The Great Debate: ORIGINS OF VIOLENCE (OFFICIAL) - (Part 1/2)

Summary

このスクリプトは、人間の暴力の起源と、それを超越するための科学的な理解を提供する「起源プロジェクト」の5周年を祝うイベントを紹介しています。スピーカーは、霊長類学者から政治学者まで、暴力の生物学的、心理学的、社会心理学的要因を探求し、非暴力的な抵抗の効果や、戦争の時代が過ぎ去った可能性について議論しています。このイベントは、暴力に関する従来の常識に挑戦し、より平和な未来への道を開く可能性を示しています。

Takeaways

• 🎉 5年前のこの日に起源プロジェクトが始まり、80人の世界有数の科学者、学者、公衆知識人を招いて、人間の探求のほぼすべての分野をカバーする基礎的な問題について有意義な方法で議論することを目指しました。
• 🌟 今夜のイベントは起源プロジェクトの5周年を祝うもので、2つの素晴らしいパネルが集まっており、私たちのミッションである「起源を理解することによって未来を変える」に関連する問題について議論します。
• 🔬 スティーブン・ピンカーは、認知心理学のリーダーであり、ハーバードの教授でもあり、ニューヨーク・タイムズのベストセラーリストに3冊の書籍を発表した公衆知識人です。
• 🗣️ 暴力は人類の歴史から始まっており、なぜ暴力が存在するのか、過去と異なる現在の状況は何か、そしてそれは未来にわたって続くかどうかを問うことが重要です。
• 🦍 リチャード・ランガムは、チンパンジーの暴力行為についての研究を行い、彼らが他のグループの個体を狩ることや、その行為が人間と類似していることを指摘しています。
• 🧠 アドリアン・レインは、犯罪者と正常な人々の脳の画像を比較した研究を行い、暴力行為を抑制する前頭葉の活動低下と、道徳感を生成する扁桃体の縮小との関連性に言及しています。
• 🤝 エリカ・チェノウィスは、非暴力抵抗が暴力的な抵抗よりも効果的であると主張し、特に過去40年間で非暴力キャンペーンの効果が高まり、暴力的なインシューレンシーは減少傾向にあることを示しました。
• 🌐 ジョン・ミューラーは、戦争がほぼ消滅したと主張し、1945年以来開発された国々間で戦争がゼロであるという統計を強調しています。
• 📉 内戦の数は1990年代初頭にピークを迎え、その後徐々に減少しており、現在では非常に低いレベルで推移しています。
• 🕊️ 非暴力抵抗が成功する鍵は、広範な市民の参加であり、3.5％以上の人口が関与する運動は100％の成功率を持っています。
• 🌍 ヨーロッパや開発された地域では、戦争が理性的、または潜在意識的に考えられなくなっているとされ、戦争は廃絶された奴隷制のように、徐々に人々の意識から消えつつある可能性があります。

Q & A

オリジンズプロジェクトの目的は何ですか？

オリジンズプロジェクトの目的は、人間の起源について理解することによって未来を変えることです。それは、宇宙の起源から生命、そして人類の起源までの基本的な質問について、世界中の優れた科学者や学者を招いて意義のある方法で議論することを目指しています。

スティーブン・ピンカーはどのような人物ですか？

スティーブン・ピンカーは認知心理学のリーダーであり、ハーバード大学の教授で、ニューヨーク・タイムズのベストセラーリストに3冊の書籍を発表した公共知識分子です。彼はオリジンズプロジェクトの友人であり、2009年9月にイベントを開催しました。

暴力の科学的理解とは何を意味しますか？

暴力の科学的理解とは、暴力の事実や原因を科学的に理解することであり、生物学的因素、例えば暴力のための遺伝子や大脳の領域を含めたりもしますが、それらだけでなく、経験データに基づいて仮説をテストすることです。

チンパンジーにおける暴力行為の特徴は何ですか？

チンパンジーの男性グループは、自分の範囲の端に行き、隣接グループの個体を探し、狩り、危険にさらして害を与え、おそらく殺害する可能性があります。これは人間の暴力行為と驚くほど類似しています。

ターラナ族の人々はどのような人々ですか？彼らはなぜ戦争を仕掛けますか？

ターラナ族は東アフリカの遊牧民で、他の部族から牛を略奪します。彼らの戦争は、資源の獲得を進化の解釈として見るよりも、人間の協力の進化的新しい現象を物語っています。

脳の前額葉が暴力行為にどのように影響を与えますか？

脳の前額葉は衝動的な行動を抑制し、感情を調節する役割を持っています。前額葉の機能が低下している場合、制御不能な感情が表面化し、人殺しなどの暴力行為につながる可能性があります。

非暴力抵抗が成功する可能性はどのくらいですか？

非暴力抵抗は、暴力的インサルゲンシーよりも2倍以上効果的であり、特に過去40年間で効果が高まっており、より頻繁に行われています。

テロリズムは効果的ですか？

テロリズムの成功率は非常に低く、3％を超えることはほとんどありません。これはテロリズムが政治的な変化をもたらす有効な手段ではないことを示唆しています。

ヨーロッパでの長い平和期間の理由は何ですか？

ヨーロッパでの長い平和期間は、戦争のアイデアが理性的に考えるとコストが高すぎると判断される「理性的に考えられない」状況、または戦争が考慮されない「潜在意識的に考えられない」状況に落ち着いたことに起因する可能性があります。

内戦の数が減少した理由は何ですか？

内戦の数が減少した理由は、1990年代初頭に達したピークからの徐々に減少傾向にあること、および現在では1回に4〜5回しか起こっていないことから、より低いレベルが持続していることが挙げられます。

