Synthesis: Violence and the Possibility of Progress

We've covered a lot of ground: Pinker's optimism, Taleb's statistical critique, Galtung's structural violence, Collins's micro-sociology, democratic peace, nuclear deterrence. Now let's pull the threads together and ask: what can we actually conclude about violence and progress?

The honest answer is: more than nothing, less than certainty. This is one of those questions where intellectual humility is appropriate—not because the question is meaningless, but because the evidence supports multiple interpretations and the stakes are too high for false confidence.

What We Can Say With Confidence

Homicide rates have fallen dramatically in most of the world over centuries. The data here is robust. Medieval Europe had murder rates 20-50 times higher than modern Western Europe. The decline is real, large, and sustained. Whatever explains it—states, commerce, changing norms—something profound has changed.

Judicial torture and cruel punishment have been abolished in most societies. Within the past few centuries, practices that were once routine—public execution, burning at the stake, drawing and quartering—became unthinkable. This is moral progress by almost any definition.

Violence against previously vulnerable groups has declined in developed countries. Women, children, minorities, LGBT people face less legal and social violence than previous generations. Again, this is measurable, recent, and real.

Great powers haven't fought directly since 1945. This is factually indisputable. Whether it constitutes a "trend" or a "statistical fluctuation" is debated, but the fact itself is remarkable and requires explanation.

War itself may be changing character. Interstate wars between conventional armies have become rare. Civil wars, insurgencies, and asymmetric conflicts have become more common. This isn't necessarily more peaceful—it's differently violent. The nature of conflict has shifted even as some measures of violence have declined.

What Remains Genuinely Uncertain

Whether war deaths are declining as a trend or fluctuating randomly. Taleb's critique has bite here. The fat-tailed distribution of war deaths means that decades of relative peace provide weak evidence about underlying probabilities. We might be on a genuine trend. We might be in a temporary lull. The data can't distinguish.

Why the Long Peace has lasted. Nuclear deterrence? Democracy? Economic interdependence? American hegemony? Institutions and norms? Luck? Probably some combination—but which factors are essential versus incidental remains unclear. This matters because protecting the peace requires knowing what's protecting it.

Whether structural violence should count. This is partly a definitional question with no empirical answer. If you count structural violence, the picture darkens significantly. If you don't, it brightens. Reasonable people disagree about what "violence" means, and that disagreement propagates through all conclusions.

The Shape of the Debate

The optimist position (Pinker and allies) says: - Multiple independent trends all point toward declining violence - We have causal mechanisms that explain the decline (states, commerce, empathy, reason) - The pessimist alternative—that nothing has changed—is implausible given the evidence - We should celebrate progress while working to extend it

The pessimist position (Taleb and allies) says: - The data on war doesn't support confident trend claims - Catastrophic risks haven't diminished and may have increased - Complacency is dangerous—the next catastrophe could be around the corner - We should remain vigilant and not mistake luck for safety

The structural violence position (Galtung and allies) says: - Counting only direct violence is arbitrary and self-serving - Systemic harm kills far more people than bullets - "Progress" might just be relocating violence, not reducing it - True peace requires structural transformation, not just reduced body counts

The micro-sociological position (Collins) cuts across the debate: - Violence has always been difficult for humans - Situations matter more than underlying psychology - Institutional changes made violence harder without changing human nature - The decline might be real but fragile

Each position captures something true. Direct violence does seem to be declining in many forms. Statistical uncertainty about war is real. Structural violence is a meaningful category. Situations profoundly shape behavior. A complete picture needs all these perspectives.

The temptation is to pick a side—to be either optimist or pessimist. But the evidence doesn't warrant that clarity. The intellectually honest position is uncomfortable: things are probably getting better in some ways, might be getting worse in others, and we can't be confident about any of it. That's not a satisfying conclusion, but satisfaction isn't the goal—accuracy is.

What Would Change Our Minds?

The debate isn't permanently undecidable. Future evidence could shift the balance:

Another major war would obviously undermine the optimist position—especially if it approached World War scale. A great-power nuclear conflict would settle the debate in the worst possible way.

Continued peace gradually strengthens the trend claim. If we reach 100 years, 150 years, 200 years without great-power war, the "statistical fluctuation" explanation becomes increasingly implausible.

Understanding mechanisms would help. If we could confirm that democracy, trade, or institutions causally prevent war (not just correlate with peace), we'd have stronger grounds for either optimism or concern depending on those factors' trajectories.

Reducing structural violence would address that critique directly. If global poverty continues declining, life expectancies continue converging, and preventable deaths continue falling, the structural violence objection loses force.

Climate catastrophe could reshape the entire debate. If environmental devastation triggers massive migration, resource wars, and state collapse, the violence-decline thesis would become a footnote in a much darker story. Climate is the wild card that could render all our current analyses obsolete.

Living With Uncertainty

Given this uncertainty, what should we believe? What should we do?

