I had wanted to read Steven Pinker’s new book Enlightenment Now, sadly it was not available. I read his older book The Better Angels of Our Nature instead. I wonder how accurate the basic premise is. There is a lot of stats and data to back up his idea that violence is going down and things are getting better. It does seem likely. It’s just that horrific acts of violence happen at such a large scale now.
I hope we are getting better but I think it may just be the calm before the storm. Like we’re only behaving because the bread and circus are working for now. Everything looks like it’s going to get a lot worse soon. I hope I’m wrong.
The one part that I found interesting was when he talked about the rise in violence that peaked in the early 90s. He gave lots of theories on what happened but never mentioned lead. I think that short-term increase in violence and sudden drop clearly seems to be associated with the reduction in lead uses. Especially in gas and paint. When looked at lots of countries the rise and fall correlate with use and regulation of lead. But maybe that idea wasn’t widespread when he wrote the book. Or maybe he thinks the idea is stupid. No real way to know, I suppose.
It was an enjoyable, if long, book.