most peaceable era of human history.
Pinkers effort is to be commended, and the final product should be of
interest for all wishing to understand the history of both interpersonal and
organized violence, and how the phenomena originated, have evolved,
and exist today. Even more importantly, his insights can inform future efforts
to build frameworks of peaceful life. The author impressively marshals
disparate bodies of data, cases, analyses, and theories from a dizzying array
of academic disciplines, citing literature from sociology, criminology, anthropology, archaeology, political science, international relations, psychology,
history, economics, and philosophy, among many others. In an evaluation
of the arc of violence, he presents a synthetic perspective on factors for
change, particularly within the past few centuries in the Western world.
Pinker cites statistical trends in the behavior of human groups in various
epochs that unmistakably show declines in many forms of violence, too many
to be coincidental. He posits that our earliest and more recent ancestors were
more violent than we are today, and then builds an overarching argument for
why we have changed, discussing a combination of trends related to biology,
psychology, culture, and material technologies. At the risk of oversimplification, Pinker writes that todays higher levels of nonviolence have resulted
from exogenous forces that have engaged our mental faculties for greater
levels of cooperative and peaceful behavior. We have become less tolerant
of violence, and this may not be due solely to changing cultural mores and
social circumstances. The outcome might be partly attributable to evolutionary changes in our cognitive and emotional faculties, some of which, according to Pinker, may actually be quite recent. Undoubtedly, the arguments and
supporting evidence presented in the books grand sweep through human
history are highly insightful and informative, conveyed through engaging
and enviable prose.
Offered in the book are six major trends or developments of the Western
or developed world that Pinker believes have contributed to our species
retreat from violence. The first, taking place over several millennia,
was the transition from the anarchy of hunting, gathering, and horticultural
societies . . . to the first agricultural civilizations with cities and governments,
beginning around five thousand years ago (2011: xxiv). This transition
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marked a reduction in the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life
in a state of nature (2011: xxiv), a development he calls the Pacification
Process and the emergence of a Leviathan-like form of political authority.
The second trend, best documented in Europe, was the Civilizing Process
occurring between the Middle Ages and the past century, in which centralized
authority combined with a growing infrastructure of commerce. The third
transition, the Humanitarian Revolution, encompassed the Age of Reason
and European Enlightenment, resulting in changing attitudes about socially
sanctioned forms of violence, leading to decreased tolerance for such actions.
The fourth transition occurred after World War II and ushered in what many
consider to be the Long Peace decades passing without the outbreak of
another major world conflict on the scale of the two world wars. The fifth
trend is the New Peace, which sees a marked decrease in organized violence
of all kinds since the close of the Cold War in 1989. Finally, the last development is the Rights Revolution, occurring throughout the past half century.
After presenting these prevailing trends, Pinker examines the biology and
psychology of violence (Chapters 8 and 9), before finally tying together all
of the observations and interpretations to illuminate the major exogenous
forces that have both promoted our peaceful tendencies and driven the
multiple declines of violence.
It is rare for so much breadth of research to be coherently synthesized
and presented to explain changing attitudes about violence. For instance,
he cites a variety of statistical data indicating dropping rates of violence over
centuries in Europe. In accounting for the Long Peace or the absence of a
third world war, Pinker cites much evidence to persuasively argue that
attitudes in developed countries have shifted in the conceptualization and
preparation for war, with major changes having occurred even in recent
decades. For the more recent New Peace, Pinker outlines the quantitative
declines in interstate wars, terrorism, and acts of ethnic cleansing that have
occurred in fits and starts since the end of the Cold War. Particularly interesting are the findings from the PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo) dataset
(2011: 300; Lacina and Gleditsch 2005), which show a decreased risk of dying
in battle in the twentieth century. The essential argument is that violent
catastrophes have not become impossible, just more improbable.
While there is much to appreciate, some of his assumptions and interpretations are difficult to accept wholesale. In terms of exogenous variables,
he outlines a strong argument that commerce and Leviathans moved the nature of the medieval economy away from a zero-sum game, thus changing the
incentives for violence and putting a premium on empathy, with declining
homicide rates reflecting these changes (2011: 7677). I would ask, though,
if the decline in intra-societal violence might be partly attributable to a
greater externalization of violence. Commerce may have promoted shifting
attitudes about internal violence, but greater levels of peace and
empathy may have also resulted from a greater focus on, or demonization
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of, foreign enemies, others that could be substituted for internal violence or
exploitation.
In addition, although he means to account for changing patterns of
violence worldwide, the cited evidence comes primarily from Western
civilizations. For the Civilizing Process, Pinker calls attention to the European
Middle Ages for shifting attitudes about violence. In looking predominantly
at the textual record of European societies, the book suffers from a lack of
consideration for cultural developments in other world regions that may have
been just as influential in changing medieval and later Western attitudes
toward violence. Pinker (2011: 8585) openly discusses the Western Epicenter of the civilizing process, but how can a theory addressing violence and
peace for all of humanity be proposed without a wider geographic purview?
Focusing on changes in European religious, moral, and intellectual thought
almost guarantees that the most significant exogenous factors for any shifting
attitudes about violence will come from within Europe, thereby attributing
changes to Western sources. Pinker (2011: 81) contends that the civilizing
process did not penetrate all areas of the globe, and that by our modern
era, it went into the reverse in the developing world outside of Europe.
