The decline of the duel
I’m reading—slowly, slowly—Steven Pinker’s long but fascinating The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
Don’t laugh at the title because it seems absurd. Pinker presents a strong case to defend his thesis (although so far I’m only slightly into the book). I don’t agree with everything in it, but it’s certainly thought-provoking.
Here’s a little passage I just read about dueling:
Formal dueling was not, of course, an American invention. It emerged during the Renaissance as a measure to curtail assassinations, vendettas, and street brawls among aristocrats and their retinues. When one man felt that his honor had been impugned, he could challenge the other to a duel and cap the violence at a single death, with no hard feelings among the defeated man’s clan or entourage. But as the essayist Arnold Krystal observes, “The gentry…took honor so seriously that just about every offense became an offense against honor. Two Englishman dueled because their dogs had fought. Two Italian men feel out over the respective merits of Tasso and Ariosto, an argument that ended when one combatant, mortally wounded, admitted that he had not read the poet he was championing.”
Things have changed, haven’t they, among the aristocracy. Not so much among gangs.
And they’ve certainly changed in politics. Refresh yourself with some details of the story of the fatal duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
“Something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler”
“On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture.”
– Steven Pinker
Mr. Pinker is whistling past the graveyard with his fingers crossed if he believes this nonsense, or is making a case for what he would have us believe is the upshot of the world organizing itself in one communion with centrally held beliefs and tenets — and power.
One need only look up the killing fields in the last one hundred years and note that putting an end to dueling and the like was horribly offset by firebombing of civilians, atomic bombing of civilians, Zyklon B, endless American wars of good intentions and salvation, death by drone, death by SJS (Sudden Jihad Syndrome), etal. There is something altogether appallingly stupid about Pinker’s great conclusions — at least I hope it’s just stupidity.
In Kentucky, to this day, when a new office holder takes the oath of office, he has to swear that he has never been the principal or second in a duel. That requirement is in the state constitution, and has not been updated since 1850, so it must be followed. That is for every office holder, from governor down to a town commissioner.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of ______ according to law; and I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.”
Toy
I might want to look this up, or not, but I recall a study concluding that if the wars of the twentieth century had been fought as the wars of, say, the sixteenth, we’d have had twice as many people killed. Or more. Something like that.
Don’t know if they were referring to genocide, or the deaths from disease and starvation and brigandage surrounding wars like the Thirty Years’ War. Certainly, as badly as Germany and Japan were hurt in WW II, they did not suffer the loss of a third of the population, as did large areas of Germany in the Thirty Years’ thingy; a loss that took centuries to recover.
neo –
For an excellent counterweight to Pinker’s book check our Robert Bellah’s recently released “Religion in Human Evolution.” It is equally massive (though more impressive in a scholarly sense), and it is a bona fide masterpiece. By which I mean, I agree completely with those who have dubbed it an instant classic. The writing is beautiful, and there is something to be learnt on every page. I don’t actually agree with the essence of Bellah’s argument (nor do I agree with Pinker’s), but it doesn’t matter at all – the evolutionary stuff is mostly window-dressing in Bellah. It’s the amazing wealth of details and the demonstration of awe-inspiring complexity of the human mind that entices.
You will not regret reading it, especially if you’ve just finished reading Pinker.
I’m not anxious to bring back duels with swords and guns, but government-run Thunderdomes as an alternative to civil courts in settling disputes might be worth a gander.
Expenses would be basically an empty lot, building a frame, giant rubberbands and a few chain saws.
Charge admission and it could become a great new revenue source.
I think I’ll send this idea off to the Communist in the White House.
George Pal: But have you read Pinker’s book? You might agree or disagree with it, but it’s certainly not stupid.
George Pal: I haven’t yet read Better Angels, but another of Pinker’s recent books, The Blank Slate hardly advocates an increase in centralized government power. Quite the opposite. While Pinker in Blank Slate also skewers some right-wing shibboleths, particularly those involving religion, he is harshest on some of the notions that are held most dear by the left. He debunks, very effectively in my view, the socialist-communist theory that people are shaped almost entirely by their environment, and that all that is necessary to build the “New Socialist Man” is for government to sweep away the old “repressive” system. Instead, he argues that a human nature that is part genetic, part learned, and part something else (exact mechanism not yet understood) predisposes us to behave in certain ways, and that this predisposition changes very slowly over time (Pinker, evolutionary psychologist that he is, believes that this change is indeed evolutionary).
