Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 17, 2011

In his new book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Harvard professor Steven Pinker, who has been anointed one of the ?100 most influential scientists? by Time magazine, insists that recent centuries have witnessed a dramatic decline in social violence.  Dr. Pinker, who describes himself as an evolutionary psychologist, describes this as ?the most important thing that has ever happened in human history.?

Pinker claims that this is a triumph of what has been called the ?social contract,? an arrangement in which a secular government asserts a monopoly on the ?legitimate? use of force. By over-awing those inclined toward primitive expressions of violence, the state supposedly emancipates the ?better angels of our nature? ? empathy, self-discipline, and peaceful cooperation.

Somehow, the immensely learned Dr. Pinker missed one of the most consequential facts of modern history: The systematic slaughter during the 20^th Century of at least 170 million people by governments claiming and enforcing a monopoly on the ?legitimate? use of force. He likewise didn?t notice that the civilized and humane values he celebrates are the product of non-state social action through the marketplace and private associations.

The impulses unleashed by the state are demonic, not angelic.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.