Nova: Imagine standing in a medieval town square. The air is thick with the smell of the crowd and something metallic. In the center, a man is tied to a large wheel. A public executioner, with a heavy iron bar, begins to systematically break his limbs, one by one, to the cheers of the audience. This wasn't a horror movie. This was entertainment. We tell ourselves we live in uniquely violent times, but what if that’s the biggest, most dangerous story we’ve ever been told?

Man: Wow. That's an incredibly powerful and disturbing image to start with. It immediately makes you question everything you think you know.

Nova: Exactly. And that's our goal today. We're diving into Steven Pinker's monumental book, 'The Better Angels of Our Nature,' to challenge that story. We're here with content creator and booktuber, Man, to tackle this from two angles. First, we'll shatter the myth of a peaceful past by journeying into what Pinker calls a 'foreign country.' Then, we'll uncover the powerful engines of peace—the 'Better Angels' and historical forces, like the very media we create and consume, that are actively making us better. Man, as someone who lives and breathes stories, what was your first reaction when you encountered this book's central claim—that we might be living in the most peaceful era in human history?

Man: Honestly, my first reaction was disbelief. It just feels so counterintuitive. You turn on the news, you scroll through social media, and it feels like the world is constantly on fire. My job is to engage with the stories people are telling, and right now, the dominant story feels like one of conflict and crisis. So to hear Pinker argue the complete opposite... it's jarring, but as a book lover, it's also incredibly intriguing. You know you're in for a ride.

Nova: It's a ride, for sure! And Pinker says that feeling of disbelief is the first hurdle. He argues our brains are wired to focus on the negative, and the media amplifies it. The plane that crashes is the news, not the thousands that land safely. So his first job in the book is to give us a reality check.

Nova: So let's start there, in that 'foreign country' of the past. Pinker's first job is to give us a sanity check, to show us what we've forgotten or, more accurately, what we've sanitized. He calls it the "Civilizing Process." For example, let's talk about murder. Today, in a city like London, the homicide rate is about 1.2 per 100,000 people. In the 14th century, in a city like Oxford, the estimated rate was 110 per 100,000. That's almost a hundred times higher.

Man: A hundred times? That's... I can't even process that number. It's not just a little more dangerous; it's a fundamentally different reality.

Nova: It is. And it wasn't just criminals. The violence was casual, impulsive. Pinker tells this one story from a 14th-century English coroner's report. A parish chaplain, a man of the cloth named William of Wellington, sent his clerk to buy a candle from a local man, John Cobbler. Cobbler refused to hand over the candle without getting the penny first. The chaplain became so enraged by this minor dispute that he grabbed a weapon, struck John Cobbler in the head, and killed him. Over a candle.

Man: That's just heartbreaking to imagine. The lack of self-control, the low value placed on a human life... it's almost impossible to comprehend that level of casual brutality. That it was just... normal.

Nova: And it wasn't just impulsive violence. The institutionalized cruelty was on another level. This is what Pinker calls the "Humanitarian Revolution." We started the show talking about breaking on the wheel. That was a real, state-sanctioned punishment in much of Europe for centuries. The goal wasn't just to kill the person; it was to inflict the maximum amount of public suffering as a form of spectacle. People brought their kids to watch.

Man: It makes you think about the stories we consume, like fairy tales. The original Grimm's stories are incredibly violent—eyes being pecked out, people being forced to dance in red-hot shoes until they die. But we've softened them over time for our children. It's like we're actively trying to forget how brutal things were, or maybe we just can't stomach it anymore.

Nova: You've hit on the exact point! Pinker argues that's part of this 'Civilizing Process.' Our sensibilities have changed so much. What was once considered justice, or even entertainment, is now horrifying to us. The fact that we find those original fairy tales so shocking is proof of how far we've come. We've collectively decided that cruelty is no longer acceptable.

Man: So the first step to understanding the good news about the present is to accept the truly bad news about the past. We're not falling from some golden age; we're climbing out of a pit.

Nova: Precisely. We've established a new baseline for what we will tolerate. And that raises the billion-dollar question, Man. If the past was so horrific, what happened? Why did we change? We didn't just magically evolve to be nicer.

