Public Voices: Steven Pinker and Robert Jay Lifton at The New School for Social Research

Back in January, Robert Jay Lifton and and Steven Pinker had an exchange in the NY Times (included below the video) when Lifton wrote a letter the editors in response to the review of Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Lifton is the author of Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir, a book that takes a very different perspective than Pinker's. The New School of Social Work invited them to have a public discussion, moderated by William Hirst, Professor of Psychology in the New School for Social Research.

Public Voices: Steven Pinker and Robert Jay Lifton

A conversation between two distinguished social researchers and commentators,Steven Pinker and Robert Jay Lifton, about whether we live in a more or less violent time. Pinker's most recent book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined and Lifton is author of, most recently, Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir.

This discussion follows from an exchange between Pinker and Lifton published recently in the New York Times, "Sunday Dialogue: Do We Live in a Less Deadly Time, or Not?". William Hirst, Professor of Psychology in the New School for Social Research, will moderate. The event will close with audience Q&A.

Here is the whole discussion as published in the NY Times:

Sunday Dialogue: Do We Live in a Less Deadly Time, or Not?

Published: January 7, 2012 Robert Jay Lifton, Steven Pinker and readers discuss violence in this and other eras. 

Eleanor Davis

The Letter

To the Editor:

I have been studying violent events for several decades, so I was deeply interested in Steven Pinker’s new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” which claims that violence has long been declining and that this may be our most peaceful era in our species’ existence. Dr. Pinker argues that, over centuries, human beings have become less prone to kill and engage in torture and other cruel and sadistic behavior. 

I have not experienced the 20th and 21st centuries that way. My work has taken me to Auschwitz and Hiroshima, and I have come to see these two dreadful events as largely defining our era. 

Our subsequent development not only in nuclear but also chemical and biological weapons, and our pollution of the planet with our wastes, suggest further directions of mass killing and dying. 

The deaths over the last two centuries reflect a revolution in the technology of killing. During the 20th century we saw the emergence of extreme forms of numbed technological violence, in which unprecedented, virtually unlimited numbers of people could be killed. Those who did the killing could be completely separated, geographically and psychologically, from their victims. 

Millions of people were also killed during the 20th century in more old-fashioned, low-tech ways during genocides, induced famines and wars. 

There is a terrible paradox here. Dr. Pinker and others may be quite right in claiming that for most people alive today, life is less violent than it has been in previous centuries. But never have human beings been in as much danger of destroying ourselves collectively, of endangering the future of our species. 

We are not helpless about our fate. There could not be a more crucial moment to draw upon our gradual taming of individual violence, along with our growing awareness of the grotesque consequences of numbed technological violence, to achieve lasting forms of what can be called peace. 

ROBERT JAY LIFTON
New York, Jan. 3, 2012

The writer is a psychiatrist and the author of, most recently, “Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir.”

Readers React

Robert Jay Lifton has profoundly illuminated the human dimension of the 20th century’s most destructive events. Yet precisely because he has singled out the worst events of one century, his observations cannot speak to the prevalence of violence in the world as a whole, or to its trajectory over history. Only quantitative comparisons can do that, and they suggest that Hiroshima and Auschwitz do not, fortunately, define our era. 

Contrary to decades of predictions that nuclear world war was inevitable, no nuclear weapon has been used since Nagasaki, and today’s threats, as terrifying as they are, cannot compare to the now-defunct prospect of all-out war between the United States and the Soviet Union. 

Nor did the mid-20th-century genocides become the new normal. While the world has seen some horrific mass killings, the global rate of death from genocide has plummeted over the decades, and may now be at an all-time low. 

Estimates of the carnage wreaked by the swords, pikes and arrows of earlier centuries (and by the machetes of the past one) show that remote-control technologies are not necessary for high-volume killing. 

As fellow students of the human mind, Dr. Lifton and I might agree that the causes of violence lie not so much in the machinery of killing as in the psychology of killers: in the balance between tribalism, vengeance, sadism, amoral predation and toxic ideologies on the one hand, and compassion, self-control, fairness and reason on the other. 