未来に向けて、戦争は消滅する可能性がありますか？

戦争は完全には消滅しないかもしれませんが、ヨーロッパや開発された地域での平和期間が非常に長いこと、内戦の減少、そして戦争のアイデア自体が徐々に消滅していることから、戦争が望ましくない選択肢になる可能性があります。

Outlines

00:00

🎉 起源プロジェクトの5周年

起源プロジェクトの5周年を祝うセレモニーが開催され、プロジェクトの目的は人間の起源を理解することによって未来を変えることです。これまで80人の科学者や学者を集めて様々な分野の基礎的な問題を議論し、公衆3000人が科学を聴くことを願っており、その成功から5年が経ちました。今夜は2つのパネルディスカッションがあり、1つは暴力の起源に関する議論で、もう1つは合成生物学や医学、進化、健康技術、機械知能などについて話します。

05:00

🤔 暴力の科学的理解

暴力の科学的理解を追求し、人間の暴力の起源を超えた、地球上に存在する前からの暴力の起源を探ります。リチャード・ランガムはチンパンジーの暴力行為を研究しており、彼らは土地を巡って戦う一方で、特に男性が隣接グループの単独の個体を狩り、危険にさらして殺害する行為をとることもあります。これは古代の狩猟民と驚くほど似ていると指摘され、自然選択が人間の暴力の心理的構造に影響を与えている可能性があります。

10:02

🐃 獲物を巡る争いと人間の暴力

サラ・マシューは東アフリカの遊牧民ターラナを研究しており、彼らは他部族から牛を略奪する争いを繰り広げていますが、その背後にある進化的な説明は獲物そのものではなく、人間の協力の形態に関するものです。ターラナは道徳的感情を通じて協力を組織しており、部族のメンバーが戦場で犠牲になろうとも、彼らの道徳的心理は彼らを戦闘に駆り立てています。

15:05

🧠 暴力の神経科学的基礎

アドリアン・レインは、犯罪者と正常な人々の脳の画像を比較した研究を行い、殺人犯の前頭葉皮質の活動が低下していることを発見しました。前頭葉は衝動的な行動を抑制し、感情を調節する役割を果たしており、その機能低下が暴力行為につながると指摘しています。また、精神性犯罪者や無良心の個体には、道徳感や罪悪感を生み出すための脳のアミイダが小さくなっていることが示されています。

20:08

🐟 脳を変える食と暴力の抑制

魚油を含むオメガ-3脂肪酸は脳の構造と機能に欠かせない栄養素であり、投獄者への投与が犯罪行為を約34％減少させた研究結果があります。この話は皮肉にも聞こえるかもしれませんが、若い世代に適切な栄養を提供することで、社会リスク要因や生物学的风险要因を持つ子供たちに対して早期介入と犯罪予防が行えるかもしれません。

25:09

🕊️ 非暴力抵抗の効果

エリカ・チェノウィスは非暴力抵抗が政治変革をもたらす方法として有効であることを研究しています。非暴力抵抗は武装されない市民がストライキ、抗議、ボイコットなど多様な協調戦術を用いて、直接的な物理的傷害を加えることなく、相手に対処する方法です。彼女の研究では、非暴力キャンペーンは暴力的インシューレンシーよりもはるかに効果的であり、特に最近ではその傾向が強まっていることを発見しました。

30:12

📉 戦争の減少と平和の到来

ジョン・ミューラーは戦争がほぼ存在しなくなったことを指摘しています。1945年以来、開発された国々間で戦争が起こった例はほとんどゼロであり、これは驚くべき発展です。ヨーロッパはかつて最も戦争好きだった地域でしたが、現在は長期にわたる平和を享受しています。また、冷戦の終結後も国際戦争は大幅に減少し、内戦も1990年代以降徐々に減少傾向にありました。

35:14

🌏 戦争の廃絶と未来への道

戦争が廃絶されるかもしれないという希望的な視点をジョン・ミューラーは示しており、18世紀末に奴隷制度が廃止されたように、戦争も徐々に人々に拒絶されるようになるかもしれません。戦争をやめる運動は1889年頃に始まっており、現在はヨーロッパをはじめとする開発された地域では戦争は考えられない選択肢となっています。

Keywords

💡起源プロジェクト

起源プロジェクトは、科学者や学者を集めて、宇宙の起源、生命の起源、人類の起源など、人類の多岐にわたる基礎的な問題について意義深く議論することを目的としたプロジェクトです。ビデオのテーマは、人類の暴力の起源と、それが未来に向けてどのように変化するかについての議論に密接に関連しています。

💡暴力

暴力は、人間の歴史において常に存在してきた現象であり、ビデオでは、暴力の原因や性質、そしてそれがどのように進化し継続されているかについて探求しています。例えば、サルの暴力行為や人類の狩猟民の行動が、暴力の起源に関する議論の例として挙げられます。

💡協力

協力は、人間が集団として行動し、特定の目標を達成する能力を指します。ビデオでは、協力が人間の進化的特徴であり、戦争や暴力行為の背後にある社会構造に関与していると示唆しています。

💡非暴力抵抗

非暴力抵抗は、武装しない市民が、ストライキ、デモ、ボイコットなどの手段を用いて、相手を直接傷つけることなく変化を求める方法です。ビデオでは、非暴力抵抗が政治的変化をもたらす力であり、暴力的な方法よりも効果的であることが示されています。

💡進化心理学

進化心理学は、人類の心理的特徴が自然選択によってどのように形成されたかを研究する学問分野です。ビデオでは、進化心理学が暴力行為の起源や人間の社会行動を理解する上で重要な役割を果たしていると語られています。

