Тег: Pinkerton

The Myth of Eternal War: How Did Hobbes Deceive Us?

Once, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes confidently stated that the natural state of humanity is an endless “war of all against all.” Sounds familiar, right? This concept has become so ingrained that we sometimes forget to check its truthfulness. But in reality, it turns out that people are not as bloodthirsty by nature as we are led to believe.

Take, for example, the well-known story of anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who claimed that killers among the Yanomami tribe were more successful in reproducing. The idea is clear and frightening: kill more, and you will have three times as many children! It sounds too harsh to be true, and indeed, it later turned out that Chagnon “stretched the truth” a bit—he was comparing elderly killers with young non-killers. And independent research showed that killers in tribal societies do not reproduce faster than others; in fact, to be honest, fewer of their children survive.

And in general, who said that wars are the norm? A famous myth from Steven Pinker goes like this: 15% of the prehistoric population constantly perished in wars until states emerged and brought order. Great advertising for the state, isn’t it? Except that archaeology shows something completely different: violent deaths in pre-cultural societies were no more than 2%. Moreover, the emergence of states did not reduce the level of violence at all. On the contrary, the first large structures often fueled conflicts and increased the percentage of killings to about 5%.

It is worth noting that anthropologists may unconsciously reinforce the notion of the inevitability of war. For example, researchers “record” groups as warlike that actually hardly ever fought, simply because of the presence of weapon images in rock paintings. But these images do not necessarily evidence actual aggression: weapons could have been used for hunting or symbolic ceremonies. As a result, a false impression is created that ancient people were constantly at war.

Data on so-called “simple” hunter-gatherer societies is also quite telling. Despite being depicted in many works as brutal and always ready to fight, in reality, they are the ones characterized by extremely low levels of aggression and violence. Real war is a rarity for them, not the norm. Conversely, societies with a complex social structure and a more developed hierarchy more often become participants in conflicts and wars. Interesting, isn’t it? It turns out that the more complex a society is, the more conflict and aggression it generates.

Furthermore, many proponents of the Hobbesian perspective fully acknowledge this fact, but they try not to emphasize it, seriously studying only cases of “complex” societies, as, for example, Lawrence Keeley did in the work “War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage.” Alternatively, they may simply categorize “complex” societies as “simple,” subsequently labeling the latter as warlike.

In general, peaceful coexistence is the norm for many peoples. Thus, a study of 590 cultures from around the world showed an absence of wars in as many as 64% of them. Of course, they might have defended themselves against attacks, but initiating attacks is something only a minority of cultures engage in.

So why do we continue to believe in the myth of a human nature doomed to eternal war? Perhaps the problem here is habit—this belief was passed from generation to generation without critical reflection. Or perhaps someone intentionally maintains this myth to justify the existence of a strong and powerful state “saving” us from ourselves.

Let’s admit it to ourselves: the idea that people are by nature inclined toward peace and cooperation sounds much more realistic, optimistic, and attractive. Perhaps it is time for us to stop considering peace a utopia and start seeing it as a natural part of human life. After all, as history and research show, peaceful communities are not the exception, but rather the rule. So is it worth continuing to cling to gloomy Hobbesian imagery? Probably not. It is time to stop allowing fears to dictate our view of humanity and start trusting each other a bit more!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Pinker’s Error – has society become more peaceful because of the emergence of the state?

Voluntarist, Bitarch

One of Steven Pinker’s well-known works is the book “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Based on it, societies that existed before the emergence of agricultural civilizations with cities and monopoly governments suffered from chronic violence and endless wars, and the level of violence has steadily declined over time, partly due to the monopolization of power and law. But has violence actually decreased, did the emergence of the state play an important role in this, and is man cruel by nature?

According to Pinker, for hunter-gatherer societies, the average level of lethal violence was as high as 14%. But where does this data come from? Analyzing it, anthropologists Douglas Fry and Brian Ferguson found that it is inaccurate and represents “cherry-picking”[1][2]. For example, Pinker provides homicide data for 8 tribal peoples, yet he does not mention that in the case of two of them (the Hiví and the Ache), all killings were related to the extermination of the indigenous population by border guards. Meanwhile, the tribes tried to live in peace with one another. Taking these and other similar cases explained by colonialism into account, Pinker’s estimate can already be reduced by half, to 7%.

But other data of his are also doubtful. Modern tribes have been “infected” by colonialists, slave traders, globalization, and simply farming. They have little in common with the tribes that lived thousands of years ago. Additionally, anthropologists may prefer to study more violent societies. 20% of Pinker’s data are provided by a single person—Napoleon Chagnon, who is criticized within the anthropological community, makes methodological errors, and was even exiled from one tribe due to intrusive interference.

Using a different approach, Fry reviewed a sample of 186 societies studied by anthropologists. Only 24 of them were hunter-gatherers, and only 8 had many mentions. In the case of 7 of these 8 societies, killings were reported as a rare or even entirely absent phenomenon. He also searched anthropological literature for cultures that never waged war. He counted as many as 70 such cultures.

As Pinker claims, citing 21 archaeological excavations, 15% of savages died from violence. However, some of this data is very limited and may also be misinterpreted. For example, burials of people with arrowheads may simply mean that they were hunters.

Can better evidence be provided? A study of up to 3,000 remains found in France showed 1.9% cases of lethal injuries. It is not on Pinker’s list. Nor are studies of 350 remains in Britain with 2%, 418 remains in Serbia and Romania with 2.3%, or 2,500 in Japan with 2% traces of lethal violence. A study of 1,107 remains in Europe showed a minimum estimate of 3.7% and a maximum of 5.5% lethal violence. Not even close to Pinker’s 15%.

Finally, all examples cited by Pinker are no older than 12,000 years, meaning they could have been influenced by the agricultural revolution. And as anthropologist Leslie Sponsel writes, “at the stage of hunter-gatherer cultural evolution, which dominated 99% of human existence… the absence of archaeological evidence of war suggests that they were rare or absent throughout most of human prehistory.”

Ultimately, the following data on the level of lethal violence can be derived: 2% for hunter-gatherers, up to 5% for societies after the agricultural revolution, 7% for modern hunter-gatherers, 5% for early states, and 3% for the 20th century. They confirm Ferguson’s theory that wars suddenly emerged in a world without war due to the complication of social structure, as well as Fry’s words that we are dealing not with a continuous decline in the level of violence, but with an n-type curve.

People in hunter-gatherer societies—a social structure closest to the natural state of man—lived in peace and solved many problems without violence long before the state imposed discipline upon them. There was no Hobbesian “war of all against all,” and the data indicating otherwise are inaccurate and selective.