December 6, 2016 // 10:10 AM EST
Donald Trumpâs rise to power was driven in part by an apocalyptic narrative according to which, in a phrase,
you are in grave danger. This is consistent with many peopleâs intuitions about the world, given the ongoing threat of global terrorism, the USâs slow recovery from the Great Recession, and a sense that the Washington establishment is corrupt and doesnât care about the average citizenâs needs. Is Trumpâs apocalypticism right? Are we living in an exceptionally dangerous period of human history? Are these the desperate times that call for desperate measures?
According to the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, the answer is a resounding
No. In his 2011 book
The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker presents a mountain of evidence showing that violence has been
declining for millenniaâa trend that has continued through the twentieth century and up to the present. For example, since World War II there have been no major wars between the worldâs great powers, a phenomenon dubbed the âLong Peace,â and Pinker argues that the end of the Cold War inaugurated a âNew Peaceâ thatâs
marked by a worldwide decline of âorganized conflicts of all kindsâcivil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks.â
But will this trend continue in a post-Trump, post-truth world? Pinker is clear in
Better Angles that it might notâfor instance, there could be accessible âweapons of total destructionâ (WTDs) that
precipitate a global catastrophe, or authoritarian demagogues that misuse and abuse their political power. To understand what Trumpâs victory means for America and, even more, what it means for the future of civilization, I contacted Pinker via email.
Motherboard: Trump has repeatedly painted an apocalyptic picture of contemporary America. He has talked about (black) people getting shot while walking down the street, about terrorists disguising themselves as refugeesfleeing the atrocities of Syria, and about Mexico sending its âcriminalsâ and ârapistsâ across the southern border. Could you briefly explain why this characterization of the contemporary US is factually wrong?
Steven Pinker: Unfortunately, itâs all too easy for newsreaders to believe that apocalyptic picture. The news media give lavish coverage to violent incidents, seldom follow up on negative reportage in the past, and rarely put events in statistical or historical perspective. Worse, they allow themselves to be played by violence impresarios, namely terrorists and rampage killers, who correctly anticipate that they can attract the worldâs attention by killing a number of innocent people at once. This is true not just of tabloids and cable news chasing eyeballs and clicks, but of
high-quality outlets who feel that by highlighting what goes wrong, they are discharging their duty as watchdogs, muckrakers, and afflicters of the comfortable.
The facts are as follows. The rate of violent crime is lower now than it was at any time between 1966 and 2009. Immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime than American citizens. Terrorists kill just three-tenths of one percent of all American homicide victims. The rate of death from terrorism in the United States was higher in the early 1970s than it is today.
And since 2002, more Americans have been killed by right-wing American terrorists than by Islamic terrorists. Itâs true that the rate of violent crime went up between 2014 and 2015,
most likely a consequence of the retreat of active policing since Ferguson. But itâs a small uptick in the context of the massive downward trend since 1992.
Read rest of interview here:
The United States Is Not an Apocalyptic Wasteland, Explains Steven Pinker
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Very interesting interview, and refreshing to hear a guy like Pinker echoing the same things that
I've said about Trump, but he explains it much better than I ever could.
