Peace Is Relative

My husband and I are in the process of reading the Richard Bolitho series, by Alexander Kent, starring an officer in the British Navy from the late 18th century through the Napoleonic wars. It's reminiscent of both Horatio Hornblower and the "Master and Commander" series. Now that we've reached the War of 1812 in our reading (a side event in the Napoleonic era, from the British viewpoint), I'm reminded of the alleged "long peace" of the nineteenth century. It's defined as having lasted for the hundred years between the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I.

I keep wondering, though, why this era qualifies as one of "peace" even from the British perspective. Over that period, they participated in several armed conflicts, including the Opium Wars in China, the Crimean War, the Boer Wars, and two Anglo-Afghan wars. And if we consider other nations, we note the Franco-Prussian War as well as wars between France and Austria and between Austria and Prussia. In the Asian sphere, Japan went to war against Russia and China. Not having ever studied the military history of the period, I'm sure there are others I'm not aware of.

In the twentieth century, the period from 1945 -- the end of World War II -- and the present is also referred to as a "long peace." Again, it's so designated because no global war has occurred since the "big one" at mid-century. We've fought proxy wars such as those in Korea and Vietnam, though, and it's unlikely the millions of people who've suffered in local conflicts over the past eight decades would call those years "peaceful."

However, by objective measures we're nevertheless living in the least violent period of history. Psychologist Steven Pinker (author of HOW THE MIND WORKS, THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT, THE STUFF OF THOUGHT, etc.) documents this proposition in exhaustive detail, with statistics, in THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE. Contrary to popular beliefs held in the past, preindustrial, tribal groups don't typically live in Edenic peace. Their per capita rate of death by violence tends to be far higher than in civilized societies. Two factors spawn the opposite belief: (1) the raw numbers of deaths involved; (2) our instant access to global news, making us acutely aware of those deaths.

Also, as C. S. Lewis points out, the death rate remains the same in every time and place -- 100 percent, one per person. If we catch ourselves thinking we live in uniquely terrible times, we might reflect on Lewis's remarks in an essay addressing anxieties about the threat of nuclear war:

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. 'How are we to live in an atomic age?' I am tempted to reply: 'Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.' . . . . In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together."

Margaret L. Carter

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