The Better Angels Of Our Nature Summary

From prehistory to 21st century, violence and warfare permeate human existence. Tribes, cities, and nations have pitted their youth against one another in hopes improving their position. However, these Soldiers regularly fall short of maximizing their killing potential. In the book On Killing, Dave Grossman scrupulously examines war throughout recent history; specifically the human element in killing. His thorough assessment of the psychological factors associated with homicide is vitally important to individuals who wish to successfully lead their Soldiers during and after combat. Its ultimate value clearly visible in light of four major facets: the background of the writer, the general points of the book, analysis of essential concepts, and the insight provided.

“The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

Instinctivist theories on human aggressiveness often promote the notion that warfare is in the nature of humankind and therefore cannot be prevented. However Margaret Mead eloquently refuted this idea in her renowned essay Warfare: an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity. Mead states, “War is inevitable unless we change our social system and outlaw classes, the struggle for power, and possessions; and in the event of our success warfare would disappear, as a symptom vanishes when the disease is cured.” Through this statement Mead makes it clear that because aggression and subsequently warfare is a learned invention, it can be avoided. For the purposes of this essay, aggression will be defined as “a response that delivers noxious stimuli to another organism.” This essay will outline how and why aggression, and thus warfare, is not biological and is rather a behaviour that is learned as a reaction to social stimuli. Furthermore, it will be explained that violence is used by societies as a political weapon to achieve ostensible objectives.

In his Wall Street Journal essay, “Violence Vanquished,” Steven Pinker claims that contrary to perceived notions of increasing violence and turbulence in the world, "brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise.” Pinker establishes this argument through numeric comparisons of death tolls, genocides and other aggressive perpetrations in modern society with those in prehistoric times. He credits the fall in these quantifications of “violence” to the processes of pacification, civilization, humanitarian revolution, Long Peace, New Peace and the rights revolution that have together created an environment conducive to “our better angels.”

In this TEDTalk, Steven Pinker introduced an interesting trend in societal violence. The talk began by presenting fax that showed a dramatic decrease in the amount of violent crime beginning as far back as the earliest human hunter-gatherers. In many places during that time period, the chances of dying at the hands of another human were as high is sixty percent. Although the media and people tend to believe we are living in a time of extreme violence, we are actually living during one of the most peaceful times in human history. Even though the 20th Century witnessed tragedies such as the Holocaust, Rwanda, Stalin’s mass executions, and two World Wars, the chances of a human by violent means was less than three percent.

Violence is defined as a behavior involving physical or mental force intending to hurt, damage, or kill someone. In the words of Zak Ibrahim, peace is defined as the proliferation or the increase in the existence of Justice. But where does love fit in to these conversations? Violence cannot necessarily transform into love, but the presence of it is surely important. Violence involving our most loved ones, helps us find love and compassion in the toughest of situations, and leads us toward paths of peace. In this essay, examples will be drawn from Zak Ibrahim 's keynote presentation, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Beautiful Boy; a film directed by Shawn Ku, and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

Within modern society when a character strays away from what society depicts as morally right, the individual is frowned upon as if he or she doesn't belong. In “Angels in America” a gay fantasia on National themes, characters struggle to be themselves upon fear of whether or not society will accept them as an individual. The characters not only struggles with whether or not society will accept them, but they also struggle with their inner demons, and ultimately the question of what is truly good or evil. In this paper several characters will be analyzed and discussed from several different viewpoints.

All humans are or have the capacity to be evil. No matter if they choose to act on these sinister urges or not, the desire to violently cause destruction is always within a person. In recent months, countless acts of violence, acts of pure evil have occurred not only in America, but around the world as well. These tragedies verify the truth: humans are inherently evil. No matter what is done, nothing will ever truly prevent the existence of evil among humans. Human beings are savages by nature, and are motivated by the environment around them, society’s demanding expectations, and their natural primitive desire for evil.