💡脳科学

脳科学は、人間の脳の構造と機能、およびそれが行為や感情にどのように影響を与えるかを研究する学問です。ビデオでは、脳の特定の領域が暴力行為の抑制や誘因に関連していることが示されており、暴力の生物学的基礎について洞察を提供しています。

💡民間紛争

民間紛争は、中央政府の支配力に及ばない地域で起こる紛争を指し、ビデオでは、特に東アフリカの牧畜民であるトゥルナ族の紛争行動が例として取り上げられています。この紛争は、人間が協力を形成し、集団の利益のために自己の利益を犠牲にする能力を示しています。

💡戦争の退行性

戦争の退行性は、戦争が人類社会において徐々に不要になったり、行われないようになったりする現象を指します。ビデオでは、戦争が過去数十年で急激に減少し、特定の地域では戦争が理性的にもサブラTIONICにも考慮されなくなったと主張しています。

💡犯罪生物学

犯罪生物学は、犯罪行為が生物学的因素、例えば遺伝子や脳の機能にどのように関連しているかを研究する分野です。ビデオでは、犯罪者と正常な人々の脳のメタボリズムの違いが、暴力行為の原因を理解する上で重要な視点として提供されています。

💡社会変化

社会変化は、人間の集団が価値観、行範疇、社会構造を変えることを指します。ビデオでは、社会変化が暴力行為の減少に寄与し、特に非暴力抵抗が社会正義を前進させる力として強調されています。