But this problematically implies that the reach (or absence) of European
civilization is the main independent variable responsible for attitudes
about, and the presence and persistence of, violence in non-European and
non-Western areas. Nor should we forget the sometimes deadly and exploitative conditions under which Western civilization originally reached
distant shores and penetrated native lands.
Staying in Europe and regarding the Humanitarian Revolution, Pinker
argues that our sensibilities have shifted since the Scientific Revolution and
emergence of the Republic of Letters, all of which contributed to improved
literacy and a process of moral discovery. As one consequence, political
leaders began to move away from violent actions such as human sacrifices
to the gods, because superstitious beliefs had given way to the Age of
Reason. Though this may be partially true, torture and sacrifice were not carried out solely to appease the gods, but also because they were instruments
of political power. This remains the case today, despite all of our intellectual
developments to date.
The book offers a comprehensive view accounting for the Long Peace.
However, more weight should have been assigned to the impact of technology. For example, modern transportation infrastructures allow refugees
to more easily escape violence and death than in previous centuries. For many
of the armed forces of wealthy, modern nation-states, a greater capacity to
strike, destroy, and kill at distance has provided an alternative to throwing soldiers directly into the fray. Pinker rightly points out that the age of robotic
warfare is far in the future (2011: 256). However, in recent decades major
powers have readily participated in a number of wars and local conflicts with
adversaries that do not possess the same levels of technologies and capacities,
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while avoiding war with other major powers of equal capability. Hence, when
it comes to low-hanging fruit, many world leaders of this so-called peaceable
era have not shied away from the application of force, no matter how
unpopular or unfashionable violence may have become in contemporary cultural sensibilities and parlance. Reflected by this situation is the sobering
reality that we are no more capable of reasoning our way out of violent situations than our ancestors, nor do we necessarily have far less tolerance for
engaging in war. Furthermore, Pinker may be overly downplaying the
variable of nuclear weapons as a deterrent for major war, arguing instead
for shifting cultural attitudes. He indicates that, contrary to certain expectations in the 1960s that many nations (including Japan and a reunified
Germany) would eventually seek to build their nuclear arsenal, as many countries have given up nuclear weapons as acquired them since 1964. This may
be true, but one could reason that the lack of desire to acquire them is because
enough allies already possess them. In that way, nuclear weapons have been,
and continue to operate as, a deterrent for escalation of local war into more
global scales. If anything, the possession of nuclear weapons may make the
persistence of warfare all the more conspicuous.
With the Rights Revolution, Pinker maintains that declines in intrasocietal violence have resulted most recently from changing attitudes in contemporary Western society about hate crimes, rape, domestic abuse, and other
forms of violence, citing a continued and growing distaste and intolerance for
these behaviors. I wonder, however, if these declines do in fact stem mainly
from shifts in cultural outlooks, or if there are if they perhaps result from a
desire for stability. For instance, perhaps violence related to prejudice and
racism has declined not because everyone became less tolerant of violence,
but because many were afraid of the civil unrest that often followed such acts.
Although we can be thankful that lynching is no longer commonplace in parts
of our country, it is quite alarming and disheartening that the atrocity associated with the murder of James Byrd, Jr. can still happen in our society today.
Whats particularly disturbing is its occurrence despite all of the so-called progress Pinker believes centuries of pacification, civilizing, and humanitarian
development have instilled in us. Despite claims that we are more civilized
or enlightened today than at any time in our history, we still possess the
same potential to dehumanize others and commit extreme forms of violence.
Perhaps lynching has gone away as much because of laws as they have due to
any changes in cultural attitude. Perhaps American society, with all of its political correctness, is not as overtly racist as it may have been fifty to a hundred
years ago, but I am not as convinced as Pinker that we have cleared this significant and sad hurdle. Derogatory slurs and attacks may have become taboo
in open, mainstream forums, but centuries of civilizing have not penetrated
Western society as much as Pinker would have us believe.
After evaluating the nurture side of the argument, Chapters 8 (Inner
Demons) and 9 (Better Angels) explore the nature side, citing numerous
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psychology experiments that examine how our brains are wired for either
peaceful (i.e., empathy, greater self-control, morality and taboo, and reason)
or aggressive behaviors (i.e., dominance and revenge). Much of the research
is very intriguing, though I am not convinced that the sampling of cases is
representative for all populations. True, certain biological tendencies can
influence decisions or reactions in similar ways for the majority of humans,
but when it comes to highly complex and organized behaviors such as
warfare, much is learned, socialized, and instilled by cultural values (see
Ember and Ember 1994). Complex situations in which people face very
tough choices, those in which bodily harm and death are involved, are difficult to replicate in any laboratory setting. Some of these experiments reveal
how Western college students might behave in given circumstances, but the
findings are not universally applicable. Extrapolating for everyone in the
United States or other developed countries seems to stretch the data beyond
their applicable range. Perhaps more promising are the experimental studies
using real players in potentially deadly disputes, as reflected in the work of
Ginges and colleagues (2007) on the Israel-Palestine dispute as cited by
Pinker (2011: 638). Interestingly, revenge and its possible biological basis
are considered in experiments measuring brain activity. One question I
would pose is whether we can completely divorce findings supporting a
biological basis for vengeance from the possibility that test subjects have
been socialized in cultures that promote retaliation. Vengeance, like other
forms of violence, is not simply a biological urge, but is also a cultural
strategy.
Hiding in Plain Sight: Violence in the Most Peaceable Era