One way Pinker shows this evolution in Blank Slate is to compare murder rates and other crimes of violence in primitive societies, such as those in Papua New Guinea, with those of the developed world. His findings indicate that on a per capita basis, the incidence of lethal violence is almost invariably higher in primitive societies than in advanced ones, and by an astonishingly wide margin. He seems to take particular delight in examining–and demolishing–Margaret Mead’s assertions that the Stone Age tribes she supposedly studied were peaceful. Upon careful analysis of statistical evidence, the exact opposite proved to be true, suggesting to Pinker that the reliably left-wing Mead had in fact fabricated her findings to fit a predetermined “Noble Savage” model.
I’m looking forward to reading Better Angels. I may not agree with it entirely (I didn’t with Blank Slate), but I’m sure it’ll provoke some thought on my part.
Dueling has been illegal in Texas, also, since before 1850. Unlike Kentucky, however, the only offices from which a dueler is disqualified are Governor and Lt. Gov. Those cowboys in the middle of the street at high noon, were not in the middle of a street Texas.
Waltj,
I have no use for evolutionary psychology. There is more room in it for “scholarly” shenanigan’s than in the appalling Ms. Mead’s cultural anthropology.
Mr. Pinker’s findings re primitive societies is in the greatest sense… obvious. One need only look at the West’s experience with truculent muslims to see the primitive tribe at its barbaric worst.
I’ll take your reading of Mr. Pinker’s thoughts on centralizing power as more worthy consideration than my speculation.
Neo,
I had only the occasion to read a bit of a friend’s copy and was not moved to ask if I could borrow the book. Mr. Pinker is an obviously intelligent man but intelligence doesn’t preclude wrong or stupid conclusions especially of the hyperbolic sort. The two quotes I offered made my point (as much as can be made in a comment).
comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture
Comprehensive data do no such thing, neither do they paint a dour, or any other kind of picture. It’s the interpreter of data that does the painting and what I see is hardly shockingly happy.
I should have been satisfied if Mr. Pinker had just painted a simple picture; but it irks me when he insists he’s created an icon out of soup cans.
It’s possible Mead’s subjects were putting her on.
Goodall’s work on the Gombe chimps was supposed to show how–the interpretation varied–non-western, non-capitalist, non-patriarchal, non-civilized man lived in a pre-lapsarian idyll. Then she did more research and discovered she hadn’t been watching interactions between clans, which turned out to be awful, plus hunting. Presuming she wasn’t being disingenuous, since the chimps probably hadn’t plotted to put her on a la Mead, is a stretch, but possible.
I’d like to get hold of Keeley’s “War Before Civilization”.
Ev psych is probably a useful field, used with caution. I gather neurology is telling us that some things really are hard-wired. Try raising boy-girl twins under the presumption gender is socially imposed, for example.
George Pal: agree that ev psych, like cultural anthropology, is one of those “soft sciences” that is easily abused or manipulated by its practitioners. In Pinker’s defense, he appears to be doing original research and analyzing the background material of other studies instead of just mindlessly citing their conclusions. He also states where his assumptions didn’t pan out, were inconclusive, or simply didn’t have enough data. It might not be mathematical rigor, but, hyperbole notwithstanding, I think he’s at least attempting to be honest in his work.
Yeah, I’ve seen the “Muslim tribe” in all its barbaric splendor first-hand, on a more or less contiuous basis, for years. Suffice it to say that evolution of any type hasn’t yet had much impact there.
“.. in Blank Slate also skewers some right-wing shibboleths, particularly those involving religion, he is harshest on some of the notions that are held most dear by the left. He debunks, very effectively in my view, the socialist-communist theory that people are shaped almost entirely by their environment.. ”
Blank Slate is one of the few books I have given to each of my children and many of my friends because Pinker articulates what I have witnessed time and time again. 70+% of what we are as individuals is intrinsically linked to the shuffle of the DNA we inherited. The apple does not fall far from the tree; and apples that fall far from the tree are often rotten or else brilliant.
BTW, I have not read The Better Angels of Our Nature, but in addition to Blank Slate I’ve read The Stuff of Thought which is also a book worth reading.
I’ll chime in here with praise for Pinker’s books. I’ve read both “The Blank Slate” and “The Stuff of Thought.” I would be shocked if everyone agreed wholeheartedly with Pinker”s conclusions. What he is doing is trying to understand how human nature comes about and how it may have evolved over time. It requires a great deal of interpretation and plain old guesswork. IMO, he makes excellent arguments for his interpetations, but if someone agreed completely with him it would be quite amazing.
I have long pondered why my brothers and I are so different. Same parents, same upbringing, same schools and same teachers. Totally different personalities and attitudes toward life. How does this happen? The explanations in “The Blank Slate” concerning genetic control of personality is the only thing I have seen that provides an answer. It has helped me to accept the differences between my brothers and me.
Have only read a few excerpts of “The Better Angels” ansd found them intriguing. IMO, he is on the right track. It is my observation that we are slowly (accent on the slowly) becoming less violent.
The further humans evolve away from tribalism as primary identifier of one’s allegiances and endeavors, the less need their is for violence. Representative government with private property laws backed by courts, and tolerance for differing ethnicities/religions/ideas that leads to free and open commerce is where we are headed, IMO. That is the direct opposite of tribalism. Tribalism reamains a strong instinct because it was our primary way of indentification and organization for millions of years. The concept of the free individual and free commerce between individuals is only about 3000 years old. An inch of time as evolution goes. We’re headed in the right direction and Pinker’s work helps point that out.
FWIW dueling w/ swords, specifically an epee of some variety, was typically not fatal. Injuries were usually to the forearms and other extremities. Depending on the rules in place (e.g. first blood), these injuries were usually sufficient to end the duel. Also duels eventually evolved to include sterilized blades and an accompanying physician. And it was regarded as bad form for maim or kill someone for a minor quarrel, so there was some sense of proportionality at play when pursuing a duel.
Here in CA dueling was quite common in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The state representative who wrote the law banning dueling was later killed in a duel.
A common dueling weapon of the day was the Mississippi rifle musket, the standard military weapon of the Mexican American War, and similar to the rifle muskets of the Civil War (in fact quite a few were later used in the Civil War, at least by the South).
While the European duelists moved more towards no killing weapons, the Americans of the West were using deadly weapons, often weapons of war.
With respect to Pinker’s books, I think they are worth a look. The general trend does seem to be towards less violence.
I think Pinker is somewhat correct, but his view of human nature and the dynamics of violence is off. The perspective is too Ivy League. He himself is not a practitioner of violence, in the asocial or even anti-social forms, so that is consistent with his perspective.
Pinker is correct in noting that civilized rules has made tribal total war unnecessary, as well as reducing the benefits/incentives of warfare. Now a days people can get as rich and powerful via trade and business. Just look at George Soros when he liquidated the assets of Jews and used that as his seed capital to make billions later on. He didn’t have to make war on the Jews to do that. The Nazis did it for him, but the Nazis went kaput while Soros got rich instead.
But the utility of violence has never, ever, gone away. It hasn’t disappeared. It hasn’t decreased in usefulness. Other things have simply become more useful with less risk.
Gangs used to have honorable duels, like way back in 1790. Now… not so much. Gangs are like miniature tribes, so the entire concept of honor is pretty rare. Even amongst the Japanese Yakuza of the old school, many were simply opportunists with no love of tradition or honor in duels.
My explanation of the decrease is opposite Pinker’s. Violence hasn’t decreased because people got worse at it or no longer have a use for it. Violence decreased because certain individuals became so good at it, that nobody could challenge their power using physical violence, so they just picked up different methods to win power and influence. Civilization tries to moderate certain tendencies by providing or forcing in alternatives. Society does this on a general broad level. Individual honor does it for individuals. In modern Western societies, violence is kept in check by the US military and certain warrior-civilians. You remove the power and authority of these individuals, and you’ll see plenty of violence erupt once again. OWS, Oakland, Paris riots, UK riots, etc.