The Myth of Increasing Violence

[denuseri]

Its a cross disiplinary approach when it comes these kinds of studies or human history and where its heading now days that prevails becuase it looks at events from several diferent perspectives.

The trend alltough cycilic in many ways when looked at by a certian perspective: still follows a general "curve" sugesting that human beings overall are gradually evolving in a manner that says "violence" bad, " cooporation" good, out the over all expanse of human experience things seem to be pointing to a trend of decreasing violence in the modern era that is unprecedented compared to violence levels that decreased during the rise and fall of our predessesor's civilizations and could perhaps be a false assumption to make until all of the data is verified (sometimg we wont be able to do until many hundreds of years after the events of our modern era are long gone) by us surviving as a species long enough to reach a kind of human wide consensus of thought and purpose.

In other words even though humanity has many lapses into dark age periods due a wide variety of factors, we at least in localized areas (and collectively when those localized prosperous areas spill over and intergations occur later) have a tendency to all learn from our mistakes and evolve in a more cooporative manner if possible or die out.

I am not convinced that violence is going down in one steady curve.

Nevertheless it would be interesting to discuss what does make violence go down.

I get the impression from SP that although he says that noone knows why violence may be going down, it has to do with becoming more civilized.

That is the general consensus in this field of study, to an extent.

So, what, IYO, is civilization?

The opposite of barbarism.

Has it to do with cities? Do big cities make crime go down?

Urbanization alone is perhaps a spurious association in so far as trying to identify a "single" reason. Its more like a sympton of prosperous conditions. I don't think there is any one single reason for the overall reduction of violence brought on by our latest cycle of civilizations growth so much as it is how human beings respond to these paticular set of circumstances.

Urbanization, outside of it being a natural tendency of humanity for organziational purposes and consolidation of rescource exchanges once they develope in conditions that allow for it is in and of itself the byproduct of nessesity due to many factors. We have a historical trend to urbanize under the right conditions. Like I was saying above, if the location coupled with enviromental conditions develope in a manner that allows for a greater degree of prosperity our population rises, cuasing the need for certian things like cities as opposed to villiages, as opposed to tribal enclaves, as opposed to a few huts inside a palisaide etc etc.

Are civilized societies bigger, and does that mean fewer wars, or just bigger ones?

They tend to be larger than their less civilized counterparts.

Fewer wars, and bigger wars is a whole other issue.

Initially cities were considered harder to attack and overwhelm than their smaller and less well defended counterparts, so in some ways they serve as a deterent. However, they also create a situation where those outside of a city may wish to come into it to take as opposed to trade (as evidenced by all of human history). Population consolidation occurs for a wide variety of reasons though and sometimes urbanization can result in over crowding which can lead to violence under the right conditions depending on resource availability and headonistic diversion levels (bread and circus delima).

What about religion, are civilized societies more or less religious?

That all depends in which part of a given civilizations developmental stage your looking at.

Initially cities and civilizations ussually evolve from a homeogenous group who allready shares a common faith and purpose , but as conditions change to increase overall prosperity and a cicilization becomes larger and begins to rub up agisnt other populations groups who may or may not share the same common belief systems they can cuase divisons to become further reason for defence and keep a given population together for the purposes of opposition and later during an expansion phase, conversion or intergration occurs as people become more acepting of the other group due to familiarity.

When civilizations develope under the right circumstances and such needs of security change or are not as nessesary and its possible to become more focused on individual pleasures and liberties the external factors that make organized religions a desireable standard for providing a common purpose appear to decrease.

Though the individuals need for faith (being to a large degree a biological function) in in their own belief system (what ever that may be or devlope into or change into as time goes by) seems to remain the same.

IE the % of people who have faith in their own personal belief systems and philosophies doesnt change all that much as the nessesity to have a given populations organzied in a social contract lessens (under the right conditions) so much as the people dont feel the need to have a common outside guilding force.

What about personal freedom? Thomas Hobbes, from 1670s, mentioned by SP, apparently thought that witout strong central control it would be the jungle law, which he saw as 'everybody against everybody else.'

One should keep in mind that altough Hobbes assertations in many ways are correct in so far as explaining what people had a tendency to do in history (sacrifce their own personal needs for the good of the group when nessesary, sometimes even quite naturally consolidating authoprity in the hands of a singularly powerful individual)he lacked the same level of hindsight we today have developed and he was making his synopsis in support of the King he liked in opposition to Cromwell and the others who wish to get rid of said King or take away his power over them.

So, do we need strong control and centralization, or would de-centralization and bigger personal freedom be better?

That all depends on the citiation imho. Sometimes Central authority is desired, as when a group needs to get all on the same page to survivve and doesnt have the time or liberty to discuss things forever until coming to a consensus. Its why the Roman Senate and voting comitas during the Republic used to temporarally ceed total authority to a Dictator in times of crisis.

Sometimes its detrimental, as many societies in history have allready determined, it breeds cooruption when the power is held for too long and promotes the propogation of inequalities of classism which all to often cuases revolts and rebeliions.

Modern representative democracies (like their republican (Roman) and democratic (Greek) predessesors of the past which developed during times of past prosperity) try to do both at the same time by placing restrictions on who holds what kinds of authority and for how long and over what areas.