Fadl

There are a couple of threads where Steven Pinker's work The Better Angels of Our Nature have been mentioned. In it, Pinker argues that we are living in the most peaceful non-violent age the world has as yet ever known. I highly recommend reading this book, and think that Baha'is would be interested in the statistics and evidence put forward in the book, since they largely support the Baha'i world view.

For those of you who don't have time to read such a long and heavy work, you can listen to Pinker talking about his book on C-SPAN's Book T.V. here

[The Better Angels of Our Nature] - C-SPAN Video Library


It is a little over an hour, but worth the time.

If you haven't got an hour, then God bless you.

LordOfGoblins

i havnt watched it yet though i want to.
Seems to me though that the idea that we are living in an era of 'peace' is abit contradictory to the Bahai writings.

We are told the perversityt of the world will long continue until some kind of event before the divine standard will be unfurled. The way I see that is that there will pretty much be wars and conflicts until the world decides to accept Baha'u'llahs message. Not that there will be misery everwhere and we need to live with an axe hanging over our heads. But just to be aware that there wont be true peace until there is unity, at least how i understand it..

in some sense we are also told this is the day of God and age of splendours so even though there isnt necesarily world peace we are still lucky to be living in this day.

Pollwr

The title of your thread has given me a mental picture of a host of pink super angels!

I haven't had time to read Pinker's work but I would like to comment that it is my understanding that we are in a process that is moving towards the Lesser Peace (an end to war that is brought about by the actions of politicians etc) which comes before the Most Great Peace.

Could it be that Pinker is picking up the vibe or observing this process?

Illumine

I'm currently reading the book, after seeing it discussed here. When I have finished it I shall watch the video. Thank you for posting it.

Emilia

Oh, I have seen an interview with him! Sounds intriguing.

Also of some interest may be Batra's "The New Golden Age."

I have an hour, just a lousy ISP.

Oh violence is not ended, but as a sometime student of military history what passes for war now is nothing like what it has been for the past few centuries. Something has definitely shifted. Most conflicts now are internal and not major land grabs by other nations.

And there is plenty of misery to be had on all fronts. The perversity is still continuing, but not without some green shoots if you look carefully. Our current global economic crisis is surely a message about materialism and its dangers, is it not?

And no, there won't be true peace until there is unity, but the Lesser Peace is the first stage (that we do not build - others do) and the foundation of that is in place, pretty much as Abdu'l-Baha said it would be. The building of global-level institutions is underway, flawed as those institutions may be at this point.

Oh, there are plenty of things about this day that are downright splendorous. Many of them aren't even religious.

We can start with the Internet. How awesome -- I can speak to so many people in so many parts of the world in so many cultures. People from different cultures don't have to be strangers to each other like it was in the past.

How crazy is it the Internet was born from a Department of Defense project. O teh irony!