The Too Many People Have Died Dispatch #1

The Better Angels of Our Nature considered

Stephen Pinker's new book The Better Angels Of Our Nature posits a decrease in violence - "Violence Vanquished" as the title of an essay published in The Wall Street Journal on September 24 has it.  Brutality declines and empathy rises worldwide because, political scientists believe, of the "growth of democracy, trade and international organizations....  They also credit the rising valuation of human life over national grandeur - a hard-won lesson of two world wars."It was between those two world wars that a notion emerged that has been associated with Antonio Gramsci - "a pessimism of the intellect and an optimism of the will."  That notion, and the intellectual support it can be given, is the theme of the book this website is about.  The book also uses the work of "a one-of-a-kind democratic artist" -- Bob Dylan -- to make its points. 

Pictures: The signing of the Treaty Of Versailles, an assymetrical peace that led to aother massive war within a single generation. Peacemakers in the other major conflicts of the 20th Centurey learned a valuable lesson from this; Antonio Gramsci poster.