Pinker believes (2011: xxii) that attitudes tolerating or glorifying violence
have declined, thus leading to less violence in general. Perhaps this may
be the case for much of the developed world, but the volume could have
examined non-Western, contemporary societies more deeply. Anthropological studies of modern violence in many cultures reveal its dialectical nature,
where conflict can be both performed and imagined (see Schmidt and
Schroeder 2001). Ethnographies of war that engage inhabitants and direct
participants in modern conflicts can yield particularly salient data (see
Lubkemann 2008).
Despite the fact that certain crime rates in developed nations have
experienced a remarkable downward trend, Pinkers depiction of todays
violence lacks sufficient breadth. Violence may exist today in different and
less obvious forms than in the past. Forms of intra- and inter-societal violence
have undergone transformation just as societies have changed, along scales
of population size, densities, settlement types, and complexity. In this
respect, forms of violence today can be seen as an amalgam of sorts, a chimera evolving in lockstep with shifting sociopolitical configurations. Indeed, a
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host of arguments have been proposed about the connection between

ancient sociopolitical change and trends related to competition, coercion,
and warfare, especially in regards to the formation, maintenance, and
expansion of politically complex societies (e.g., Adams 2004; Billman 2001;
Carneiro 1970, 1990, 1992, 1998; Flannery and Marcus 1996; Haas 2001:
340; Lewis 1981; Kim and Kusimba 2008b; Kim et al. 2010; Marcus 1998;
OMansky and Demarest 2007; Spencer and Redmond 2004). These perspectives help to explain the varied instances of culture change as affected by
violence, such as shifts in settlement patterns and exchange strategies, and
the consolidation and dissolution of political power. For example, research
on early Chinese civilization details the changing forms of sanctioned violence, such as warfare, hunting, execution, punishment, and vengeance, as
they are connected to sociopolitical change (see Lewis 1990 and Campbell
2009). Enlarging the discussion to include more recent complex societies,
political scientists Levy and Thompson (2011: 10) submit that war is a multidimensional phenomenon that evolves over time, expanding and contracting, taking on alternative forms as a function of its appeal to actors as a
strategy for advancing interests and resolving conflict. This amalgam
encompasses a diversity of behaviors and activities, including more recent
phenomena such as pitched battles between armies, sieges, gang wars, guerilla or asymmetric warfare, and state-sponsored terrorism.
Throughout human history, innumerable efforts have been undertaken
to deter aggression, build peace, and promote stability. Despite these
labors, violence has persisted like the mythical hydra, with some forms fading only to be replaced by others. In political rhetoric, nationalism, territorial ambition, and a general indifference to human costs may no longer
be fashionable in the mainstream mindsets and political rhetoric of
developed nations, but the same underlying security interests persist. The
historical transition for the US Department of War into the Department
of Defense in the 1940s did not change its fundamental mission and activities. Various movements grounded in peace-seeking discourse have existed
for centuries and millennia, but violence has endured. The League of
Nations sought to prevent a repeat of the war to end all wars, and yet
its ideals could not stave off the cataclysm of the 1930s and 40 s. Pinker
claims that our modern sensibilities and morals preclude the kinds of gruesome brutality seen in the Middle Ages of Europe. However, though attitudes may be changing, many of the same fundamental problems exist
and violence still emerges given the right circumstances and conditions.
As a species, we are today just as capable of participating in violence as
we were centuries ago.
I would also caution against an exclusive focus on overt or direct forms
of violence, arguing that social inequalities related to power, status, wealth,
and access to health can all be considered forms of tacit or latent violence,
wherein harm is being caused in some way and over time. Much research
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has been carried out on various forms of structural, cultural, and symbolic
violence in the modern world (Bourdieu 2002; Farmer et al. 2006; Galtung
1969, 1990; Morgan and Bjokert 2006; Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois
2004). Granted, many of these latent and disguised forms of violence do
not qualify as overt classes resulting in direct physical harm and injury, which
may be why Pinker chose not to engage this literature. However, behaviors
related to these phenomena impact quality of life and perceptions of inequity
and injustice, thereby creating permissible or conducive conditions for
violent behavior. As noted by Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois (2004: 1), the
violence of poverty, hunger, social exclusion, and humiliation inevitably
translates into intimate and domestic violence, and violence can never be
understood solely in terms of its physicality alone. The social and cultural
dimensions of violence provide it with power and meaning (Scheper-Hughes
and Bourgois 2004: 1). Reductive definitions of violence fail to address a
wide variety of violence that has no immediate material correlates, such as
sorcery or verbal aggression, because they use only physical injury as the
linking element between examples of violence (Whitehead 2004: 57).
Thus, we may seem to be less tolerant of violence, but this could be as
the old adage says: out of sight, out of mind. We may no longer have the
stomach for public torture in the United States, but many of us do not lay
awake at night worrying about the suffering of the poor or homeless. With
violence being much more subtle, sanitized, and masked in our developed
nations, competition over resources or rights is not as overt, giving an
impression we are today much more capable of empathy and have far less
tolerance for violence. But any comprehensive evaluation of declining violence needs to consider all forms, whether direct or indirect. Thus Pinkers
consideration of all violence is not comprehensive, leading to an impression
of decline that is not altogether accurate. Of course, intentional physical harm
is an easier research problem to address, but in doing so the researcher
should clarify that s=he is not able to generalize for trends in all levels of
violence. As noted by Whitehead (2011), Pinker overlooks the fact that
reporting and representations of violence are not just about violence but
are actually part of it. Even rumors of violence can have a profound effect
on social perceptions and relationships (George 2004:42). The statistics might
offer one interpretation of trends, but violence endures under various guises.
In this spirit, recent anthropological studies have looked at other domains of
violence, such as state violence and death squads, ethnic and community
violence, and revitalized forms of traditional killing like assault sorcery
(see Whitehead 2004). Some researchers, such as Nordstrom (2004) stress
the importance of the tomorrow of violence, arguing that physical carnage
only sets violence in motion, with the aftermath enduring for years if not lifetimes for surviving participants. Others, like Pauketat (2009), call for a greater
emphasis on the cultural production of different sorts and scales of violence,
focusing on its host of practices.
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Variations of Peace and the Significance of Scale

The bold statement that we are living in the midst of our species most peaceable era requires careful consideration and substantiation. In some areas of
the developed or developing world, people are subject to comparatively high
probabilities of being victims of violence. On the other side of the coin, what
is peaceable for an average citizen of the United States, for instance, may not
be the same for someone in a newly industrialized country. Peace is relative,
and conceptions of it can vary widely depending on the time, place, and cultural background of the observer. Absent from the book is the work of many
anthropologists who have examined peace, factors for nonviolence, and
cooperative behavior within our species at various scales of social complexity
(Fry 2006; Gregor 1996; Knauft 1996; Sponsel 1996). Collectively, these
researchers propose that for over 90 percent of the human experience, our
species lived in egalitarian communities where generosity and cooperation
were prized, likely making occurrences of violence relatively uncommon.
Gregor (1996) argues that peace can be viewed in either absolute or relative
terms, outlining various kinds. For the modern world, Otterbein (2009) discusses Positive Peace as a belief that sees war as preventable. Peace can
come in many forms, and can also serve to mask forms of violence hiding just
beneath a veneer of perceived tranquility. Furthermore, relying on a combination of textual and archaeological sources, a number of researchers have
looked at the culturally varied conceptions of peace and methods for its construction in different, non-European parts of the ancient world, such as early
China, Mesopotamia, ancient India, and the Andes of South America (see
Raaflaub 2007). Pinkers ideas about pacific behavior and prescriptions for
durable peace could have benefitted from inclusion of this research, fortifying
his arguments with a broader cultural database.
In addition, the efficacy of Pinkers general premise regarding declining
violence is somewhat dependent upon scalar perspective. Interestingly, his
argument contradicts Malthusian predictions about the consequences of
overpopulation, such as famine, disease, and increased competition or war.
However, proportions of violent events and related deaths may only appear
to be declining as an artifact of the larger population levels in todays world
(Lawrence Keeley, personal communication). With so many more people in
the world, less people might be victims of violence even if the rates of violence
are not actually declining. Greater numbers of people might be shielded from
war zones or front lines. But this does not necessarily mean that we are qualitatively more peaceful than our ancestors, and it does not prove that declines
in violence are directly attributable to the forces Pinker specifically cites.
Violence is such a broad phenomenon, and though it is laudable for
Pinker to have tackled it writ large in all its manifestations, he oversimplifies
the evolutionary trajectories of all forms of violence by explaining a general
decline as outcomes for the same set of intellectual developments. Perhaps
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the book would have been better served by separating forms of violence on
different scales and dimensions such as forms of interpersonal versus collective or institutional, and intrasocietal versus intersocietal. Not all forms
have necessarily declined or are declining in the same manner, nor for the
same reasons. For instance, the factors behind the Long Peace or New
Peace might be vastly different from why certain rates of violent crime have
declined in developed nations. To propose a blanket explanation for all
forms of violence is perhaps overly ambitious. The psychology and motivations for an individual participating in raiding, revenge killing, rape, or
self-defense may be very different than those for someone in a trench, on
a battlefield, or flying a bomber. For instance, what motivated hundreds of
highly educated student volunteers to serve in Japans tokkotai (kamikaze)
operations near the end of World War II, even though Japan was losing
the war (see Ohnuki-Tierney 2002)? Pinker generally treats variant forms of
violence (and peace) almost interchangeably in accounting for their perceived declines. To illustrate, he moves freely from the interpersonal level
to an international one in the discussion of vengeance as a motive (2011:
543). Peace between individuals in a family, clan, or community is not necessarily constructed or maintained in the same way as peace between states.
That being said, I would have preferred if Pinker had separated the forms
of violence into more discrete dependent variables.
Five Historical Forces

