The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

  Intelligence and Economic Literacy. And now for a correlation that will annoy the left as much as the correlation with liberalism annoyed the right. The economist Bryan Caplan also looked at data from the General Social Survey and found that smarter people tend to think more like economists (even after statistically controlling for education, income, sex, political party, and political orientation).273 They are more sympathetic to immigration, free markets, and free trade, and less sympathetic to protectionism, make-work policies, and government intervention in business. Of course none of these positions is directly related to violence. But if one zooms out to the full continuum on which these positions lie, one could argue that the direction that is aligned with intelligence is also the direction that has historically pointed peaceward. To think like an economist is to accept the theory of gentle commerce from classical liberalism, which touts the positive-sum payoffs of exchange and its knock-on benefit of expansive networks of cooperation.274 That sets it in opposition to populist, nationalist, and communist mindsets that see the world’s wealth as zero-sum and infer that the enrichment of one group must come at the expense of another. The historical result of economic illiteracy has often been ethnic and class violence, as people conclude that the have-nots can improve their lot only by forcibly confiscating wealth from the haves and punishing them for their avarice.275 As we saw in chapter 7, ethnic riots and genocides have declined since World War II, especially in the West, and a greater intuitive appreciation of economics may have played a part (lately there ain’t been much work on account of the economy). At the level of international relations, trade has been superseding beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism over the past half-century and, together with democracy and an international community, has contributed to a Kantian Peace.276

  Education, Intellectual Proficiency, and Democracy. Speaking of the Kantian Peace, the democracy leg of the tripod may also be fortified by reasoning. One of the great puzzles of political science is why democracy takes root in some countries but not others—why, for example, the former satellites and republics of the Soviet Union in Europe made the transition, but the -stans in Central Asia did not. The wobbliness of the democracies imposed on Iraq and Afghanistan makes the problem all the more acute.

  Theorists have long speculated that a literate, knowledgeable populace is a prerequisite to a functioning democracy. Down the road from where I sit, the Boston Public Library displays on its entablature the stirring words “The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty.” Presumably by “education” what the carvers had in mind was not an ability to name the capitals of all the states one would pass through on a trip from Columbus, Ohio, to the Gulf of Mexico, but literacy and numeracy, an understanding of the principles behind democratic government and civil society, an ability to evaluate leaders and their policies, an awareness of other peoples and their diverse cultures, and an expectation that one is part of a commonwealth of educated citizens who share these understandings.277 These competencies require a modicum of abstract reasoning, and they overlap with the abilities that have risen with the Flynn Effect, presumably because the Flynn Effect itself has been driven by education.

  But the Boston Public Library theory of democracy-readiness has not, until recently, been tested. It’s long been known that mature democracies have better educated and smarter populations, but mature democracies have more of everything that is good in life, and we can’t tell what causes what. Perhaps more democratic countries are also richer and can afford more schools and libraries, which make their citizens better educated and smarter, rather than the other way around.

  The psychologist Heiner Rindermann tried to cut the correlational knot with a social science technique called cross-lagged correlation (we saw an example of the technique in the British study showing that bright children become enlightened adults).278 Several datasets assign countries numerical scores on their levels of democracy and rule of law. Also available for many countries are the number of years of education attained by their children. In a subsample of countries, Rindermann also obtained data on their average scores on widely used intelligence tests, together with performance on internationally administered tests of academic achievement; he combined the two into a measure of intellectual ability. Rindermann tested whether a country’s level of education and intellectual ability in one era (1960–72) predicted its level of prosperity, democracy, and rule of law in a later one (1991–2003). If the Boston Public Library theory is true, these correlations should be strong even when other variables, like the nation’s wealth in the earlier period, are held constant. And crucially, they should be far stronger than the correlation between democracy and rule of law in an earlier period and education and intellectual ability in the later one, because the past affects the present, not the other way around.

  Let’s tip our hats to the stonecarvers of the Boston Public Library. Education and intellectual abilities in the past indeed predicted democracy and rule of law (together with prosperity) in the recent present, holding all else constant. Wealth in the past, in contrast, did not predict democracy in the present (though it did mildly predict rule of law). Intellectual ability was a more powerful predictor of democracy than the number of years of schooling, and Rindermann showed that schooling was predictive only because of its correlation with intellectual ability. It is not a big leap to conclude that an education-fueled rise in reasoning ability made at least some parts of the world safe for democracy. Democracy by definition is associated with less government violence, and we know that it is statistically associated with an aversion to interstate war, deadly ethnic riots, and genocide, and with a reduction in the severity of civil wars.279

  Education and Civil War. What about the developing world? Average scores on intelligence tests, though they started from lower levels, have been steeply rising in the countries in which the trends have been measured, such as Kenya and Dominica.280 Can we attribute any part of the New Peace to rising levels of reasoning in those countries? Here the evidence is circumstantial but suggestive. Earlier we saw that the New Peace has been led, in part, by a greater acceptance of democracy and open economies, which, as we have just seen, smarter people tend to favor. Put the two together, and we can entertain the possibility that more education can lead to smarter citizens (in the sense of “smart” we care about here), which can prepare the way for democracy and open economies, which can favor peace.