Highlights

起源项目五周年庆典，汇集了顶尖科学家、学者和公共知识分子，探讨基础问题。

探讨了暴力的起源和本质，以及它在人类历史中的地位。

Steven Pinker提出，尽管暴力存在，但科学理解有助于我们更好地认识和应对它。

Richard Wrangham讨论了黑猩猩的暴力行为，以及它与人类暴力的相似之处。

Sarah Mathew提出，人类战争是一种进化上的新颖现象，与动物界的战争行为不同。

Adrien Raine通过脑部扫描研究了暴力行为与大脑活动之间的关系。

Erica Chenoweth的研究显示，非暴力抵抗比武装斗争更有效，尤其是在现代社会。

John Mueller认为，战争在发达国家几乎已经停止存在，这是一个积极的趋势。

讨论了非暴力抵抗的成功案例，以及它们对社会长期影响的重要性。

强调了社会化过程在形成军事行为中的作用，尤其是在奖励勇敢行为的文化中。

探讨了人类合作的进化，以及它如何影响我们的道德心理和对内群体的保护。

讨论了大脑的多个中心如何影响暴力行为的发生，以及如何通过社会环境改变这些行为。

提出了关于暴力行为的生物学基础，以及它对惩罚和预防犯罪的意义。

讨论了恐怖主义的失败率，以及为什么它不是实现政治目标的有效手段。

强调了非暴力抵抗在历史上的成功，以及它在现代社会中的潜力。

提出了关于战争可能变得过时的观点，以及这一变化背后的社会和心理因素。

讨论了如何通过科学理解来控制和减少暴力，以及这对未来社会的意义。

Transcripts

than

well the best is here

now what a night we have planned for you

five years ago today actually we

inaugurated the origins project here in

this very Auditorium we just with an

experiment first we decided to ask the

question could we bring together 80 of

the world's greatest scientists Scholars

public

intellectuals whose Fields span almost

every area of human

inquiry and bring them together to

discuss foundational questions but in a

meaningful way and inform each

other and then we decided to ask the

question since these are the same

questions from the origin of the

universe the origins of Life the origins

of

humanity since these questions are the

same questions everyone asks themselves

could we fill a 3,000 seat Auditorium

with members of the public who are

willing to listen to science

now it's fair to say I think that

uh most people thought the answer to

both those questions was

no but here we are 5 years later thanks

to you we're continuing and it's

appropriate tonight to celebrate our

fifth anniversary by bringing together

two truly remarkable panels to discuss

issues that are really hit to the heart

of the mission of the origins project

that mission is changing our future by

understanding our Origins

now after the break we're going to have

a panel that's going to talk about the

future from synthetic

biology medicine Evolution Health

technology and machine

intelligence but before the break we're

going to have a panel this remarkable

panel that's going to deal with a

question that's really Central to our

existence

violence violence seems to have been a

part of human history from its beginning

and we need to ask some question why is

that the case

is the present different than the past

will it persist into the future those

are the kind of issues that we've

actually been discussing at a workshop

that the people here represent a

workshop that's been going on for the

last two days here at the

University now to put together a panel

dealing with that issue required a

remarkable

individual and we went to a person I

personally think is one of the most

significant intellects and intellectuals

of our president

generation he's also a friend of Origins

he was here in September 2009 to

inaugurate the event he's been here

since then he knew what we wanted to

achieve and he's a a man with a

remarkable dream

CV he's a leader in cognitive psychology

a chaired professor at

Harvard he's had three books on the New

York Times bestseller list and he is a

public intellectual in the true sense he

also one of the nicest people I know and

I'm very proud and happy to introduce

you to my friend Steven

Pinker

murder War riots terrorism

insurrections that I hope got your

attention ever since can we go back yes

ever since Cain slew Abel people have

deplored celebrated moralized and above

all been fascinated by violence violence

has been explained as a form of

entertainment for sadistic puppeteers on

high as a depraved and sinful human

choice and as a glorious expression of

manly heroism and

self-sacrifice but until recently

there's been little scientific knowledge

of The Facts of violence and little

scientific understanding of the causes

of violence the origins project has

brought together over this weekend a

diverse group of Scholars studying the

nature of violence and all of its

manifestations

by asking for a scientific understanding

of violence this does not necessarily

mean a uh search for biological factors

like genes for violence or areas of the

brain responsible for violence though it

does embrace that uh as well but rather

an

evidence-based understanding of violence

what are the facts of the different

categories of human aggression a search

for an explanation uh a lack of

satisfaction with the answer well that's

just the way it is and always has been

and the desire to test possible

explanations uh with empirical data uh

I'm going to get right to it uh the

topic of origins of violence implies

that we should not be satisfied with

merely the human origins of violence but

the origins of violence before our

species walk the earth and there is no

one better to discuss that than uh

Richard rangam one of the world's great

primatologists the Ruth Moore professor

of biological anthropology at Harvard

and the author of demonic males apes and

the origin of human

violence uh Richard I'm going to ask you

two questions which is uh which are what

do chimpanzees have to fight over and

what overlap do you think there is

between the kind of violence that you

have observed in chimpanzees and the

kind of violence that you have uh

observed in human

beings chimpanzees fight over ultimately

land but proximately they don't fight

over

anything one of the extraordinary things

about what we see from their behavior in

a variety of study sites across Africa

is that you don't have to have them

provoked by competition over a resource

competition over anything to have them

excited by the prospect of being violent

in a warlike context and when I say they

let's just be clear we're talking about

males to almost complete extent so a

coalition of males half a dozen will

leave the center of their range go to

the edge of range and look for

individuals uh on their own in

neighboring groups they will penetrate

into the uh territory of the neighboring

group and hunt and if they successfully

catch them uh dangerously harm and

likely kill that member of a neighboring

group so we're seeing something

astonishingly like what is sometimes

seen in humans and if I may uh this is

rather similar to what we see in some

hunters and gatherers nomadic hunters

and gatherers are of course a wonderful

model for our pre-agricultural past

prior to 10,000 years

ago and what is so uh fascinating is

that if you reduce the complexity of

understanding the hunters and gatherers

by taking away those hunters and

gatherers that are neighbored by Farmers

or state

societies and uh you look only at the

conditions where they have other hunters

and gatherers as their neighbors you see

an astonishing ly similar system to what

chimpanzees do which we can call

cowardly killing chimps never get into a

context of a fight with the neighboring

group where they risk getting wounded

the astonishing thing is that

chimpanzees in these small groups are

attacking an individual who is three or

four times as strong as a human is

fighting for his life and yet none of

the attackers will get a wound at all

and you get a very similar system with

nomadic hunters and gatherers where the

aim of the attacking party is to make a

deep braid into a neighboring group of a

different ethnolinguistic Society people

who speak a different language and uh

quickly find individuals kill and get

out of there before there's a chance

that they are going to get

hurt and in that we see apparently a

evidence of natural selection operating

on The evolutionary psychological

architecture of our species because if

chimpanzees are showing this system

where clearly there's nothing like the

cultural evolution of humans that's

important and if humans show a very

similar system then it's clear that

natural selection should be at the base

of what we see in humans now in the last

20 years we've been able to get

sufficient data on chimpanzees in

different places to look at was there

human disturbance that could have been

correlated with these um attacks and the

answer now is we know that uh the