Summarized in the final chapter are the five broad forces Pinker believes
have pushed violence ever downward in recent centuries, culminating in a
continued reduction in recent decades. These include the Leviathan (which
I discuss later), gentle commerce, feminization, the expanding circle, and
the escalator of reason.
With regards to gentle commerce, trade and exchange can foster greater
levels of familiarity, binding ties, empathy, and cooperation between partners, and Pinker is right to point out specialization as an important factor.
However, commerce and its effects are not unique to the European Middle
Ages. Unmentioned by Pinker are a myriad of ethnographic and archaeological cases demonstrating the effects of trade on peaceful relations and
alliance building (Berndt 1964; Burch 2005; Chagnon 1997; Ferguson 1992,
2006; Golitko 2010; Keeley 1996; Vayda 1969). It should also be noted that
medieval European societies were engaged in commercial exchange with
far-flung non-European neighbors. Moreover, including culturally diverse
cases would have made evident that commerce does not always lead to,
and maintain, peace. Societies might interact peacefully for years or decades,
but friction and conflicts of interest are inevitable. As noted by Keeley
(1996: 180), trade can be considered an especially productive source of both
conflict and peace.
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Pinker (2011: 683) makes a curious observation when discussing the

domestication of warring imperial powers such as Sweden and Spain during
the 18th century, when they transformed into commercial states that made less
trouble. He goes on to state that two centuries later, an analogous transformation occurs when Vietnam transitioned from authoritarian communism to authoritarian capitalism, and that this change was accompanied by a decreased
willingness to indulge in the all-out ideological wars that in the preceding decades had made both countries the deadliest places on earth. True, ideological
tenets can have a tremendous impact on violence. However, we cannot state
unequivocally that ideology (e.g., communism) was the culprit in the case of
Vietnam, and that it was a turn to capitalism that ultimately reduced the levels
of violence. Colonial subjugation of the late 19th and early 20th century was
probably the most significant factor for later violence. When the Vietnamese
population saw little recourse for self-government and self-determination, and
when the French and Japanese met Vietnamese political interests with violence,
it is little wonder that armed conflict was the outcome. The struggle for political
independence continued throughout the 20th century, and the violence resulted
not so much from national glory, communism, and an absence of gentle commerce but from concerns over self-determination and independence.
In discussing sex, gender, and feminization, Pinker (2011: 688) offers some
interesting ideas about reducing violence by offering women greater control
over their reproductive capacity. This discussion could have been enhanced
by referencing studies looking at gender, war, and post-conflict reconciliation
(see Collett 1998; Korac 2006; Moser and Clark 2001). This literature explores
the role of women as active agents in both waging war and constructing peace,
dispelling notions of women as passive victims of violence and conflict.
I agree with Pinkers idea of the expanding circle and its consequences
for peace. Technological improvements in the form of jet flights, the Internet,
and mobile phones, have fundamentally altered physical and virtual mobility
in todays increasingly village-like world. Greater levels of familiarity may
mean fewer mysterious others readily available for demonization, offering
greater opportunities for what he calls perspective-taking and empathetic
thinking. Also encouraging is how technological change can lead to momentous changes in social networks, dramatically altering the ways in which we
will be able to interconnect, interact, trade information, share experiences,
and, ultimately, better understand one another.
Together with the expanding circle, Pinker contends that the escalator
of reason can have a pacifying effect for our species moving forward. In this
notion, recent ideas, movements, and liberalizing reforms, stemming from a
starting point in Western Europe or the American coasts (2011: 692), have led
to an emerging humanistic value system, which privileges human flourishing
as the ultimate good (2011: 691). Unfortunately, this perspective seems to
discount how non-Europeans of the past have also strived to look at the world
differently, to see a common good in the well being of all people. The
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capacity to reason and construct peaceful ways to avoid conflict is not restricted to any recent era, specific culture, or defined geography. Non-Europeans,
past and present, were and are just as capable of empathizing with others outside of their own societies. The argument that our modern levels of empathy
are possible because of a European process of moral discovery (see Pinker
2011: 180) harkens to the old ethnocentric and Eurocentric ideas of unilinear
evolution and a sense of inevitable progression. The impression being conveyed, then, is that all non-developed and non-Western societies are not
yet enlightened, so to speak, and that they will be eventually faced with their
own moral shortcomings only to realize that their way of life is somehow
deficient or qualitatively lacking when compared to ours.
Modernity, Morality, and the Past

As one of his main points, Pinker insists that we have inaccurately regarded
our current state of humanity as more violent than an idyllic past, leading
some to loath the present. I agree that modernity ought not to be loathed,
not with our scientific and technological advances, our broadening understanding of natural history and the universe around us. I also concur that
there is sometimes a nostalgic tendency that accompanies this loathing of
our modern condition. Nonetheless, I disagree with his statement that nostalgia for a peaceable past is the biggest delusion of all (2011: 693). Not all
past societies subscribed to the same kinds of cultural beliefs and moral
values regarding violence, and we cannot denigrate all past societies and
the totality of ancient humanity based on some cases. Interestingly, at one
point Pinker proposes (2011: 658) that our recent ancestors might actually
be, in comparison to modern standards, morally retarded, and that the collective moral sophistication of the culture in which they lived was primitive.
But who is to say that one perspective, belief system, or set of morals is
better, more advanced, or more developed? Yes, we are more advanced in
our technologies, but does that mean our cultures are more advanced? Has
Western civilization reached some pinnacle of cultural achievement and morality? Ironically, Pinker discusses lessons he learned as a child, such as the
following quotation: Yes, the things those people do look funny to us.
But the things we do look funny to them (2011: 659). The same sentiment
can be invoked to look at our morals and ideas relative to both preceding
and coming generations. A decade or century from now our own actions
and morals may be viewed as savage, barbaric, or morally retarded as well.
VIOLENCE IN THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PAST

