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By Guest Contributor Jennifer C. Sarrett, MEd, MA Doctoral Candidate, Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts Emory University On Friday, December 14th 2012, the country learned of the mass shooting of 5- and 6-year-old children and several adults in Newtown, CT. By the end of the day, we learned that Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the heinous act, may be autistic . Although we now know that this is not the case, it has spurred conversations about the link between autism and violence. This mental illness guessing-game has become the norm in the wake of such tragedies. Jared Loughner and James Holmes may have been schizophrenic; Sueng-Hi Cho may have been depressed, anxious, and also possibly autistic; Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold may have been depressed and/or psychopathic. These speculations are understandable – the public yearns to understand the motives behind such acts and recognizes that good mental health and mass shootings are never coupled–however, the way these representation...

As a college student deep into my studies, I have developed a dependency on a warm, slightly sweetened morning cup of coffee. I begin each day (or sometimes each afternoon) with a mug full of the deep brown nectar, with its bold, slow roasted flavor. I suppose I could quit any time I want, right? You know, I could put the cup down and be the same. Maybe I would have a harder time getting started in the morning or be less productive at work. It might be a little more challenging to stay awake on my drive to campus. Maybe I’ll go to bed a little earlier and put off my assignments for another day. On second thought, maybe I’ll stick to my coffee. I don’t think I could do much without it. Original Image from Americannonfiction.com With the knowledge that I am far from being the only one with this compulsion, I want to open the discussion on addiction and responsibility. Getting started on ‘something,’ such as drugs, gambling--some are now suggesting even the Internet--is generally consider...

Congratulations, citizen of the world! You’ll be pleased to know the world you live in has become remarkably less violent in the past 50-100 years AND on top of all that, it’s all thanks to YOU! You, and absolutely every other fellow human being currently living, are amazingly intelligent, exceedingly compassionate, and astonishingly advanced in your use of logic and reasoning. As a result of these impressive improvements beyond the traits of previous generations you’re responsible for making the world a safer, less violent place. Sound too good to be true? I think it’s a bit audacious myself, but according to a recent article and book by author Steven Pinker this is exactly what has been happening over the course of the past century. Pinker argues that contrary to popular notions, incidences of violence world-wide have been shockingly low compared to other periods in world history, and that this decline stems directly from our capacity for reason. As Pinker states, “the most important...

Steven Pinker’s particular brand of wishful thinking reeks of pandering at best, ivory tower blindness at worst. In citing a few convenient “statistics” (evoking the term liberally), sprinkled with a few self-serving platitudes, Pinker deftly paints a caricature of reality and history that converges to his thesis. To say that Pinker isn’t an entertaining artist would be disingenuous. It simply makes sense: reasonable people would be much more interested in working together for the common good. Intelligent beings seek to further their intelligence, an effort that necessitates a peaceful landscape and rocking chair. A rise in educated citizenry should necessarily see a corresponding rise in peace metrics. However, the bits of evidence brought forth to support his argument, come severely under-armed. It’s almost difficult to directly address the points made in “Taming the devil within us” due to the nature of most of his arguments: appeals to narcissism. His self-congratulatory reasoning ...

World War I. The Holocaust. The Partition of India. The Khmer Rouge. Rwanda. Darfur. Each is a twentieth century event in which at least 500,000 people were killed based on their race, ethnicity, ideology, or religion. Now what if someone told you that despite these recent atrocities, our world is becoming increasingly nonviolent? That the incidence of major war, homicide, rape, abuse, and intolerance have all precipitously declined since the Middle Ages, and especially within the past 50 years? You might meet that argument with some skepticism. In his latest book, The Better Angles of Our Nature 1 , Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues exactly that. Pinker illustrates that historical criminology data overwhelmingly indicate the modern world is far less violent than we conventionally realize. According to Pinker, this is a result of our “better angels” of self-control, empathy, morality, and reasoning, triumphing over our “inner demons,” for four reasons: 1) the Leviathan; 2) gen...

Violence, as Pinker suggests in his article “Taming the devil within us,” is something that has percolated through the eons of mankind when one considers what it is to be human. But—what exactly is violence? When one takes a closer look at what it means to be violent, one will encounter varying definitions even within a given culture. For instance, while some people love to hunt and animal research is ubiquitous in scientific research, there are those that abhor such things and find them extremely violent. Moving between cultures exponentially confounds the issue, as in many cultures it is perfectly acceptable and common practice to beat your spouse—something which those of us in the United States would find quite alarming and violent. Reason—the ability to employ rational thought in evaluative decision making, Pinker suggests, is responsible for the decrease in violence seen in human culture over time when compared to ancient Rome, for instance. While reason, in and of itself, is impo...

In his article “Taming the devil within us,” Steven Pinker argues that violence in modern society has decreased over time. He states that there are three main factors propelling this change, empathy, morality, and most importantly, reason. Pinker begins this discussion by proposing “evidence” to support his claim that violence has decreased over time, especially in the recent years after World War II. He provides anecdotal evidence to support his claims, while never exploring actual statistical numbers or experimental evidence. For example, Pinker states that “If you added up all the homicides…the casualties of religious and revolutionary wars, the people executed for victimless crimes…and… genocides…they would surely outnumber the fatalities from amoral predation and conquest.” When considering the potential causes behind a behavioral phenomena, one must agree that the phenomena exists to begin with. I do not necessarily disagree with Pinker in his assumptions, but I do not see any su...