Getting medieval on Steven Pinker: Violence and medieval England (original) (raw)

2021, The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History and Violence

In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker puts forward a vision of the Middle Ages that is both grim and fearsome. He writes that '[m]edieval Christendom was a culture of cruelty' in which 'brutality' was 'woven into the fabric of daily existence'. 1 In a sketch from Das Mittelalterliche Hausbuch (The medieval housebook) depicting what Pinker describes as a scene from daily life, warlords terrorize the lower classes: 'a peasant is stabbed by a soldier; above him, another peasant is restrained by his shirttail while a woman, hands in the air, cries out. At the lower right, a peasant is being stabbed in a chapel while his possessions are plundered, and nearby another peasant in fetters is cudgeled by a knight.' 2 Violence pervaded every aspect of life: religion ('bloody crucifixes, threats of eternal damnation, and prurient depictions of mutilated saints'), travel ('[b]rigands made travel a threat to life and limb, and ransoming captives was big business'), domestic living ('even the little people, too-the hatters, the tailors, the shepherds-were all quick to draw their knives') and entertainment (throwing cats into bags, or beating pigs to death). 3 The government behaved no better than its subjects. Medieval Europeans suffered 'centuries of institutionalized sadism', in which torture was practised as a cruel art and '[e]xecutions were orgies of sadism'. 4 Admittedly, for Pinker, this hyperviolent portrayal of the Middle Ages is a usable past. He is eager to tell his audience a shocking story. Dusting off Norbert Elias' hoary thesis, Pinker sees history as a story of progress, with occasional fits and starts and some moments of distinct regression, in which humanity engages slowly but resolutely in a civilizing process. Not only have we refined our manners and hygiene (a subject upon which Pinker deliberates with glee and graphic detail) but we have learned the necessity of restraint when it comes to emotion and physical response. At the heart of this evolution is the discovery of empathy.