Is it More Violent Now?

All one has to do, is look at the news headlines to ask himself are things more violent now than they used to be? The answer to that is difficult. We may think so, based on our concept of how things were a few decades ago, as portrayed on TV sitcoms. Yet is this an accurate picture?

What about the "wild west?" Didn't people get shot and hanged in a lawless society? What about the racism, lynching and wars of our history? What about the Roman Coliseum and the atrocities performed there in the name of "entertainment?" What about bull-baiting, bear-baiting, dog fighting, cock fighting and bare knuckle brawls? Can we be sure things are more violent now?

While there is a lot of preaching and pressure about kindness and tolerance, we live in a society where it seems that every few weeks some coward is in the news for shooting unarmed people in a public place. The local news in the Twin Cities recently had a story about a woman who beat a 4-year-old boy to death, while her own children held him down.

We see bits and pieces of war on the TV news, as armies invade other countries for various reasons and groups and individuals use explosives to blowup bystanders in public places. Turn on the TV and you can find "mixed martial arts" competitions, which are essentially brawls with few rules and protections, watched by rowdy, drunken people who like blood-sport. Kids beat someone up and then put the video on You Tube. This recording was something that was missing (except by word-of-mouth) years ago.

Is it really worse, or has humanity accomplished little to nothing in the time it has been overpopulating the Earth? Is the media just better at showing the atrocities and the science of discovering them better? Could it be that victims are more likely to report their victimization, rather than to hide "their" shame?

It does seem that perpetrators have more rights these days. That is good protection for those falsely accused, but what about the victims who are injured or killed because the law was concerned about the rights of criminals?

The world is more crowded these days. Many people have talents that are overlooked. Yet if they commit a heinous crime, the media will make them famous; if even for a short time. Maybe we need to make more of an effort to recognize the positive things that people do. Maybe humanity is as sick as it always was.