pattern of aggression is related to the

number of males in the group and the

population density of the chimpanzees

but not to any factors of human

disturbance so thinking then about what

this means for the larger issues of of

the origins of human violence the one

big difference between humans and

chimpanzees that we've seen in this

hunter gatherer chimpanzee comparison

and that is that the hunters and

gatherers are more likely to die than

the chimpanzees are when they are being

the attackers and that is because they

take bigger risks and the evidence that

we've assembled is that the reason they

take those bigger risks is not because

of anything inherent in human biology

it's because a cultural system emerges

where you get great rewards for doing

something really daring in war and in

that we think we see the origins of the

socialization for military behavior that

ultimately becomes really devastating

once we cross the military

Horizon thank you Richard the uh your

illusion to hunters and gatherers uh

Parks back to an ancient debate one

that's several centuries old uh namely

what kind of violence do we see in

humans in the absence of the

contaminating factor of the of a

government of a leviathan a special

Authority with a monopoly on the use of

force which clearly doesn't give us a

clear picture of people's natural

tendencies to War and Peace uh several

hundred years ago Thomas Hobbs famously

speculated that uh before there was an

authority to keep people from each

other's throats uh the life of man

consisted of constant war of a war of

every man against every man and in such

condition the life of man was solitary

poor nasty brutish and short 100 years

later Jean jaac rouso countered that

nothing can be more uh peaceful than man

in his primitive State the so-called

doctrine of the noble or peaceful Savage

now neither Hobbs nor Russo had any idea

what what they were talking about they

were speculating from the armchair but

uh as Richard uh alluded to more

recently there have been studies of uh

the kinds and causes of violence in

people who are not under the control uh

of a state that brings us to our second

speaker uh Sarah Matthew assistant

professor in the school of human

evolution and social change here at

Arizona State University uh the local

representative of an extraordinary

collection of people here at ASU who

study uh violence and human nature in in

many manifestations now Sarah you uh

don't study hunter gatherers but you do

study uh pastoralists people who um keep

livestock and are live largely out of

the control of uh Central State my

questions for you are um who are the

turana the people that you study what do

they fight over and what lessons if any

do they hold for uh the evolution of

human

violence um so the turana are

pastoralist in East Africa and they are

um raiding other tribes for cows but I

want to make a counterintuitive argument

today that these resources the cows are

not really the evolutionary explanation

for their Warfare and this is because in

every animal species a group of

individuals can group together and wage

war against another group and take

resources from the other group and this

would be

beneficial but such Warfare is extremely

rare in other animals and this is

because Warfare is a form of cooperation

individuals have to risk their personal

fitness in order to benefit the group

and natural selection typically doesn't

favor this kind of

behavior what the turana Warfare tell us

is that human Warfare is an evolutionary

novel phenomenon

even in the absence of the Leviathan as

is the case in the

turana uh humans are able to put

together really large war parties the

Trana put together war parties of a

thousand Warriors and 99% of these

Warriors are not genetically related to

each other that means the genes in a

particular Warrior has have nothing to

gain from the success of another Warrior

on the

battlefield yet the Tana are taking

tremendous risks in Warfare 40% of the

adult men have suffered bullet injuries

and one out of five of the male children

who are born are going to die in

Warfare so how did the turana manage

this costly form of

cooperation they do this through moral

sentiments they do this through a moral

psychology that has evolved in humans

that makes us feel moral punitive

sentiments towards those who harm

members of our group so for example

cowards laggards and deserters on turana

raids face these moral punitive

sentiments they face the moral Wrath of

their community members and this is what

makes them risk their lives in

combat and interestingly the scale of

this moral psychology is such that it

extends up to the cultural group

boundary up to the tri uh cultural tribe

so for instance the turana think that

it's a great thing to go to another

tribe and raid their cattle but they

think it's extremely wrong for warriors

to go and raid another turana territory

even if that territory is hundreds of

miles away and inhabited by Tana that

they may never see again and have never

seen

before so and this this particular scale

of the moral psychology has a profound

impact on how the turana live and die so

um most adult Tana men walk around with

firearms and there are plenty of

opportunities for disputes to arise

between these men yet only 1% of adult

male mortality in turana is due to one

Trana killing the other another Trana

and 50% is due to intertribal

Warfare so I want to conclude by saying

that the cows are not the answer to uh

Trana Warfare just as resources do not

provide an adequate or satisfactory

explanation for the prevalence of

warfare in other animal species so to

understand the origins and scale of

violence we need to understand the

origins and scale of human

cooperation and in humans this

cooperation evolved to be supported by a

moral psychology that extends to include

members of our cultural tribe even if

they comprise a million people or more

and it comes at the expense of our

self-interest and unfortunately it also

comes at the expense of people who live

beyond this cultural

boundary uh I I wanted to interrupt for

a second the flow to remind you that uh

we're actually going to do things

slightly differently tonight from your

point of view you have a different

homework assignment than normal uh I

hope that what you've heard already has

begun to provoke your

questioning and because of the nature of

the two panels I want you to start

thinking about your questions and write

them down when we're finished up here in

real time we'll stay up here we're going

to ask you to have your questions pass

down while we're on stage and we're

going to spend three or four minutes

going through them and then answer your

questions so think of questions while

the speakers are are are are are talking

and feel free to write them down and

also by the way I was told you were told

not to tweet but feel free to tweet

okay

good anyone who is interested in uh

understanding violence from a biological

perspective is often accused of implying

that humans are saddled with a violent

brain or genes for aggression and that

this is a fatalistic View and therefore

something that we must hope and pray is

not true let us uh hope that violence is

just a uh a cultural Construction uh

let's hope that it's just a uh a

practice like driving on the right or

driving on the left that we could uh

change if we wanted to but um I've

always uh thought that this is just a

bad way to construct the uh

understanding of the biology of violence

that I think there is some reason to

believe and we've heard some evidence

from uh from Richard and Sarah that we

that humans left to their own devices uh

do have impulses that can result in Acts

of aggression on the other hand the

human brain is a complicated system and

that even if it does Harbor uh urges for

violence that's not all it Harbors there

is an old cartoon image uh that of a

devil on one shoulder and an angel on

another and uh a person always veering

between the impulses toward violence and

and inhibitions against us uh there may

be some evidence from the study of the