Nova: This is where Pinker introduces his 'Better Angels' and the historical forces that gave them wings. He argues that we all have psychological faculties that can lead to violence—our 'Inner Demons' like revenge or dominance. But we also have 'Better Angels'—motives like empathy, self-control, a moral sense, and reason. The story of the last few centuries is the story of creating conditions where our Better Angels win out more often.

Man: Okay, so it's not that human nature changed, but the environment we live in changed, which in turn favors our better instincts. What kind of environmental forces are we talking about?

Nova: Pinker outlines five, but let's focus on two that are incredibly powerful. The first is Commerce. The French called it 'doux commerce' or 'gentle commerce.' The logic is simple and brilliant: as technology allows for more trade, other people become more valuable to you alive than dead. A trading partner you can do business with for years is worth far more than a corpse you can loot once. It turns life from a zero-sum game—'I win, you lose'—into a positive-sum game where we can both win.

Man: That makes so much sense. It replaces the incentive for plunder with an incentive for cooperation. You start to see other people not as obstacles, but as potential partners. It forces a kind of practical empathy, even if it's just driven by self-interest at first.

Nova: Exactly. And that leads to the second, and I think for you, most relevant force: Cosmopolitanism. This is the idea that forces like literacy, mobility, and mass media expand our circle of empathy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, this was the "Republic of Letters"—the explosion of books, pamphlets, and newspapers. For the first time, people could inhabit the minds of others unlike themselves. Pinker gives the example of the rise of the novel. When men in the 18th century read a novel like Samuel Richardson's 'Pamela,' written from the perspective of a servant girl, they were forced to experience the world through her eyes. This, he argues, fueled the movements to abolish things like slavery and cruel punishments.

Man: That's... that's fascinating. So the work we do as booktubers, as content creators... it's not just entertainment. In Pinker's view, it's a small part of this massive historical force of Cosmopolitanism. We're literally in the business of expanding the circle of empathy. When we encourage someone to read a book about a culture they don't know or a person whose life is different from theirs, we're participating in that process.

Nova: You are! You're part of what Pinker calls the 'escalator of reason.' By encouraging people to read and think critically, you're helping them step outside their own parochial viewpoints and see the world from other perspectives. You're helping them realize that their own needs and desires are not unique, that others feel pain and joy just as they do.

Man: It gives a whole new weight to the books we choose to feature and the conversations we start. We're not just talking about plots and characters; we're participating in a centuries-long civilizing project. But it also raises a question for me, Nova. How do we balance this optimistic, long-term view with the very real violence and suffering that still exists in the world? It feels wrong to just say, 'Don't worry, things are getting better!'

Nova: That is the critical question, and Pinker is clear on this. He says this is not a cause for complacency, but for appreciation. Understanding what has worked in the past—strengthening governments, promoting commerce, expanding education and empathy—gives us a roadmap for what to do more of. It allows us to see violence not as an inevitable curse, but as a problem to be solved.

Nova: So, to bring it all together, we've journeyed to the violent 'foreign country' of the past and seen that our perception of a uniquely violent present is largely an illusion. And the incredible decline in violence isn't an accident or a miracle. It's driven by concrete historical forces like commerce and, as you so perfectly put it, Man, the expansion of empathy through the stories we share.

Man: It really reframes everything. It moves the conversation from 'Why is there war?' to 'Why is there peace?' and what can we do to get more of it. It’s a profoundly hopeful message, but it's a hope that's earned through data and reason, not just wishful thinking.

Nova: Beautifully said. So, as we close, what's the one thought you'd want to leave our listeners with, especially from your perspective as a curator of stories?

Man: I think it's a powerful reminder of our agency. The next time you pick up a book, or watch a film, or even just read an article, think about how it's shaping your perspective. Is it reinforcing an 'us versus them' mentality? Is it shrinking your world down to your own tribe? Or is it asking you to step into someone else's shoes? Is it expanding your circle of empathy? Because as we've just discussed, that simple choice might be one of the most important things we do. It’s how we choose which angel gets to fly.