Violence and war is notable throughout history. However, it is lazy to say that this proves humans are naturally violent. Rather than using nature as an excuse for those who chose to act violently it’s important we recognize that we have a choice to decide how we act. In Howard Zinn’s, “Violence and Human Nature” He shows that violence is not an instinct but that the environment in which they live in provokes them to act violently or peacefully depending on their choice (43). In City of God, a film concentrating on the gangs of Rio de Janeiro during the 1960’s to the 1980’s, specifically the township of Cidade de Deus, we are introduced to various characters who all make different choices under different motivations. Rocket, the little brother to a member of the Tender Trio, who are essentially the Robin Hood’s of the City of God, to act non-violently despite his environment and the influences around him.

Cruelty: A Human Instinct? In his final novel, inspired by his own personal encounters with the cruelty of the human race, Peter Matthiessen exemplifies to us that, “All nations, he continues, and all religions, cultures, and societies throughout history have perpetrated massacres, large and small: man has been a murder forever” (203). Such experiences have led him to write this novel based on the cruelty of some races or ethnic groups, solely on the premise that history has a way of repeating itself in the most derogatory ways. Peter Matthiessen, a strong environmentalist, a frequent practicer of Zen Buddhism, and a former CIA agent is widely known for his deep interpretations of his views in works of both fiction and nonfiction.

The idea that Steven Pinker discussed in his Ted Talk was that over time our world has become a more peaceful place to reside in. Breaking his evidence down into the viewpoint of millenniums, centuries, and decades, he utilized mortality rates due to warfare, homicide, and death penalty. Furthermore, Pinker analyzes the history of warfare from a social perspective that investigates the effect that anarchy, the value of life, and the expanding of one’s circle of acceptance.

In order to discuss the modes of violence inherent in any symbolic order, a discussion of violence must precede its effects. It is easy to observe what I will call ‘subjective’ violence; however, doing so taints an ‘objective’ assessment. By subjective violence, I mean acts that we can describe as breaking the status quo or utterly unacceptable; spewing a spit ball, punching a friend, engaging in armed conflict, and so on. Objective violence is the status quo, or systemic acts maintaining the existing order; profit schemes enabling the last recession, government institutions that motivate resistance, etc. For the sake of brevity, I only wish to note that I am conceptualizing the notion of violence in an operative sense, as, I believe, it is the only way to provide an effective critique of

In his book The Angels of our Nature, Pinker provides a unique insight to the nature of violence, its evolution throughout time, and how modern societies regard violence. This review will be analyzing and identifying the key points that were identified during the reading of the first four chapters of the book.

The atrocity of acts committed by mankind throughout history demonstrates the dangerous results when society is unable to restrain the natural evil present in human beings. The words ‘humane’, and ‘civilized’, both come from roots that describe society. Their positive connotations associate humankind with an inherent morality. But it is hard to have faith in our race when throughout history; we have brutalized each other in such barbaric ways. How can independently thinking, emotionally compassionate beings take part in massacres like the killings at Columbine or in the terrorist attacks in 2001? The September 11th bombings took thousands of innocent lives, and struck fear into the hearts of millions. What shocked the observing world though, was not the number of dead. It was the senselessness of the cause, the raw savagery of the attacks, the utter lack of humanity. It begged the question: what happens when the moderating hand of society fails to restrain a group of radicals? The answer was simple. We saw the innate evil present in each one of us, in its undistilled, uncensored form. The Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were disillusioned bullies- torn away from society’s expectations through a combination of violence tendencies and psychosis. Their horrific acts were a result of their innate evil nature breaking through the wall of societal structure. Golding’s contention was that in most cases, rules were forced

“Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests,” Revelation 15:6 (Buursma, Manikas-Foster). In Paradise Lost, a notorious angel, Lucifer, is said to transform into a toad and whisper into Eve`s ear (Jance). The world and the Bible have contrasting perspectives on what angels look like or what is an angel`s purpose. Angels are seen as mystical creatures with halos and beautiful wings, yet, also seen as beings that glorify God endlessly. So, what does an angel really look like? Do angels even exist? Are they made up creatures in movies? The world`s perspective and the Bible`s perspective on angels do not wholly match;