brain that that cartoon wasn't

completely off the mark and that leads

us to our third speaker Adrien rain

Richard Perry University professor of

criminology and Psychiatry at the

University of Pennsylvania and author of

anatomy of violence the biological roots

of crime uh Adrien uh does among other

things scans of brain activity in uh

criminals and uh and other people I

think his is the first paper in

Neuroscience that I've ever read where

it says control group non- murderers

so Adrian what uh has your research

shown about the different areas uh of

the brain that both impel us toward and

inhibit us from violence yes you know

the the origins of violence and here in

my work and the work of other people

it's you know we're not saying that you

know everyone as you say is propelled

towards violence for a biological reason

but not all of us are violent and so the

question that I've been looking at is

you know what discriminates or what

difference is there between somebody who

will take aive from somebody who's

relatively normal so what you see here

is the results of a brain Imaging study

where we brain scan 41 murderers and

compared them to 41 normal controls so

if you look at this um you've got you're

looking down on the brain here oh don't

want to look down on me too much if you

put the that's there we go uh you

looking down on the brain here and this

is uh an example of a normal individual

this is the front of the brain the back

and the red colors and yellow indicate

high glucose metabolism or high brain

functioning but what we found in our

group of 41 murderers is that there was

a distinct lack of activity in the

prefrontal cortex so the question yes

the origin the cause I mean why is it

that if you lack that AC ity in the

prefrontal cortex why do you have a poor

functioning prefrontal cortex why are

you more likely to kill will you go back

to what the prefrontal cortex does and

amongst other things it's involved in

checking our impulsive behavior it's

involved in regulating our emotional

feelings so we all get angry at times

don't we what stops us from lashing out

it's that guardian angel on behavior

that Steven was mentioning it's the

prefrontal cortex who which is keeping a

lid on our runaway emotions but if that

angel is asleep if the prefrontal cortex

is not working too well then the devil

can come out and people can get killed

now that's only one piece of a much

bigger jigsa puzzle when we get to the

brain basis to violence you've been

hearing about the moral psychology and

there's a brain area called the amydala

which generates in part that sense of

moral feeling of what's right and wrong

and what we've been finding in a way is

that Psychopathic individuals those who

lack conscience lack remorse lack guilt

they have a shrunken amydala and we know

that the amydala is very important for

giving us in part that sense of what is

right and wrong so one of those

intriguing questions I have is if these

murderers and psychopaths are not

responsible for poor brain functioning

well whether it's in the emotional

amydala or the guardian angel in the

prefrontal cortex here then one question

is how moral is it of us to punish these

offenders as harshly as we do um I was

involved in a defense of a man who

brutally raped and murdered a woman in

Denver Colorado I had him brain scanned

and this is again you're looking down on

the brain this is a group of normal

controls showing good activation in the

prefrontal cortex but this is the scan

of the murderer here who raped and

murdered this young woman and you see a

distinct lack of activation in the

prefrontal cortex I argued that it was a

constellation of this neurobiological

risk factor combined with a really

Dreadful home environment that conspired

to propel this individual to be more

likely to be criminal and violent the

three judge panel bought the biosocial

argument that this social and biological

conspiracy constrained this individual's

freedom of Will and he was spared the

death penalty but I think one of the big

questions in my mind is is that the

right way to go I'm sort of a Jackel and

HD the Dr Jackal inside of me says let's

get to the origins of violence let's

understand it and with understanding

comes m

but the Mr hide inside of me says buy

into that argument and you know where

goes Justice where goes responsibility

is that just going to be a brain excuse

to let violent offenders off the hook is

that just a slippery slope down to

Armageddon and a lawless Society so

that's just one of those questions that

I'm really torn with and then what are

we going to do about it how are we going

to change the brain to change violent

criminal

Behavior that's a deep question you know

but this is going to sound fishy but

fish oil given to prisoners in two

randomized control trials has been shown

to reduce serious offending in the

prison by around

34% fish hold contains omega-3 which is

critical for brain structure and

function so you know it sound you know

nobody likes to hear eat more food fish

fish for felons you know uh come on um

but it sounds laughable and there's no

simple solution to the causes of to

Crime but could that be one of the

components and what would be so wrong

about giving better nutrition not just

to felons but what about the next

generation of young kids who maybe

through having social risk factors and

biological risk factors needs early

intervention and prevention against

future crime so big questions you know

if there is a brain basis to violence

what does this mean about punishment

what does it mean to us about preventing

how are we going to change the brain to

reduce violent behavior and these are

just two of the thorny questions which

amongst other things Dr Jackal and Mr

Hyde inside of me wrestles with from

dayto day thank you Adrien the

fact that the brain has multiple centers

that can uh ramp up or clamp down on

violence opens up a number of ways in

which the actual incidence of violent

Behavior could be changed and we can we

know that we can change the brain not

just by feeding it fish oil but because

areas of the brain are connected to the

eyes and ears and we live in a social

environment uh that allows the brain to

process information about the uh norms

and expectations and value of other

people and that's another route by which

the uh we can change the brain my

invocation of uh the Angel and the devil

was a little bit self- serving because

uh I have written a book called The

Better angels of our nature a expression

taken from Abraham Lincoln's first

inaugural address to reinforce the idea

that the brain has and Human Nature has

multiple components some of which Adrien

literally displayed on on that slide uh

opening up the possibility that changes

in our society can uh alter the uh

Temptations and uh inhibitions to

violence that brings us to our uh fourth

speaker Erica chenowith who is associate

professor at the Joseph Corbell School

of International Studies at the

University of Denver and the co-author

of why civil resistance works the

Strategic logic of nonviolent conflict a

book that I can I can fairly say has

elect ified the field of political

science it has already won several

prizes because of its uh surprising

conclusion which cha challenges a

certain conventional

wisdom now most educated people know

that sometimes civil resistance Works

can we have the slide

please that

uh not that one that

one that there have been conspicuous

episodes in recent history in which the

uh Power of nonviolent resistance has

changed societies but most educated

people will tell you well of course that

works in civilized parts of the world

like uh uh Britain and its former

colonies like the United States but it's

naive and romantic and idealistic to

think that civil resistance can be a

force for political change uh worldwide

uh Erica can you tell us why you uh what

your resarch has shown about that

conventional wisdom and why it should be

true that you obtained the surprising

results you did sure and I should start

by saying that I was one of those people

at the outset of this study who thought

