The good news proclaimed in Steven Pinker's new book is that human beings are much less violent than they used to be, and are likely to become much more peaceable in the future than they are today. According to Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of such widely read works as The Blank Slate (2002) and The Language Instinct (1994), the waning of religion and the embrace of secular reason have made us not simply wealthier and healthier than our ancestors, but also more intelligent and moral. "It is easy to forget," the author writes, "how deeply brutality was once woven into the fabric of daily existence." Modern life is still marred by violence, but the men and women of today, sheltered by powerful nation-states, pacified by commerce and technology, and increasingly freed from "malignant" doctrines like the "sacredness of the soul," are more reasonable, and therefore more peaceful, than those of the past.