  It’s difficult to verify every link in that chain, but the first and last links have been correlated in a recent paper whose title is self-explanatory: “ABC’s, 123’s, and the Golden Rule: The Pacifying Effect of Education on Civil War, 1980–1999.” 281 The political scientist Clayton Thyne analyzed 160 countries and 49 civil wars taken from the dataset of James Fearon and David Laitin, which we visited in chapter 6. Thyne discovered that four indicators of a country’s level of education—the proportion of its gross domestic product invested in primary education, the proportion of its school-age population enrolled in primary schools, the proportion of its adolescent population that was enrolled in secondary schools (especially the males), and (marginally) the level of adult literacy—all reduced the chance the country would be embroiled in a civil war a year later. The effects were sizable: compared to a country that is a standard deviation below the average in primary-school enrollment, a country that is a standard deviation above the average was 73 percent less likely to fight a civil war the following year, holding constant prior wars, per capita income, population, mountainous terrain, oil exports, the degree of democracy and anocracy, and ethnic and religious fractionation.

  Now, we cannot conclude from these correlations that schooling makes people smarter, which makes them more averse to civil war. Schooling has other pacifying effects. It increases people’s confidence in their government by showing that it can do at least one thing right. It gives them skills that they can parlay into jobs rather than brigandage and warlording. And it keeps teenage boys off the st
reets and out of the militias. But the correlations are tantalizing, and Thyne argues that at least a part of the pacifying effect of education consists of “giving people tools with which they can resolve disputes peacefully.” 282

  Sophistication of Political Discourse. Finally, let’s have a look at political discourse, which most people believe has been getting dumb and dumber. There’s no such thing as the IQ of a speech, but Tetlock and other political psychologists have identified a variable called integrative complexity that captures a sense of intellectual balance, nuance, and sophistication.283 A passage that is low in integrative complexity stakes out an opinion and relentlessly hammers it home, without nuance or qualification. Its minimal complexity can be quantified by counting words like absolutely, always, certainly, definitively, entirely, forever, indisputable, irrefutable, undoubtedly, and unquestionably. A passage gets credit for some degree of integrative complexity if it shows a touch of subtlety with words like usually, almost, but, however, and maybe. It is rated higher if it acknowledges two points of view, higher still if it discusses connections, tradeoffs, or compromises between them, and highest of all if it explains these relationships by reference to a higher principle or system. The integrative complexity of a passage is not the same as the intelligence of the person who wrote it, but the two are correlated, especially, according to Simonton, among American presidents.284

  Integrative complexity is related to violence. People whose language is less integratively complex, on average, are more likely to react to frustration with violence and are more likely to go to war in war games.285 Working with the psychologist Peter Suedfeld, Tetlock tracked the integrative complexity of the speeches of national leaders in a number of political crises of the 20th century that ended peacefully (such as the Berlin blockade in 1948 and the Cuban Missile Crisis) or in war (such as World War I and the Korean War), and found that when the complexity of the leaders’ speeches declined, war followed.286 In particular, they found a linkage between rhetorical simple-mindedness and military confrontations in speeches by Arabs and Israelis, and by the Americans and Soviets during the Cold War.287 We don’t know exactly what the correlations mean: whether mule-headed antagonists cannot think their way to an agreement, or bellicose antagonists simplify their rhetoric to stake out an implacable bargaining position. Reviewing both laboratory and real-world studies, Tetlock suggests that both dynamics are in play.288

  Has the integrative complexity of political discourse been pulled upward by the Flynn Effect? A study by the political scientists James Rosenau and Michael Fagen suggests it may have.289 The investigators coded the integrative complexity of American congressional testimony and press coverage in the early (1916–32) and late (1970–93) decades of the 20th century. They looked at the verbiage surrounding controversies in the two eras with roughly similar content, such as the Smoot-Hawley Act, which clamped down on free trade, and then the NAFTA agreement, which opened it up, and the granting of women’s suffrage and then the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. In almost every case, contrary to the worst fears of today’s political buffs, the integrative complexity of the political discourse increased from early to late in the century. The sole exception lay in congressmen’s statements on women’s rights. Here is an example of the quality of argument used to support voting rights for women in 1917:In the great Lone Star State, 58 counties of which it is my honor to represent, a State which is the largest in this Union, every person over 21 years of age may vote except a convict, a lunatic, and a woman. I am not willing that woman shall be placed in the same class and category in the Lone Star State with a convict and a lunatic.290

  And here is an example of an argument used in 1972 to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment, from Senator Sam Ervin, born in 1896:[The ERA] says that men and women are identical and equal legal human beings. It gives consideration for many foolish things like that. It is absolutely ridiculous to talk about taking a mother away from her children so that she may go out to fight the enemy and leave the father at home to nurse the children. The Senator from Indiana may think that is wise, but I do not. I think it is foolish.291

  But the unchanging inanity of the senators’ arguments on women’s rights was overshadowed by twenty-eight other comparisons that found an increase in sophistication over the course of the century. Ervin, by the way, was no troglodyte, but a respected senator who would soon be lionized for chairing the committee on Watergate that brought down Richard Nixon. The fact that his words sound so fatuous today, even by the low standards of senatorial speechifying, reminds us not to get too nostalgic for the political discourse of decades past.