that advancing the notion that civil

resistance could work was naive

idealistic and perhaps even dangerous uh

but um in my own experience uh I want to

First just say what I mean when I say

civil resistance civil resistance is a

method of conflict not necessarily anide

ideology about conflict but it's a

method of conflict in which unarmed

civilians use a variety of coordinated

tactics like strikes protests boycotts

and other methods of action without

directly harming or even threatening to

physically harm their opponent and um I

was first introduced to this topic a

number of years ago when I attended a

workshop where a lot of the people there

uh were making the claim that civil

resistance could be in some sense a

functional equivalent to Armed struggle

that is that it could be as effective or

even more effective than waging armed

struggle uh to achieve major political

outcomes like removing an incumbent

leader from Power even a dictator or

creating an independent territory uh so

I was provoked and bothered by this

claim which I thought didn't have very

much empirical support and uh over the

next couple of years a colleague Maria

Stefan and I collected data on all known

uh major violent and violent campaigns

from 1900 to 2006 and we looked at uh

campaigns where there were at least a

thousand observed participants meaning

they were already fairly mature uh in

terms of their size and we looked at

these popular movements that were trying

to either remove an incumbent government

or create an independent territory now

the reason we chose those two types of

outcomes was because precisely of my

skepticism uh because I thought that

maybe nonviolent resistance could work

if you're trying to establish um you

know greater rights you're trying to

expand your rights establish labor

rights and things like this but it

probably couldn't work if you're up

against very powerful authoritarian

regimes for

example so uh the ultimate outcome of

this data collection yielded uh well

over 300 uh nonviolent and violent

campaigns for those types of outcomes

and the the shocking finding is this

that from 1900 to 2006 uh non-violent

campaigns were more than twice as

effective as violent insurgencies in

achieving their aims and that uh in

especially the last 40 years this trend

has actually increased over time such

that nonviolent campaigns are becoming

increasingly effective and quite a lot

more frequent whereas violent

insurgencies are becoming increasingly

rare and increasingly unsuccessful that

is they're going out of style and in a

major way uh so the reason for this uh

we think is because of people power

itself what we found when we drilled

into these cases was that the nonviolent

campaigns were on average four times

larger than the average violent campaign

and if you looked at them as a

proportion of the overall population

they were something like 11 times larger

and they feature a much more inclusive

Civic spirit so that way more people are

involved that means women children uh

the elderly population people with

disabilities are able to become inv

involved in things like

non-cooperation uh which can involve

much lower risk to physical repression

uh and it allows many more people to to

uh be activated now the reason Size

Matters is because once very large

proportions of the population are

involved uh they start to change the the

risk calculations and the interests of

say the security forces who might be

willing to shoot at a single person

standing in a square but when they look

out over a sea of 100,000 people and by

the way recognize their neighbors or

children uh they might just pretend they

didn't hear the order to shoot and once

the security forces or economic Elites

or business Elites or civilian

bureaucrats withdraw their cooperation

from the regime opponent it's only a

matter of time until these movements

succeed the last thing I want to mention

about this is that we've also found that

the way that uh these movements carry

themselves out the way they fight

really affects what these societies have

looked like in the longer term so

societies that are emerging from a civil

resistance campaign even a failed one

are far more likely to emerge uh with

Democratic institutions within the next

5 to 10 years than campaigns where

violent resistance was waged and they're

also about 15% less likely to experience

a relapse into Civil War uh within the

next decade so we would never argue that

civil resistance always works um but it

certainly works a lot more uh than its

detractors would have you believe uh and

it certainly works a lot better uh than

its violent Alternatives both in terms

of the short and longer

term thank you a remarkable story

which

uh yes and com combined with uh some of

the other speakers at the weekend

conference who showed that uh contrary

to another bit of conventional wisdom uh

terrorism doesn't work the failure rate

of terrorist movements is spectacular

the their success rate is 3% at most and

that may be an exaggeration if some of

these results were printed on postcards

and dropped from uh airplanes and

balloons all over the world uh it could

change history because it is often

believed that violence is deplorable

awful evil but we have no choice without

a little violence you don't get what you

want and uh that just may be factually

incorrect uh in the better angels of our

nature I began by saying this may be the

most peaceful era in our species

existence knowing that this is a highly

counterintuitive claim I was emboldened

to make it because I had a number of

Scholars of crime and War uh who had my

back and uh among them is our last

Speaker John Mueller the Woody Hayes

professor of National Security studies

at the meran Center of Ohio State

University and the author of many books

including overblown how politicians in

the terrorism industry inflate National

Security threats and why we believe them

and uh Retreat from Doomsday the

obsolescence of major war uh John

predicted the end of the Cold War before

it happened uh it said that most

political scientists can't even predict

events after they've happened

John's colleagues thought he was Stark

rving mad when he made this prediction

and history has shown that in this and

in many other regards he has uh proven

to be correct I first became acquainted

with John when he sent me a paper whose

title was war has almost ceased to exist

my question is John can you explain what

you meant by that title uh what is the

evidence behind that uh rather startling

and counterintuitive claim and how did

it happen well it's a very interesting

process um uh the title of the Symposium

is transcending our Origins and I

actually wasn't there at the origins but

uh at this Workshop we've got several

people e either were at the origins or

act like they were uh and what they what

they tell me is that Warfare was their

right at the beginning and we may be uh

at a position which at least somewhat

form

Warfare is becoming obsolete uh by far

the most important um statistic it seems

to me in the history of warfare is zero

or near zero which is the number of wars

that have taken place uh since 1945

between uh developed countries major

countries I call it major

war um this is really an amazing

development uh it's centered of course

on the developed World which itself is

centered basically on Europe and Europe

used to be one of the most warlike it

used to be the most warlike continent in

the world and it's now slumped into this

long period of basic peace uh it's a

couple of countries there fairly well

known are France and Germany um and uh

both of them are filled with extremely

clever people who are extremely good

over several hundred years of getting

into Wars with each other it is really

brilliant achievement in some respects

they've now slumped into peace uh

overall to the point where

um it isn't even something that's

considered I've used I've used the

phrase uh sort of rationally Unthinkable

and subrational

Unthinkable um

oh uh am I coming through

now uh uh rationally Unthinkable and

