Abraham Lincoln didn’t just pull a catchy phrase out of thin air during his 1861 inaugural address. When he spoke about the better angels of our nature, he was making a desperate, poetic plea to a nation on the brink of shattering. He was talking about the parts of us that choose restraint over rage.
But honestly? If you look at social media today, it feels like those angels went on permanent vacation.
We’re bombarded with headlines about rising crime, political polarization, and global instability. It feels like we’re getting worse. Yet, if you look at the hard data—the stuff people like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker have spent decades obsessing over—there is a massive disconnect between what we feel and what is actually happening. We are, statistically speaking, living in the most peaceful era in human history.
It sounds wrong. I know. But the reality is that our "inner demons"—predation, dominance, revenge, and ideology—are slowly being crowded out by our "better angels"—empathy, self-control, a moral sense, and reason.
The weird psychology of why we think the world is ending
Our brains are kind of wired to be pessimistic. It’s an evolutionary glitch called the "availability heuristic." Basically, if you can remember something easily, your brain assumes it’s a frequent occurrence. Because news cycles prioritize "if it bleeds, it leads," you can easily recall a video of a riot or a natural disaster. You can’t "recall" the millions of people who woke up today, had coffee, and didn't hit anyone.
Peace is boring. It doesn't trend.
Back in 2011, Pinker released a 800-page behemoth of a book titled The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. It was controversial. People hated the idea that we were becoming more civilized while they were watching war footage on TV. But Pinker’s point wasn't that violence disappeared. It was that the probability of dying a violent death has plummeted over centuries.
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From public executions to Twitter spats
Think about the middle ages. You’d go to the town square to watch someone get disemboweled for a minor crime, and that was just... Tuesday. It was entertainment. Today, we argue over whether a joke is offensive. While the "cancel culture" debates are exhausting, they represent a massive shift in our moral circle. We now care about harms that our ancestors wouldn't have even recognized as problems.
This is the "Civilizing Process." It’s a concept originally proposed by sociologist Norbert Elias. He argued that as European states became more centralized and trade became more important than raiding, people had to learn to play nice. You can’t do business with someone if you’re constantly worried they’ll stab you over a dinner etiquette mistake. We traded our impulsive violence for self-control because, frankly, it was more profitable.
The four drivers that actually change us
It’s not just that we’re "nicer" now. We aren't born with better DNA than a Viking. We just live in a different "exo-skeleton" of institutions. There are four specific things that coax the better angels of our nature out of hiding.
First, there’s the Leviathan. This is Thomas Hobbes’ idea. When you have a government with a monopoly on the legal use of force, it takes the "revenge" out of the hands of individuals. If someone steals your car, you call the police; you don't go burn down their village. This one change alone dropped homicide rates by 90% in most of Europe over five centuries.
Then there’s "Gentle Commerce." When it’s cheaper to buy something than to steal it, people choose to buy. Trade makes other people more valuable to you alive than dead. It’s harder to dehumanize a country if they make your favorite smartphone or provide the customer service for your bank.
The empathy pump
But the most interesting one? The "Expanding Circle."
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This is a term from philosopher Peter Singer. Originally, humans only felt empathy for their immediate kin. Then it was their tribe. Then their nation. Through literacy, travel, and even movies, we’ve started to see ourselves in "the other."
When you read a novel, you are literally inhabiting the mind of someone who isn't you. This is a cognitive workout for empathy. It’s why the rise of the novel in the 18th century coincided with the abolitionist movement and the end of judicial torture. We stopped seeing "others" as objects and started seeing them as subjects with feelings.
Why things still feel so broken
If our better angels of our nature are so great, why does 2026 feel like a pressure cooker?
It’s important to acknowledge that progress isn't a straight line. It’s a jagged graph. We have "decivilizing" spurts. The 20th century, with its two world wars and various genocides, looked like a total failure of the human project. But even those horrors led to the creation of international laws and norms that have made large-scale state-on-state warfare incredibly rare compared to the past.
We are currently in a weird spot with "The Humanitarian Revolution." We have expanded our concern to include animals, the environment, and neurodivergence. But our digital tools are hacking our "inner demons." Social media algorithms are literally designed to trigger our "moralized aggression." They want us to feel outrage because outrage drives engagement.
Basically, our biology is being exploited by software.
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The Flynn Effect and the role of IQ
There is a weird, factual correlation between abstract reasoning and peacefulness. It’s called the Flynn Effect: IQ scores have been rising about three points per decade. We aren't necessarily getting "smarter" in terms of brain power, but we are getting better at abstract thinking.
When you think abstractly, you can see the logic of "The Golden Rule." You can understand that if I don't want to be hit, it’s logically inconsistent for me to hit you. Reason is the most powerful of the better angels of our nature because it allows us to look at our own biases and say, "Wait, that doesn't actually make sense."
How to actually lean into your better angels today
You can't just wait for "history" to make you a better person. It’s a practice. If you want to move the needle, you have to consciously choose which parts of your psychology you're feeding.
- Audit your outrage. Next time you see a post that makes your blood boil, ask: "Is this a real trend, or is this an outlier designed to make me angry?" Most "culture war" stories are about one person doing something dumb, framed as if it’s an epidemic.
- Read long-form. Fast media feeds the demons. Books feed the angels. Novels and deep non-fiction force you into a state of "slow thinking," which is where empathy and reason live.
- Practice "active" empathy. Empathy isn't just a feeling; it’s a skill. It’s the ability to steel-man an argument you disagree with. Try to explain a viewpoint you hate so well that the person holding it would say, "Yeah, that’s exactly what I believe."
We aren't perfect. We are a "standard-issue" primate with some really nasty instincts for tribalism and dominance. But we’ve built a world where those instincts are increasingly useless. The better angels of our nature aren't a guarantee, but they are a choice we've been getting better at making for about five thousand years.
Don't let a bad news week convince you that the human project is a failure. The data says otherwise. We are messy, loud, and often annoying, but we are also significantly less likely to kill each other than we were yesterday. That counts for something.
Actionable Next Steps
To actually apply this perspective to your life and mental health, start with these three shifts:
- Consume "Progress Studies" content. Follow sources like Our World in Data or HumanProgress.org. Balancing your "doom-scrolling" with actual statistical trends provides a much more accurate worldview.
- Practice the "Pause." When you feel the urge to "dunk" on someone online or react with hostility in person, wait 60 seconds. This allows your prefrontal cortex (the seat of reason) to catch up with your amygdala (the seat of rage).
- Broaden your physical circle. Empathy for people who look like you is easy. Empathy for people with different religious, political, or economic backgrounds requires proximity. Volunteer or join groups outside your usual bubble to keep your "Expanding Circle" from shrinking back down.