Believe provisionally that some progress is real. The homicide decline is robust. The humanitarian revolution happened. Rights have expanded. These aren't nothing, even if war trends remain uncertain.

Don't be complacent. The Long Peace might be fragile. Nuclear near-misses suggest luck has played a role. The conditions that maintained peace might be eroding. Celebrating past progress shouldn't mean assuming future progress is automatic.

Maintain what seems to work. International institutions, economic interdependence, democratic governance, arms control—these plausibly contribute to peace even if we can't prove it conclusively. The conservative approach is to preserve them rather than abandon them for experiments.

Take tail risks seriously. Even if the probability of catastrophic war is low, the consequences would be so severe that prevention deserves enormous resources. This is basic expected value reasoning: (small probability) × (civilization-ending consequence) = high priority.

Address structural violence too. Even if you're persuaded that direct violence is declining, the larger project of human welfare requires addressing systemic harms—poverty, inequality, preventable disease. These kill more people than war and can be reduced through policy.

The Deeper Question

Behind the empirical debates lies a philosophical question: Is moral progress possible?

The violence decline thesis suggests yes—that humans can become better, that institutions can improve behavior, that the arc of history can bend toward justice. This is hopeful but also demanding: it means our choices matter, that we can build a better world or fail to.

The skeptical position suggests caution—that human nature hasn't changed, that violence lurks beneath the surface, that civilization is thinner than we think. This is sobering but also protective: it warns against the hubris that assumed violence was obsolete just before the World Wars.

Both contain wisdom. Progress is possible but not inevitable. Improvement is real but reversible. Humans have become less violent in some ways while retaining capacities for terrible violence that the right conditions could activate.

The synthesis is neither naive optimism nor cynical pessimism but something harder: working to extend genuine progress while remaining vigilant against genuine threats. Celebrating what we've achieved while recognizing how fragile it is. Building institutions that make peace more likely while preparing for the possibility they might fail.

This is emotionally difficult. We want to know if things are getting better or worse. The answer "some of each, uncertainly" doesn't satisfy our craving for narrative. But the world isn't obligated to fit our narrative preferences. Sometimes the honest answer is complex, conditional, and unsettled.

The Practical Upshot

What should this change about how we act?

Support institutions that seem to preserve peace. International organizations, arms control agreements, diplomatic channels—these are imperfect but better than nothing. Dismantling them without better alternatives is reckless.

Take democratic backsliding seriously. If democracy contributes to peace, then democratic erosion threatens peace. The rise of authoritarianism isn't just a domestic concern; it's a global stability concern.

Invest in conflict prevention. Every war not fought is a success we'll never see. Diplomacy, mediation, early warning systems—these are boring compared to war but infinitely preferable.

Work on structural violence. Reducing poverty, improving healthcare, expanding opportunity—these aren't just humanitarian concerns. They reduce the underlying conditions that can produce conflict.

Maintain nuclear safety. The biggest existential risk remains nuclear war. Anything that reduces that risk—arms control, communication channels, fail-safes against accidents—deserves priority.

Stay humble. We don't fully understand why we've had peace. We might be benefiting from factors we don't appreciate. We might be eroding conditions we don't realize are important. Humility about our knowledge should counsel caution about our actions.

Prepare for discontinuity. History doesn't move smoothly. Periods of peace can end suddenly. The World Wars came after decades of optimism about progress. Assume that what has worked might stop working, and build resilience against shocks.

The Takeaway

Is violence declining? Probably yes, in some important ways. The homicide decline is real. The humanitarian revolution happened. Rights expanded. These represent genuine progress.

Is the Long Peace secure? We don't know. Multiple factors contributed, some are eroding, and luck may have played a larger role than we admit. The next 80 years are not guaranteed by the last 80.

What should we do? Work for peace while preparing for its fragility. Support the institutions that seem to work. Address the structural violence that persists. Remain vigilant about catastrophic risks. And hold both progress and danger in mind simultaneously—celebrating how far we've come while recognizing how far we could fall.

Violence and progress. Both are real. Both are uncertain. Living wisely means taking both seriously.

The violence debate isn't just academic. How we answer it shapes policy, priorities, and expectations. Get it wrong in the optimist direction, and we become complacent before dangers. Get it wrong in the pessimist direction, and we miss opportunities to extend and deepen peace.

The best we can do is hold multiple possibilities in mind simultaneously—progress and fragility, hope and vigilance, celebration and caution. It's uncomfortable, but discomfort with uncertainty is the price of intellectual honesty.

Further Reading

- Pinker, S. (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature. Viking. - Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan. Random House. - Galtung, J. (1969). "Violence, Peace, and Peace Research." Journal of Peace Research. - Collins, R. (2008). Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory. Princeton University Press.

This concludes the Violence and Its Decline series. For more on how societies organize and change, see the Anthropology of Institutions series.