A History of Violence

In a series of lectures at the College de France in the 1970s, Foucault put forward
the interesting hypothesis that history is actually the history of violence. Accord-
ing to Foucault, the history of every constitution retains evidence of every civil
upheaval and war that has affected the state in question. Foucault was particu-
larly making a point about the French constitution including, of course, the fun-
damental changes brought in by the revolution of 1789. However, most influence
was always felt from the LAST war or civil upheaval.

This is a thought-provoking hypothesis. It can certainly be applied to European

power relationships after the Second World War, with the division of Europe into
two hostile camps reflecting the reality of a world controlled by the two new su-
perpowers, America and the USSR. The constitutions of the Eastern Bloc coun-
tries, for example, clearly reflected the reality of the USSR's victory over fascist
Germany, while the democracies that won the war were free to shape or develop
their constitutions as they liked. The instance of Japan is instructive: after losing
the war and suffering the devastation caused by the dropping of two atomic
bombs, the Japanese gave up on their own world view completely and committed
themselves to imitating the American model: even to the point where in many ar-
eas they surpassed the original.

Foucault's ideas on history and violence are as relevant today as ever. It is inter-
esting to note that we do not enjoy democratic privileges due to some divine de-
cree: rather, they are the product of successful wars and civil struggles. On the
other hand, it can also be said that these same privileges have come about, to a
large extent, as the result of successful violence.
Steven Pinker and Violence

As most people interested in the fields of psychology and linguistics will know,
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist best known for his tweaking of Chomsky's
idea that children possess a generative or universal grammar. For Chomsky, this
meant that all languages conformed to the rules of a kind of "proto" grammar that
children possessed instinctively and could apply on the basis of just a few exam-
ples. Chomsky, however, didn't spend a lot of time describing where this ability
came from: it was "innate" and all children possessed it. In some sense, it could
be described as a by-product of mind. Now, Steven Pinker was not happy with
such vagueness and developed the idea that children's innate grasp of grammar is
a product of natural selection rather than mind per se. Natural selection devel-
oped the neural networks conducive to language acquisition when it became nec-
essary for people to speak. On the basis of this flimsy distinction, Pinker came up
with the idea that language is an "instinct". In essence, Pinker has been parasitic
of Chomsky's ideas, but gives them a smart new twist which has succeeded in put-
ting his name on the academic map. Pinker, in addition to his more serious work
has written a lot of science for dummies type stuff. Now, he has a new book
ready, entitled: "A History of Violence" and earlier this year he gave a taster of its
theme at the TED conference in Monterey, California.

In this short talk, Pinker states his belief that violence has been on the decline for
centuries and that today we live in the most non violent period in history. In order
to back this up, he inundates his listeners with warped statistics. Apparently male
Indians in America had a far higher risk of dying at the hands of another male
than we have today. Who would ever have guessed such a thing? Of course, he
doesn't take into account that all males in agricultural or hunter gatherer socie-
ties were liable to be called upon to defend the tribe. Furthermore, he ignores
the way modern society divides human labour: there are particular groups con-
cerned with enforcing law and fighting foreign armies. The deaths may be innu-
merable, but clearly in a world that has nearly quadrupled its population in the
last hundred years, most males are not going to be killed. Pinker, of course, sets
up his statistics in a particular and biased way. What would his graph have looked
like if he'd counted up the dead killed in wars during the last millennium? Very
different in fact! Lowest estimates conclude that more than 100 million people
have died in twentieth century warfare. That's far more than in any other century
of human history!

In his egotism, Pinker doesn't even bother to look at what past thinkers on the
subject of human violence have had to say. In particular, he ignores Michel Fou-
cauld's series of lectures given at the College de France in 1976 under the title,
"Society Must be Defended". If he had studied Foucauld, he would have under-
stood that in the modern age, violence has become institutionalized and often
operates more on the level of threat: think of America and the Soviet Union dur-
ing the cold war and the concept of MAD. A war never occurred because the con-
sequences of what would have happened had both nuclear arsenals been re-
leased, were too awful to contemplate. In other words the THREAT of annihilation
kept war at bay for 45 years! In today's world of modern technological societies,
the ever present threat of violence to bodies is successful in preventing most
people from breaking the rules

Pinker's analysis is superficial and wrong. Time magazine included this man in its
list of the world's 100 most influential people. If that is true, then God help us
all!