subrational

Unthinkable uh uh something is

rationally Unthinkable means you you

think about it and decide well the costs

really outweigh the benefits so I'm not

going to do it subrational uh thinkable

means you don't even think about it it

doesn't even consider consider you don't

even consider for example in the case of

dueling which was once very common you

still have young men of the same Testo

testosterone level and so forth they

still get into arguments but it never

occurs to them to to uh challenge the

other guy to a duel uh you could have

legal duel like with boxing clubs but it

doesn't really even come up and war

between France and Germany seems to fit

in fit into that um if you uh one uh uh

uh Economist has calculated how far back

in history do you have to go before you

find an equal period in which the Ry

river which separates Germany and France

remained uncrossed by armies with

hostile intent and you have to go back

more than 2,000 years before you find

out um Europe was a rather different

place in those days um so we've had this

is really a major achievement uh after

World War II there's lots of predictions

that there would be world War 3 would be

happening in another 20 years or so uh

and it obviously hasn't happened in

addition now um over particularly over

the last 20 years or 30 years there's

been a considerable uh decline in the

number of international Wars as usually

defined in fact since the end of the

Cold War 1989 to the present date

there's really only been one war of sort

of the old-fashioned Variety in which

two countries go at it over a a

condition like for example of uh a

border dispute and that is between erria

and Ethiopia between 1998 and uh uh

2000 so uh even those Wars there they

still exist but are are really quite

infrequent and there hadn't been that

many of them uh for the last since

really since the 70s in many respect uh

finally the Third Kind Of War uh is

Civil War and there have been a lot of

those um however since since the 1990s

since the early 1990s where they sort of

reached a peak when there's something

like 30 of them 20 to 30 of them going

on there's been a gradual decline uh to

the point where there's maybe four or

five at any one time obvious said four

or five too many uh but it really isn't

a remarkably low level uh more and

moreover that relatively low level has

persisted throughout this entire Century

it doesn't seem to be just a blip that

we're going to bounce off of and go back

up so the the news generally is is

pretty comforting in that area um uh war

is not obsolete it's still we still know

how to do it uh we obviously don't have

a world government that can keep it from

happening again uh but it has uh slumped

uh very substantially into uh a period

of substantial

disuse great thank you well the theme

was uh transcending human Origins and

we've gone from uh our chimpanzee

ancestors through tribal Warfare to the

brain and to some Modern developments

that are showing that we can we can

transcend some aspects of our Origins

thanks to our own uh Ingenuity and our

own ability to uh hold out violence no

longer as a contest to be won but rather

as a a problem to be solved uh that is

itself is a gift of the human capacity

for uh cognition for uh understanding uh

for treating problems based on our

understanding and which I think think is

uh one of the fruits that we can

continue to expect from a a scientific

understanding of the uh Origins and

control of violence thank well thank you

Stephen uh and thank the panel for for

for provocative and counterintuitive

arguments which have the virtue of uh

being empirically correct apparently

um uh and what I'd like to do now is

while you're writing down questions I

have one or two questions to give you a

chance to write down and then and then

as I say we'll take a break and and uh a

short break we'll be R here and then

we'll answer your questions there's I

think two I'll ask uh given the time I

we began a little bit late Erica I I

want to ask you a question because uh in

the meeting you said uh gave us

statistic that I found very striking

which is that movements that had

3.5% of the population or more were 100%

effective in making change okay but it

may caused me to think about the issue

of given especially in in the first

world the the um growth of mass media

and the and in some sense the control of

mass media by a smaller and smaller

group of people does that mean that it's

more likely that you'll be able to that

the that people who want to buy um by

change will be able to do

that I don't think so I'm a little more

optimistic and part of the reason is

because civil resistance is costly

action uh so it's we're not talking

about people who decide that they'll go

to their computer and click on a button

and say yes I support this uh particular

activity or this activism um we're

talking about people you know chaining

themselves to to hardware and things

like that um and taking real risks so

the the the move from being complacent

uh to being willing to do something to

actually going out and Prosecuting a

conflict using high-risk Civil

Disobedience I think is a major leap for

many people which is why these campaigns

though frequent are by no means the rule

in terms of human activity um I think

that that means that even though the

threshold for participation seems to be

about 3.5% of the population tipping

them over into success uh it still means

that that would constitute 11 some

million people in the United States and

I I just don't see that many people uh

doing real Civil Disobedience unless it

was a pretty serious issue well that

gives me hope that the Tea Party won't

won't anyway um but uh

there's another comment and John I want

to ask ask you because I'm I'm

contractually obliged to ask this

question so Star Trek um

uh imagines a future where where in some

sense war is over that some in some

sense Humanity has that's a phase do you

think that's a since we're going to go

to the Future after the break do you

think that's a possible future yeah I

think it's it's perfectly plausible um

obviously you've had this this

remarkable change in Europe and the

developed World which has lasted you

know it can't be a fluke it's lasted an

extremely long time and the decline of

civil war is also uh uh really

interesting essentially the pattern is

um uh Wars is an idea you don't have to

do it and the parallel I would draw is

with slavery uh it was about is about at

the end of the 18th century a bunch of

people start jumping up and down and

saying let's not do slavery anymore and

they're T thought to be totally crazy

within a 100 years slavery one of the

master institutions of the human race uh

what it was eradicated basically

substantially certainly from what was

then known as Christendom uh the uh the

developed world and uh something could

similar similar could be happening to to

uh to war about the the the idea that

war is a really bad idea goes back a

long way but the idea that War uh an

organized movement to stop war is really

quite recent about 140 years about 1889

it started

uh and it may be follow and they also

talked about we got rid of slavery now

we can get rid of war and I think

substantially that's done uh it is not

that people can't do War but they are

just don't want to do it anymore than

they want to duel it just doesn't enter

their calculations so I think the

trajectory looks pretty good uh I

obviously wouldn't say it's certain by

any means but but slavery hasn't come

back I mean there's forms of it and so

forth but formal slavery can go to New

Orleans and buy somebody um just you

know is just inconceivable essentially

so that that's been gone a long time

great okay with that hopeful view we'll

see if you buy that um and so if you

could um bring down the questions if you

have them um well and I think we put on

some music so you'll have something to

entertain you and um and we'll sit up

here and in uh in four or five minutes

we'll begin with uh we we'll we'll spend

about 15 minutes answer your questions

before an

intermission e