I now turn to a topic pertinent to the arguments of both volumes, and will
also directly address Pinkers two opening chapters. Which perspective
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regarding violent anarchy and the prevalence of violence in prehistory does

the archaeological record support? Do we harbor spurious illusions about the
aggressive nature of the human experience, as put forth by Sahlins? Or is Pinker right about our warlike ancestors? Our knowledge of ancient violence,
aggression, and warfare has advanced dramatically as a result of renewed
anthropological and archaeological interest in recent decades. Growing
bodies of data from around the world not only document violence in variable
environmental and social contexts, but also give us clues about how it impacted cultural change for many regions. The material record lies beyond the
scope of Sahlins volume, as his arguments rely solely on textual sources.
However, despite Sahlins arguments about a Western mis-apprehension
of human nature, some of the negative depictions of human nature are
warranted, and the evidence supports parts of Pinkers argument regarding
prehistoric violence, though not all.
For organized violence or warfare, meaning armed combat between politically autonomous societies, some researchers argue that the case of the Jebel
Sahaba cemetery in Nubia is the earliest (Ferguson 2000, 2006; Haas 2001;
Wendorf 1968). It must be noted, though, that traces of warfare are only discernible in the material record given the right conditions and scale. Smallerscale activities such as raids and ambushes might leave very little material
evidence, especially if weapons being used are made of perishable materials
and there is no defensive architecture to evaluate (Webster 1998: 350351).
Overall, markers for violence and warfare for societies earlier than 10,000 years
ago would be extremely difficult to detect, given the low-density nature of
nomadic populations (Haas 2001: 333). Besides the lack of specialized weapons designed specifically for killing other humans, many of these societies
would not have invested time and energy into the construction of fortification
features that would reflect a healthy concern over perceived threats. Definitive
signs of warfare are not readily seen for much of our Pleistocene huntergatherer past, despite ethnographic evidence of modern-day hunter-gatherers
engaging in war. Thus, it is possible that warfare begins far earlier than the Holocene. To be sure, some signs for other forms of interpersonal violence or homicide are discernible from well into our Pleistocene past, as discussed below.
At the start of Chapter 1, Pinker begins his tour of the foreign country
called the past, from 8000 BCE to the 1970s (2011: 1). Using 8000 BCE as
the point of departure, he offers a series of glimpses to illustrate how the
majority of the human past, with its vast diversity of cultures and customs,
was rather violent, existing under the anarchic conditions of hunting-gathering
and horticultural lifeways. According to Pinker (2011: 4), For now, prehistoric
remains convey the distinct impression that The Past is a place where a person
had a high chance of coming to bodily harm. For Pinker, violence was
quite prevalent until the pacifying and civilizing effects associated with state
emergence. He is correct about the antiquity of violent behavior. The problem,
however, is determining how pervasive it was for all times and places.
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Curiously, Pinkers review of the archaeological evidence is severely

limited, especially in comparison to his extensive overview of later periods
of history. Researchers have produced thousands of pages on early human
violence, yet Pinker devotes a handful of pages within the nearly 700-page
book. In doing so, he selects certain data points to represent all times and
places. He relies on a very small sample of cases, mostly from Europe and
one from North America, while the entire sweep of human history is generally
glossed over. In a section called Human Prehistory, for instance, he deals
with evidence solely from the Holocene. Some of his cases indicate a likelihood of human-on-human violence, such as the remains of Otzi, whereas
others are more equivocal, such as Kennewick Man, who appears to have
been shot by a stone projectile. The wound, however, could have easily
resulted from a hunting accident. Needless to say, Pinker could have looked
beyond 10,000 years ago, since the available evidence allows us to make some
inferences, however equivocal, about the behavior of humans and or hominin
ancestors well into the Pleistocene or Paleolithic. Judged from the standpoint
of several hundred thousand years of modern human history on our planet,
the past several millennia of lose their significance as an indicator of what
is inherently human behavior (Haas 2001: 330). Thus, Pinkers claims need
clarification in what constitutes human.
Pinker does not ignore the possibility of Pleistocene violence. However,
in this regard he relies predominantly on primate analogues for ideas about the
origins and prevalence of violence among hominin or early humans. He cites
the work of some anthropologists and primatologists (e.g., de Waal 1996,
2009; Goodall 1986; Wrangham 1999; Wrangham and Peterson 1996), but does
not include data gathered by archaeologists and paleoanthropologists that
speak directly to actual past behaviors and their material correlates. The discussion would have been enriched by including publications with a variety
of complementary or contrasting viewpoints on Paleolithic violence (e.g.,
ewell 1999; Dawson 1996; de Waal 1996; Knauft 1996; Thorpe 2003; Walker
2001). For example, the discussion on coalitional aggression (2011: 39) could
have included Kellys (2005) research on the evolution of lethal intergroup
violence. Also, a number of early cases could have been mentioned, such as
the remains of an anatomically modern human displaying skeletal trauma from
the Klasies River in South Africa at 90,000 BP (see Deacon and Deacon 1999).
Very recent research by Carbonell and colleagues (2010) presents osteological
evidence intriguingly suggestive of cannibalism among Homo antecessor
specimens, which anthropologist Keith Otterbein (2011) has interpreted as
possible evidence of early warfare. Granted, many of these sorts of cases
present fairly equivocal evidence for direct violence, but a fuller discussion
would have complemented his engagement of modern primate analogues.
Also problematic is an inadequate acknowledgement of the potential pitfalls for interpreting cases of deliberate violence. What is it about the ancients
that they couldnt leave us an interesting corpse without resorting to foul
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play? (Pinker 2011: 3). Overall the book offers an uncritical and incomplete
assessment of the material record, failing to recognize what archaeologists
who study ancient violence and warfare understand all too well that the
archaeological identification of these phenomena is not an easy and
straight-forward task. Rather, it requires painstaking collection and interpretation of data from multiple sources. The use of interpretations based on a
small sample size of empirical data is insufficient for grand, totalizing generalizations about violence and human nature. But this is precisely what Pinker
does in his overview of The Past.
Also not mentioned is research suggesting that human groups in the
Paleolithic may have been quite peaceful and cooperative, and that frequencies of violence seem to rise after 10,000 years ago (Bacciagaluppi 2004; Kelly
2000; Sponsel 1996). For some, the Paleolithic peopling of much of the Old
World would not have been possible without linguistic capacities and the
cultural transmission of norms of social conduct that supported cooperation
(Bowles and Gintiss 2009: 196). According to Bowles and Gintiss (2009: 197),
our ancestors may have been successful because they created culturally
transmitted institutional environments that favored the evolution of social
preferences on which altruistic cooperation is based.
Moving to the more recent record of modern humans, there are many
more instances of suspected violent deaths during Upper Paleolithic and
Mesolithic times from various sites in parts of Europe, northern Africa, and
the Near East, with evidence in the form of projectile points embedded in
bones, scalp marks on skulls, and cranial fractures (see Haas 2001: 332; Keeley
1996: 37; Kim and Keeley 2008a: 20542055). A challenge, however, is that
cases are scattered throughout time spans of millennia, and the mere detection of these cases does not reveal much about the pervasiveness, frequency,
and intensity for various forms of violence. Much more evidence would be
required to make the stronger claims that Pinker is championing. It is only
for more recent millennia that recently gathered data can be analyzed to
inform prevalence and frequency. Forms of violence have certainly occurred
in the pre-civilized or pre-agricultural world, but it does not automatically
follow that the world was an especially violent place. It is quite possible,
for instance, that prior to the emergence of sedentary lifeways, the world
experienced eras much more peaceable than the one in which we live in
today. A more judicious examination of the archaeological record would have
shown that the distant past might not have been as dreary and violent as
Pinker would have us believe. We should also note that the pre-agricultural
world was much less populated, and that these isolated societies likely had
highly variable beliefs, attitudes, and practices related to peace, nonviolence,
and violence. Additionally, less populated areas could have resulted in less
forms of competition that could lead to violence.
Where the evidence provides stronger support for Pinkers argument is
in the era shortly after a general, global transition to settled life, and perhaps
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this accounts for his decision to begin his tour at 8000 BCE. Here an apparent
increase in the intensity and frequency of warfare is discernible, with clearer
material signatures for homicide and organized violence. A comprehensive
survey of the archaeological record for the Holocene period in many areas
of the world clearly reflects a growing body of evidence. With the advent
of agriculture and sedentary patterns, we see material indications for growing
populations and a greater prevalence of violence and warfare in the
archaeological record of many areas, including parts of Africa, Europe, Asia,
Australia, North and South America, and the South Pacific (Allen and Arkush
2006; Arkush 2008; Bamforth 2006; Emerson 2007; Gat 2006; Golitko and
Keeley 2007; Guilaine and Zammit 2005; Haas 2001; Junker 1999; Keeley
1996, 1997, 2001; Kolb and Dixon 2002; Kusimba 2006; Lambert 2002,
2007; LeBlanc 2003; Milner 2007; Nielsen and Walker 2009; Otterbein 2004;
Parkinson and Duffy 2007; Underhill 2006; Vencl 1984, 1999). Here the indicators for organized violence go beyond the somewhat ambiguous signs of
Paleolithic skeletal trauma, now including signs of property destruction,
defensive architecture, iconographic depictions, buffer zones, and, of course,
tools designed specifically for killing humans and not for construction, farming, and hunting of animals. By the time societies began to write, almost all of
the earliest written records the world over discuss elements of violence and
warfare (Vencl 1984: 117).
The Anarchy of Hunting, Gathering, and Horticultural Societies