  In one arena, however, politicians really do seem to be swimming against the Flynn Effect: American presidential debates. To those who followed these debates in 2008, three words are enough to make the point: Joe the Plumber. The psychologists William Gorton and Janie Diels quantified the trend by scoring the sophistication of candidates’ language in the debates from 1960 through 2008.292 They found that the overall sophistication declined from 1992 to 2008, and the quality of remarks on economics began a free fall even earlier, in 1984. Ironically, the decrease in sophistication in presidential debates may be the product of an increase in the sophistication of political strategists. Televised debates in the waning weeks of a campaign are aimed at a sliver of undecided voters who are among the least informed and least engaged sectors of the electorate. They are apt to make their choice based on sound bites and one-liners, so the strategists advise the candidates to aim low. The level of sophistication cratered in 2000 and 2004, when Bush’s Democratic opponents matched him platitude for platitude. This exploitable vulnerability of the American political system might help explain how the country found itself in two protracted wars during an era of increasing peace.

  There is a reason that I made reason the last of the better angels of our nature. Once a society has a degree of civilization in place, it is reason that offers the greatest hope for further reducing violence. The other angels have been with us for as long as we have been human, but during most of our long existence they have been unable to prevent war, slavery, despotism, institutionalized sadism, and the oppression of women. As important as they are, empathy, self-control, and the moral sense have too few degrees of freedom, and too restricted a range of application, to explain the advances of recent decades and centuries.

  Empathy is a circle that may be stretched, but its elasticity is limited by kinship, friendship, similarity, and cuteness. It reaches a breaking point long before it encircles the full set of people that reason tells us should fall within our moral concern. Also, empathy is vulnerable to being dismissed as mere sentimentality. It is reason that teaches us the tricks for expanding our empathy, and it is reason that tells us how and when we should parlay our compassion for a pathetic stranger into an actionable policy.

  Self-control is a muscle that may be strengthened, but it can prevent only the harms for which we ourselves harbor inner temptations. Also, the 1960s slogans were right about one thing: there are moments in life when one really should cut loose and do one’s thing. Reason tells us what those moments are: the times when doing your thing does not impinge on other people’s freedom to do their thing.

  The moral sense offers three ethics that can be assigned to social roles and resources. But most applications of the moral sense are not particularly moral but rather tribal, authoritarian, or puritanical, and it is reason that tells us which of the other applications we should entrench as norms. And the one ethic that we can design to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number, the Rational-Legal mindset, is not part of the natural moral sense at all.

  Reason is up to these demands because it is an open-ended combinatorial system, an engine for generating an unlimited number of new ideas. Once it is programmed with a basic self-interest and an ability to communicate with others, its own logic will impel it, in the fullness of time, to respect the interests of ever-increasing numbers of others. It is reason too that can a
lways take note of the shortcomings of previous exercises of reasoning, and update and improve itself in response. And if you detect a flaw in this argument, it is reason that allows you to point it out and defend an alternative.

  Adam Smith, friend of Hume and fellow luminary of the Scottish Enlightenment, first made this argument in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, using a poignant example that resonates today. Smith asked us to imagine our reaction to reading about a dreadful calamity befalling a large number of strangers, such as a hundred million Chinese perishing in an earthquake. If we’re honest, we will admit that our reaction would run more or less as follows. We would feel bad for a while, pitying the victims and perhaps reflecting on the fragility of life. Perhaps today we would write a check or click on a Web site to aid the survivors. And then we would get back to work, have dinner, and go to bed as if nothing had happened. But if an accident befell us personally, even if it were trivial in comparison, such as losing a little finger, we would be immensely more upset, and would not be able to put the misfortune out of our minds.

  This all sounds terribly cynical, but Smith continues. Consider a different scenario. This time you are presented with a choice: you can lose your little finger, or a hundred million Chinese will be killed. Would you sacrifice a hundred million people to save your little finger? Smith predicts, and I agree, that almost no one would select this monstrous option. But why not, Smith asks, given that our empathy for strangers is so much less compelling than our distress at a personal misfortune? He resolves the paradox by comparing our better angels:It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of others, calls to us, with a voice capable of astonishing the most presumptuous of our passions, that we are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it; and that when we prefer ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others, we become the proper objects of resentment, abhorrence, and execration. It is from him only that we learn the real littleness of ourselves, and of whatever relates to ourselves, and the natural misrepresentations of self-love can be corrected only by the eye of this impartial spectator. It is he who shows us the propriety of generosity and the deformity of injustice; the propriety of resigning the greatest interests of our own, for the yet greater interests of others, and the deformity of doing the smallest injury to another, in order to obtain the greatest benefit to ourselves.293