The fact that the balance can change (and, I argue, has changed) over time is perhaps the firmest ground for another shared conviction: that we are not helpless about our fate. 

STEVEN PINKER
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 4, 2012

The writer is a professor of psychology at Harvard and the author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.”

  

Steven Pinker and Robert Jay Lifton may be talking at cross-purposes. 

Dr. Pinker may be correct that the actual number of killings has declined over the centuries, which implies that any given person today stands less of a chance of dying violently than just a few centuries ago. But Dr. Lifton focuses on concentrated instances of mass killing in the 20th century, like Auschwitz and Hiroshima. He rightly implies that humanity’s capacity to kill has increased exponentially with the rise of industrialized technology. 

But these are two different analyses. Dr. Pinker’s is a statistical description of actual killings. Dr. Lifton’s is an appraisal of humanity’s potential to increase that number almost beyond imagining.

Perhaps the moral to be drawn from this comparison is that we can continue the encouraging trends that Dr. Pinker notes only if we’re wise enough to heed Dr. Lifton’s blood-chilling advisory.

MARK PACKER

Spartanburg, S.C., Jan. 5, 2012

The writer is a professor of interdisciplinary studies at the University of South Carolina, Upstate.

 

Robert Jay Lifton, picking up on Steven Pinker’s book “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” calls attention to the fact that most of the world’s people today experience less mass killing than in previous eras but endure the modern danger of “numbed technological violence.” Citing the horrific events in Auschwitz and Hiroshima in the 20th century, Dr. Lifton rightly acknowledges yet understates the perilous conditions facing marginalized peoples in our times. 

Having lived and worked in Africa and Southeast Asia for many years, I have observed structural violence there as a combination of human indignities and entrenched poverty. For the marginalized, systemic violence is a spiral of widespread rape, legalized and other forms of homophobia, chronic hunger and environmental degradation, often worsened by collusion among local elites and external interests in resource grabs. 

Lasting peace requires measures for controlling technologies of violence, plus achieving human dignity and alleviating poverty. 

JAMES H. MITTELMAN
Bethesda, Md., Jan. 4, 2012

The writer is a professor of international affairs at American University and the author of “Hyperconflict: Globalization and Insecurity.”

  

To judge whether the human species is more or less violent at different times in history, one requires a definition of violence. I have defined violence in my studies as acts and/or socially maintained conditions that inhibit human development by interfering with the fulfillment of universal human needs, including biological/material, social/psychological, productive/creative, security, self-actualization and spiritual needs. 

Using this concept of violence when examining global realities, one is forced to conclude that large segments of the global population of seven billion are victims of violent acts and conditions. They experience hunger, malnutrition, material and psychological poverty, widespread unemployment, lack of health care, including family planning, lack of meaningful education and adequate social supports, and lack of a sense of security. Moreover, they are subjected to economic and sexual exploitation. Their human development is consequently severely obstructed. 

These conditions, in addition to constant local and trans-local wars, suggest that the human species may be on a suicidal course rather than a course of declining violence. 

DAVID G. GIL
Lexington, Mass., Jan. 4, 2012

The writer is emeritus professor of social policy at Brandeis University and the author of “Violence Against Children: Physical Child Abuse in the United States.”

  

Robert Jay Lifton’s description of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare as well as environmental pollution provides him with ammunition for his argument that the 20th and 21st centuries reflect continuing fratricide. 

We need more Dr. Liftons. We need curbs and restraints, whether sponsored by the United Nations or promoted by individuals, states or nations. We need a United Nations with sanctions to halt violence. We need to be hailed as the decade that defined peace and made war obsolete. 

NANCY M. DAVIS
Avon, Conn., Jan. 4, 2012

  

Both Steven Pinker and Robert Jay Lifton left out of their observations what can be referred to a as “structural violence,” a system placing profit over human need resulting in social problems like extreme poverty, lacks of security in old age, access to health care, and socially useful work at reasonable wages. 

By and large, we have become dulled to such violence, which is something like the “banality of evil” that Hannah Arendt spoke about. These growing economic and social inequalities within and among countries can easily lead to full-scale wars, as former President Jimmy Carter suggested upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Fortunately, movements like Occupy Wall Street may have awakened some of us to such inequities, which are socially violent. 