According to Pinker (2011: 35), Archaeologists tell us that humans lived in a
state of anarchy until the emergence of civilization some five thousand years
ago, when sedentary farmers first coalesced into cities and states and
developed the first governments. Citing the work of archaeologists (e.g.,
Keeley 1996; LeBlanc 2003), cultural anthropologists (e.g., Knauft 1987;
Otterbein 2004), and political scientists (e.g., Gat 2006), Pinker makes the
broad case that before the advent of centralized states, or Leviathans, the
prevailing condition for smaller-scale, less complex, predominantly mobile
hunter-gatherer societies was one commonly marked by various forms of
intra- and inter-societal violence. He thus submits that anarchy is not simply
the absence of overarching governance, but that it is almost invariably marked
by violence. He also suggests that all forms of violence began to decline since
the emergence of states when the civilizing process initiated pacification of
these nonstate societies. In this perspective, politically centralized, civilized
states were responsible for the first major transition away from anarchic violence and toward a substantive reduction in violence in human history (2011:
44). Despite his claim, not all archaeologists subscribe to this view. Forms of
anarchy existed prior to the presence of Leviathans, but this does not mean
that all nonstate societies were plagued by conflict and violence. The evidence does not show violent anarchy as the natural or default condition,
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at least not in the Hobbesian sense of war of all against all. Indeed, many
archaeologists suggest that the advent of farming, sedentism, urbanism, and
states may have contributed to greater levels of violence. To illustrate, various
forms of sanctioned and institutionalized violence emerged and intensified
within the Shang state of ancient China (Campbell 2009; Underhill 2006). In
the Andes, institutionalized violence and warfare were related to significant
political changes involving states and empires such as the Wari and Tiwanaku
(Arkush 2006). The same can be said for the periods of emergence and zenith
of political power for the Cahokia polity (Emerson 2007).
Pinkers graphs (2011: 49, 53) are provided to illustrate a distinction
between states and nonstates. On the surface, his point is well made, as the
archaeological record does clearly show ancient origins for interpersonal violence and warfare. Keeleys research (1996), for instance, overturns traditional
notions of small-scale societies being capable of only trivial, ritual, or inconsequential warfare. That being said, Keeley does not make the argument that
all nonstate or prestate societies were warlike or especially violent. He simply
argues that they were just as capable of warlike behavior as more recent,
larger-scale societies. In fact, according to Keeley (1996: 183), inattentiveness
to prehistoric violence and warfare is unfortunate because it obscures the fact
that some prehistoric regions and periods were remarkably peaceful over
many generations. Pinker does not adequately acknowledge what the
archaeological record shows, that waves of war and peace seem to come in
alternating cycles in many areas of the world (Haas 2001: 337).
Pinkers over-generalizations of nonstate and state societies serve to create a false dichotomy between the two. As maintained by Sahlins, anthropologists and archaeologists studying present and ancient forms of huntergatherer societies recognize a wide range of variation in subsistence strategies, belief systems, and cultural attitudes about nature, the world, and
relationships with other people. Some are more populous than others, some
are much more sedentary, and some use shifting subsistence strategies
depending on various circumstances. When it comes to violence, archaeology
shows enormous variation throughout the prehistoric world for occurrences,
types, and frequencies, with some regions indicating very little evidence with
others showing significant amounts (Keeley 1996; Thorpe 2003: 159). Pinker
does not acknowledge all of this vast temporal, cultural, and geographic variability, thus placing all such small-scale, generally mobile, nonstate societies
into a single category purportedly marked by violent, anarchic tendencies.
His graphs over-emphasize select cases of nonstate violence, using certain
indications of high warfare deaths to be applied to a universe of nonstate,
hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies. Figures 2-2 (2011: 49) conveys
the impression that all prehistoric archaeological societies, before the emergence of states, were more warlike than their future civilized counterparts.
Not discussed, however, is that depending on ones definition of state, many
of these prehistoric societies were in either direct or indirect contact with
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ancient states, which may have played a role in levels of violence.

