Let's start with the good news: homicides in the United States are consistently decreasing. This is based on data I have seen the last ten, twenty years. The facts are out there. It has steadily been decreasing since the late 1980s. Maybe before.
This is positive. The United States is a big country; a decrease in the number of murders is good. I have read many articles about this trend over the years, while most of the articles do not explain why homicide rates are down, they all acknowledge that this is a trend.
I have written about it somewhere or sometime before, offering conjecture as to why it could be. I have written blog posts, like so many scraps of paper, that have been printed and lost in the winds...Some have disappeared, some are lost in cracks and crags of attics. Nevertheless, I have thought about this a bit. And now I will attempt to provide some observations.
Are more potential US killers locked up in prison, because we have a bigger incarcerated population than ever before? Does the ongoing threat of capital punishment and other harsh sentences prevent or dissuade potential homicidal tendencies?
Has the United States economy and society progressed where people, in general, are less willing to commit violent crimes, worth killing or dying for?
Is it harder to get away with murder, due to modern day forensics and DNA tracking? Therefore, are more possible killers less willing to attempt things that would get them caught?
Are people nicer, kinder: less induced to killing others than previous generations?
Could the reason be as subtle as a demographic shift of fewer children per mother, hence more motherly love and care and less hateful sibling rivalry than ever before? Kids and their grown-up versions are less hateful and hostile?
Could it be something that we cannot account for? More air conditioning? Less hot heads because of easier access to modern appliances? Conjecture on the reasons for the optimistic facts could go on...
But alas, there is plenty of bad news beyond the fact that the diminishing numbers of homicides are prevalent in the United States. It is probably not true in neighboring countries like Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela or Argentina. In some of those places it may be more homicide ridden than ever.
And there are places where violence and wars and battles are constant parts of life.
To name a few this year (2014), there is Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, a good half dozen places across the continent of Africa, and more recently I have read about renewed hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia. That is a long running feud there, even longer than the tussles and bloodletting of Israel and Palestine (Gaza, in particular, as of late).
So no worries, plenty of killing is still going on in the world. (That is meant as sarcasm).
Suicide is not ending; I do not know if that is a steady or increasing trend. But this is about killing others more than ourselves, although both are murder.
I suppose to be completely fair, self-violence is as valid a subject as any. But this post is more having to do with hostile acts and killing behavior against others more than ourselves, even though the damage ends up being quite similar.
So back to violence directed at others through war and hostile intentional murder: it is a constant in our life. We only deal with the rate of how and when it happens, and for what reasons, justifiable or not. Hence we have laws, and other mechanisms to deter its occurrence. We try, usually, to make killing for a useful or necessary purpose.
Homicides, again, are not declared war. Wars are often deemed justifiable for whatever sundry reasons. But violence underlines all of it.
And that is how we are programmed, be it 2014, or 1014. A thousand years ago things were brutal, as it was a thousand years before that, in the time of Jesus. Violence is part of life. And so on and so on, back into our human and animal history. We are not naturally herbivores, per se; some societies are more carnivorous than others. We do not usually literally kill each other to survive, but metaphorically we do use violence and murder, or war or other physical acts of aggression in order to make our societies work.
The threat of violence or punishment make our worlds go 'round.
I believe most great authors and thinkers have dealt with violence, murder and death by lethal or aggressive means. It is an intrinsic part of our nature. We are Darwinian in our habits and behaviors. The strong survive, sometimes in its most visceral means.
Shakespeare certainly did deal with the subject of violence and its consequences 500 years ago, at times contemplating the acts of the Romans 1500 years prior. More recently great writers have done the same ruminations and plot developments, a few Americans of the 20th century to name a few: Hemingway, Faulkner, London, Vonnegut, and so many more. Women, Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, we all share this common thread in our lives. Touched directly or not by its effects, we all deal with it.
Some writers and storytellers use murder, death and mystery as their main theme. Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle come to mind, as well as numerous of their 21st century counterparts. Television and film is replete with the topic.
And of course, the real live news.
What goes on in the world, to our neighbors, foreign and domestic, what causes us to gasp or shake our heads in disgust. Local news, national and international, violence fills our lives.
Wars or not, people are constantly involved in violence.
Is American football or sports like rugby or judo or boxing a good outlet for these aggressive tendencies that humanity seems to crave? Perhaps.
Will the elimination of the proliferation of weapons stem the tide? Not really. It could help.
But violence is a constant, and it will continue. Homicides are down here, but it might only be a current trend as science shows temperatures turn a certain way for a time (global warming, or cooling) and then retrace their steps. Things could get worse...
At the end of the day, violence must be accepted as a factor in the world. But can we resist it? Can we protect better against it? Can we learn ways of stemming the tide of perhaps glorifying or celebrating it too much? Certainly.
How to do that? Shakespeare does not have the answers; our wisest of the wise today do not either.
Will the elimination of certain recreational chemicals reduce violence? Perhaps. Maybe not.
What will it take? Maybe we have to give everybody more of what everyone wants: pampering.
Blog it. EMC.
No comments:
Post a Comment