JOSEPH WRONKA
Springfield, Mass., Jan. 4, 2012

The writer, a professor of social work at Springfield College, is permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva for the International Association of Schools of Social Work.

  

Robert Jay Lifton’s critique of Steven Pinker’s thesis brings to mind the usefulness of the adage that not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. 

Dr. Pinker’s argument depends on statistics, but Dr. Lifton’s rejoinder depends on the historical sense that modernity has been permeated by violence in ever-diversifying forms. 

We have come to accept a permanent state of war as the “new normal.” Societies throughout the world, including our own, suffer from the structural violence of poverty, inequality, pollution, hunger, racism and so on. And now we read daily reports of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — invisible violence that is often overlooked by the statistics. 

MARK HUSSEY
Nyack, N.Y., Jan. 4, 2012

  

I side more with Robert Jay Lifton than with Steven Pinker. My recent book looked at war frequency and fatalities since 1816. Sadly, the number of wars remains about the same. 

For instance, in the period 1816 to 1825, there were eight wars continuing in the world; in 1996 to 2005, there were twice that — a rate of 17 a year. 

In the last five years, there have been eight wars a year, the same number as two centuries ago. Forty-two civil wars started in the 1990s, more than in any previous decade in the last two centuries.

Not surprisingly, the number of civil wars has gone down in the first decade of the 21st century. Statistically, something that’s been the worst ever will tend to improve at the next measuring point. This also happens if one compares current death rates to World War II. 

Meanwhile, as Dr. Lifton indicated, millions can die with the push of a button. We continue to live in an age of great power, great insecurity and, alas, war. 

FRANK WAYMAN
Dearborn, Mich., Jan. 4, 2012

The writer, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, is co-author of “Resort to War: 1816-2007.”

  

I couldn’t agree more with Robert Jay Lifton. He knows history. He knows humanity. His books about Hiroshima and nuclear war are a testimony to a human being who cares about the survival of the species. 

His statement that “we are not helpless about our fate” points to a future where “occupiers of the Progressive mind” will bring the nation’s power brokers to their knees, and their deadly game of nuclear roulette will become a dim memory for generations to come. 

DAVID ROTHAUSER
Brookline, Mass., Jan. 5, 2012

The Writer Responds

My concern is with the new dimension of violence at this moment in human history. The lethal technologies of Hiroshima and Auschwitz have vastly improved since the mid-20th century. Nuclear weapons can be made in various sizes, can continue to proliferate to other countries and possibly terrorist groups, and now enable us to do what in the past only God could do: destroy the world.

This capacity for killing in numbers nothing short of the infinite cannot be adequately grasped by statistics concerning past war-making and killing. 

Nor can we simply say, as Dr. Pinker does, that “the causes of violence lie not so much in the machinery of killing as in the psychology of killers.” Rather, I would point to the dynamic of mind and technology, in which the technology creates a psychological attraction to ultimate power and protection from painful feelings associated with more direct forms of killing. 

People who construct nuclear weapons or plan their possible use do not have to be angry. They need only be socialized to the ideology of nuclear necessity, whether for “national security” or “deterrence” or other plausible purposes. 

Of course there has been more to the 20th and 21st centuries than Auschwitz and Hiroshima. But they are nonetheless defining events in that they brutally displayed this new killing potential and created the imagery of extinction that continues to haunt us. 

I agree with Drs. Mittelman, Gil and Wronka and Mr. Hussey about the more insidious and widespread effects of structural or systemic forms of violence. As for Ms. Davis’s generous sentiment that “we need more Dr. Liftons,” I have to say that there are those who think that one is more than enough. 

I’m also in full agreement with Dr. Pinker and the other letter writers about our capacity to take constructive steps to diminish the dangers we face. Indeed, much protest over the years has sought to do that, whether as 1960s and 1980s opposition to war and weaponry or today’s Occupy movement. We would do well to channel more of this protest into combating all violence, but especially the numbed technological variety. 

ROBERT JAY LIFTON
New York, Jan. 5, 2012