Additionally, the bottom of the graph depicts the comparatively peaceful
nature of civilized states that had much smaller percentages of deaths related
to warfare. Comparing percentage of war deaths and rate of death in warfare,
Pinker writes that states are far less violent than traditional bands and tribes
(2011: 52). This category, however, mainly includes countries from the past
few centuries and does not represent all forms of politically centralized,
state-level societies that have existed throughout the world.
At the crux of Pinkers depiction of states is the Leviathan. I agree that
some form of overarching authority serving as a third-party arbiter of justice
is often a necessary prerequisite for stability and peace between parties,
whether those parties are members of the same society or states on a global
stage. However, encapsulated in this assumption is the idea violence was dramatically reduced in the world only when bands, tribes, and chiefdoms came
under control of the first states (2011: 681). This is problematic because of the
considerable archaeological and historic evidence that state societies were
very violent entities, whether perpetrating internally or externally focused
violence. According to Haas (2001: 340), the most striking common pattern
for the archaeological record of all kinds of centralized polities is the universality of warfare, with the scale and ubiquity being much greater than in preceding periods. Indeed, many of the first written records describing violence
were produced by complex societies such as fourth millennium BC Egyptian
civilization or third millennium BC Mesopotamian civilization. One can look
at the Narmer Palette or the Standard of Ur, for instance, for clues about the
role of violence in the emergence of ancient statehood. With the earliest
states, the nature of violence changed, and states became much more efficient
at maiming and killing, in terms of logistics, strategies, technologies, and
organization. Moreover, for many of these early civilizations, such as the
Aztec, the Shang, the Mayan, the Inka, and the Yoruba, political careers, status, and rank were heavily tied to military achievements (Trigger 2003:
250263). Finally, as there has been no standard model for a state, making
a blanket statement about how states reduced violence is an overstatement.
As for the lower war death figures for the modern world, Pinker downplays or ignores other statistics that can indirectly reflect the impact of violence, such as population displacement and refugee migration. Given our
current travel infrastructure and transport technologies, it is comparatively
easier for victims and would-be victims of violence and persecution to flee
and find safe haven long distances away. Without these capacities, current
global levels of violence could have easily resulted in much higher numbers
of war deaths. At the time of this writing, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (http://www.unhcr.org) reported that more than
100,000 refugees had fled Syria during the month of August 2012 alone. Also,
what if we were to examine expenditures in time, financing, and research
related to war efforts, instead of war deaths? Medical advances have certainly
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reduced war deaths for modern societies, and technological advances are
allowing countries to kill at long range, thereby further reducing the overall
number of their own war casualties. The risk of dying for someone at the
controls of a drone, missile, or aircraft is far different than for someone on
the ground facing an adversary. Finally, there is latent violence frozen in
the various unexploded ordinance and minefields of many places, such as
in Germany and Laos. Such violence is not reflected in war death statistics,
but injuries and deaths can still result years later.
According to Pinker (2011: 56), Though imperial conquest and rule can
themselves be brutal, they do reduce endemic violence among the conquered. This may be applicable in some cases, but probably not all. As
argued within tribal zone theory, for instance, violence in many historically
recent or modern-day non-state societies may have been profoundly affected
by interactions with large-scale, complex, sedentary, and agricultural societies (i.e., states) (Ferguson 2004; Ferguson and Whitehead 1992; Whitehead
1992). With this possibility, it is difficult to make the kind of wholesale statement Pinker is advocating about the pacifying and civilizing effects of states.
I do not discount the occurrence and significance of violence in the past,
as there is ample evidence for it. However, the archaeological record for certain eras is spotty, and it is not possible to make a general argument that our
ancestors were inherently more violent than we are today, especially when
we consider a diachronic backdrop of hundreds of thousands of years. To
take the position that the majority of Paleolithic and small-scale communities
throughout the world were plagued by a constant threat of intra- and intercommunity violence is to overstep the bounds of the currently available data.
In sum, Pinker is correct in pointing to early signs of violence, but his conclusions about chronological and spatial ubiquity are not supported.
CONCLUSIONS: THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE

As stated in the introduction, Sahlins and Pinker appear to hold different opinions on human nature. For Sahlins, anthropological studies show many
non-Western cultures to have a very different understanding of the self, individuality, and the rational self-interests of humans. Consequently, Western
assumptions about self-interested actors may not be applicable for all of
humanity across time and space, and perhaps it is our own modern Western
notions that are peculiar. On the other hand, Pinker vehemently defends
modernity, insisting we should not loath our current cultural practices,
beliefs, and morals, and that, if anything, we ought to celebrate our escape
from the anarchy of the ancient and non-civilized worlds. Pinkers book
appears to suggest that emanations of moralistic and enlightened thinking
from a European or Western epicenter are at the heart of our current peaceable era. Interestingly, this thesis is somewhat reminiscent of the kind of ethnocentric or Eurocentric perspective Sahlins seems to be critiquing.
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N. C. Kim
What is ironic in Pinkers argument about the pacifying effects of civilized, cosmopolitan life is that it is precisely a transition from smaller-scale,
village life to a larger-scale, urban counterpart that may have fostered a growing sense of anonymity and social distance, the kind that can nurture rationalizations for acts of violence against non-kin and others. For Sahlins, the
advent of states began to erode kinship ties. Perhaps, then, Europe in the
Middle Ages may have been more violent than other places in the world
because of a difference in how people perceived individuality, rational
self-interest, and an absence of restraints against non-kin. According to
Sahlins, with many non-Western societies, ethnographies have indicated a
perception of kinship in which kinsmen lead each others lives and die each
others deaths (Sahlins 2008: 49). In the non-state, non-urban, less densely
populated social worlds of hunter-gathering societies, there may have been
greater levels of empathy due to more familiarity. Social distance between
related community members were smaller, and geographic distance to nonkin was likely greater. In a sense, then, the advent of the state, in the Western
world or elsewhere, and its emphasis on non-kin ties and more nucleated
settlements, may have led to spikes of intra-societal violence due to more
non-kin interactions and a greater sense of anonymity. If so, then any natural
state of humanity may not be as violent as Pinker would argue.
These differences in opinion notwithstanding, Pinker and Sahlins agree
on the impact of cultural beliefs and values. At the outset of his book, Pinker
offers a quote from Blaise Pascal that portrays humankind simultaneously as
both the glory and the scum of the universe. Perhaps encapsulated in this
perspective is Pinkers own opinion, that from the depths of our own nature
we are at once capable of both deplorable cruelty as well as astonishing
compassion. Hence, we can see that both Pinker and Sahlins stress the
importance of culture in human nature. In Pinkers opinion, humanity and
cultures have continued to evolve, and many in todays developed world
subscribe to certain cultural attitudes towards violence, marked by significantly less tolerance. Thus, while Pinker takes a Hobbesian outlook that a
Leviathan is necessary to stave off anarchy, he fully acknowledges that cultural attitudes and morality can also have a tremendous effect in promoting
peaceful interactions and social order. Similarly, Sahlins maintains that we are
not the involuntary servants of our animal dispositions but are creatures of
culture. Hence, Sahlins conception about human nature somewhat overlaps
Pinkers evaluation of our better angels, wherein a combination of both
biological and cultural factors can determine perceptions of threat, reactions
to aggression and conflict, and (in)tolerance for violent behavior. Just as
Pinker explores our inner demons and better angels, Sahlins writes (2008:
109): Born neither good nor bad, human beings make themselves in social
activity as it unfolds in given historical circumstances.
Our violent actions do not stem solely from innate tendencies, and there
is research indicating that forms of violence, including acts of warfare, are
263
socialized and part of a cultural repertoire of learned behavior (Ember and

