Don’t look now, but this unspeakably violent planet – its two world conflicts, its wholesale modern genocide, its bloody political revolutions and the emergence of the deadly ISIL aside – has never had it so peaceful. In his book “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” Harvard researcher Steven Pinker says that prior to the concept of nationhood, battlefield deaths totaled 500 for every 100,000 persons; that toll is down to .3. The rate of genocidal deaths was 1,400 times higher in 1942 (a World War II year) than in 2008. At the end of World War II, there were fewer than 20 democracies around the world; today, that number is up fivefold.
In a very real way, our home is in sanity’s relentless grip. Pinker’s book lists several causes for the rapid decline in global violence – and if you attend a popular UCSD symposium set for Friday, Oct. 10, you (along with some of the rest of the world) will take away several lessons on these observations. The whole thing is very user-friendly, but it’s also designed to illustrate some important universal truths even as the world sometimes appears to be stretching its last legs. The UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) says that man has been turning from violence as part of his self-domestication. Ingrid Benirschke-Perkins, CARTA community relations director, says “anthropogeny” is the key term in the title; that’s the study of man’s origins, and it traces his progress as (for lack of a better term) a domesticated animal. The Oct. 10 symposium, called “Domestication and Human Evolution,” will feature researchers discussing modern human traits and their role in what appears to be man’s inevitable path toward peace.
“Everybody’s interested in these basic questions of life,” Benirschke-Perkins said. “And the two that we’re addressing are where we come from and how did we get here. It’s about human evolution, and everybody’s interested” – so much so that CARTA symposia are internationally recognized by listeners in several countries on YouTube and iTunes. Benirschke-Perkins didn’t cite it as evidence of human mellowing, but the following example makes a lot of sense, and it comes complete with its own fan base.
The Detroit Tigers just scored baseball’s American League Central crown for the fourth year in a row (!), having left behind the doldrums (one winning season in the 19 campaigns leading up to 2004) the way a vegan avoids McDonald’s. I’m over the moon at the boys’ success, and not just because I grew up on trips to the old Tiger Stadium every weekend. Arguably, professional sports is modern man’s field war, with balls and bats and racquets and pucks and mallets and brooms the weapons of choice over hatchets, machetes, bombs and spear points. If my Detroits can help sustain that kind of enlightenment on their way to another title, I say so much the better. CARTA and Pinker might not know anything about baseball, but they have a handle on the grisly alternative, one that this gathering will attempt to dispel. The seminar runs from 1 to 5:30 p.m. at the Salk Institute’s Conrad T. Prebys Auditorium, 10010 Torrey Pines Road. Admission is free, but registration at carta.anthropogeny.org is required.
