Can You Believe It?

Thank your lucky stars you are living now for you are far less likely to get clubbed over the head when you walk out your front door (or visited by any other form of violence) than at any time since Neanderthal Man walked out of his cave. Steven Pinker, the well known and respected Harvard cognitive psychologist/historian, argues this in his soon-to-be published book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. The reason you may hold a contrary view, Dr. Pinker explains, is that we are daily bombarded by the media's reporting of global crimes and wars.

I'm looking forward to reading his book, if I can lift it (700+pages) because I have long thought that, despite all the miseries in the world, things/people are looking up. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I hoped such was the case, but now, using statistical methodology, Dr. Pinker offers a scientific point of view.

What I glean from reading summaries and pre-release reviews, Dr. Pinker sees humans in constant struggle between good and evil (different vocabulary, but let's give a nod here to Dr. Freud) with good getting the upper hand. What really has caught my attention is Dr. Pinker's identification of five inner demons and four better angels involved in the struggle. The demons are: sadism, revenge, dominance, violence for gain and violence for an ideology. The angels are: self-control, empathy, morality and reason. What therapist, worth the name, hasn't dealt with these demons and angels within the self and within clients? It's a tidy list, don't you think?