Ember 1994). Essentially, I would characterize humans as conditional cooperators, an interpretation not all that dissimilar from Gats (2006: 40) perspective in which levels of violent aggression fluctuate in response to conditions.
Both environmental and social conditions are important, and culture is thus a
key element for understanding violence. To complement Pascals words, I
offer Geertzs (1973: 49) characterization of humans without culture as
unworkable monstrosities. Ultimately cultures can result in extremely varied worldviews and behaviors, and decisions are often contingent on local,
particular circumstances related to time and place, as well as on relationships
with neighboring people. Choices abound, and a range of variation applies
to attitudes about acceptable (or unacceptable) levels of violence. It is thus
tremendously difficult, if not outright impossible, to make blanket generalizations about violence in the worlds past, present, or future.
I concur with Pinker that we are today well positioned to move our
understanding of human nature into unprecedented domains. His book
should not be seen simply as a source of research and explanations for
observed trends regarding violence. It is also a clarion call for continued
research, providing signposts for ongoing efforts. Moving forward, multidisciplinary perspectives can help advance knowledge, with promising new
methods emerging in a number of fields to complement existing ones. For
instance, cutting-edge bioarchaeological methods for studying osteological
remains can provide insights around intensity and prevalence of violence,
as well as its effects on nutrition, population movement, and genetic
exchange. These research efforts can significantly broaden our understanding of the conditions for violence and how societies might be marked by
slavery and bondage, torture, and migrations (see Martin et al. 2012; Milner
1999, 2007; Price et al. 2011; Tung 2012). To illustrate, recent research on
the Wari in the Andes suggests that imperial rule was associated with high
levels of violence, that differential positioning in the empire had little effect
on exposure to violence, and that wound patterning differed between sexes
(Tung 2007). Elsewhere, Milner (2005) uses innovative research comparing
arrow wound rates to show how low percentages of archaeological skeletons
with distinctive conflict-related bone damage can still indicate that warfare
must have had a perceptible impact on lifeways in prehistoric North America.
Having only a handful of skeletons damaged by arrows means there were,
conservatively, several times as many victims of warfare (Milner 2005: 152).
Ongoing work in battlefield archaeology (see Scott et al. 2009) can also help
to compile databases for regions, perhaps allowing inferences to be made
about frequency and precipitating conditions, not unlike efforts such as the
Correlates of War project.
Pinker also hints that the declines in violence, though attributable to
exogenous and cultural trends, might also be related to evolutionary
changes and possible recent natural selection, particularly as they might
264
N. C. Kim
apply to genes affecting cognition and emotion. Ultimately, he backs away

from that limb, arguing that we currently lack solid evidence of recent
biological evolution tweaking our inclinations toward violence and nonviolence (2011: 621). Interestingly, exciting new paleoanthropological
research is foreshadowing future abilities to connect culture to biology.
Recent paleoanthropological research, for instance, suggests that our species is still undergoing genetic change, even in recent millennia (see Hawks
et al. 2007).
In the end, I would caution against the risk of complacency inherent in
Pinkers message that we are now living in the most peaceable era of human
history. I share his hope that, as a species, we are all becoming more intolerant of many forms of violence, on various scales. But, as noted by anthropologists and archaeologists, the prevailing cultural norms of social groups
throughout human history can shift from hawkish to dovish or vice versa
in as little as a generation, and much of the change is context-specific. Pinker
believes that an intensifying application of knowledge and rationality to
human affairsthe escalator of reasoncan force people to recognize the
futility of cycles of violence . . . to reframe violence as a problem to be solved
rather than a contest to be won (2011: xxvi). However, as noted by Whitehead (2004: 60), our own rejection of violence is a cultural attitude that is
not universally shared. While I wholeheartedly agree that we should view
violence as a problem to be solved, the difficulty is that humans are creative
in their uses of materials, ideas, and strategies. Actions related to dominance,
power, and violence are always going to be on the menu. When interests collide and when forms of physical or social survival are at stake, a Pandoras
Box filled with instruments of violence, coercion, and physical force will still
be sitting off in a corner of the room, always ready to be culturally reassessed
and revisited, to be employed again regardless of how much dust has accumulated on its cover. Our best hope is that most of us are willing to expend
energy in constructing durable institutions and frameworks for peacethat
we deem it necessary for the well-being and survival of our species and planet. I understand the need to scientifically examine and reflect on the evolution of cooperative and violent behaviors, but I urge against an overly
optimistic attitude, that we not prematurely celebrate some current true state
of peace (Pinker 2011: 255, citing Gat 2006) just yet.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Michael Harkin for the opportunity to write this review article and for
all his help during the writing process. I greatly appreciate the constructive
comments provided by three anonymous reviewers, which served to
strengthen this article. Any errors within it are my own. Lastly, I would like
to dedicate this article to the memory of my late friend and colleague, Neil L.
265
Whitehead. Though his passing represents a tremendous loss to anthropology,

his beacon will continue to shine brilliantly as inspiration for so many,
including myself.
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272
N. C. Kim
NAM C. KIM is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison. His research is concerned with how different variables
operate in the formation of complex polities, factors such as ecology, trade
interaction, agent-based strategies, ideology, coercive power, and warfare.
Escaping war as a refugee child with his parents, he is today also interested
in the causes and social consequences of warfare and organized violence in
various spatial and temporal settings. Currently, Kims work is geographically
focused on Southeast Asia, where he conducts ongoing archaeological fieldwork at the Co Loa site in Vietnams Red River Valley.

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ancient states, which may have played a role in levels of violence.

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Violence and Humanity

CONCLUSIONS: THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE