75,000 years ago a Neanderthal died a violent death. A wooden spear thrust through his body from the front pierced his lungs and major arteries, and exited from his back, probably via his heart. The neat round hole in his well-preserved left scapula, unearthed in Iraqi Kurdistan, has set pre-historians speculating as to whether it is the earliest evidence of lethal interpersonal violence. Some have suggested this was a targeted heart shot made by an experienced killer.
It’s possible the wound was the result of a hunting accident. Perhaps a spear intended for a mammoth missed its target. But from what we know of most animals and human beings, it is likely to have been hominid on hominid violence.
The skull of this Neanderthal also reveals that a heavy blow from a blunt instrument split one of his teeth a year or so before the spear killed him. I suppose we shouldn’t rule out euthanasia, or even suicide, but a violent confrontation is a more plausible explanation.
There is indirect evidence of human-like empathy among Neanderthals too from the bones of those who lived long lives with paralysed limbs, blindness, and other conditions that would have meant they needed looking after by others in order to survive. But there is also evidence of violence. Plus ça change.
We might believe ourselves more sophisticated and intelligent than Neanderthals, but despite intellectual arguments for pacifism, a propensity for violence against one another remains part of the human condition, an ineliminable one perhaps.
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Was Nietzsche really a Nazi?
Thomas Hobbes argued that pre-emptive murder could even be the rational course of action in some situations. Take away laws and government, and life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. In this “state of nature” even the weakest could steal from and kill the strongest as they slept, so it would be rational to take out any threat early.
Life under these conditions would be a war of all against all. Hence the need for strong government to make life tolerable. As international law struggles to survive, some might see the relations between states as heading for a Hobbesian dystopia where might is right. Now that many countries possess technology that can kill millions, we are entering the most dangerous phase for humanity yet.
Steven Pinker, in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature, sketched a very different trajectory for humanity. His analysis of the long history of violence left him surprisingly optimistic.
Despite so much subjective evidence from war, school shootings, random attacks with weapons, riots that turn nasty, and more, Pinker argued that per capita the likelihood of dying a violent death was on the decrease.
Critics disputed his interpretations of evidence and accused him of cherry-picking results. Pinker maintained that the reason it seemed improbable was due to our propensity to be swayed by individual cases rather than to assess the larger picture.
We are appalled by news of a violent mass killing, and don’t look at the statistical likelihood of becoming a victim of such an attack or compare the situation with previous eras.
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Immanuel Kant versus the far right activists
We’re systematically biased towards focusing on the bad things that happen rather than the bad things that are prevented and no longer happen.
As Pinker put it, “our subjective impressions are out of whack with the statistical reality”. He agreed that human beings have violent inclinations (and the evidence from that cave in Iraqi Kurdistan supports the view that this is nothing new), but how they are expressed is determined by cultural factors.
Pinker thought that social mechanisms, including nuclear deterrents and the growth of literacy and international trade, had helped reduce violence and that the evidence pointed to significant progress on that front.
Today it is hard to believe he was right, but that’s what he would predict, too. An AI-charged third world war might yet prove him wrong.
