Peace in our times?
A bloody uprising in Syria. A seemingly endless insurgency in Afghanistan. A savage civil war in Libya. A terrorist attack in Iraq. It is not difficult, University Distinguished Service Professor Joseph Nye said in introducing the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Monday, to compile from the headlines a list of current wars and conflagrations. But the panel, assembled under the title “Is War on the Way Out?,” was there to discuss the oddly counterintuitive notion that violence, among both individuals and states, is on the wane, or at least on a downward trajectory. “It’s a property of the human mind that we estimate risk by memorable examples,” said Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard, panelist, and author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Bloody bulletins from the front lines of various conflicts are easily recalled by most of us. But the data seem to show that humans are...