Just a little question....

police brutality · Tue 09/10/2007 00:20:32

Hello,

I just wanted to ask this as part of a class project I'm planning to make, but I don't know exactly how to hit 'the nail in the head'. Hopefully you can help?

What do you think connects violence with history, philosophy, technological progress, and cultural diversity? Is violence the connection itself? Then what is the importance of violence in man's nature? Think about that for a second:

The past century was the most violent in history, and I think the one where technological progress was faster- not even the middle ages, during which I'm pretty sure ignorance and xenophobia were common law, were so violent. Then is 'progress' the cause? Overpopulation? Poverty? The US is as violent as Mexico in murder rates I think. So it is part of the culture? Both rich and poor countries with distinct cultures have committed genocide.

Basically, what I want to expose in my class is, why are we getting more violent the more we progress? The problem is, I have no idea how to answer that.

I was thinking on studying different statistics, comparing violence in countries like Germany, the US, and some african countries, across different times in history, along with the acceptance of violence in those countries at those certain times (Literature of the time)

Does violence grow exponentially with the population?

Thanks for any help.

Tuomas · Tue 09/10/2007 00:55:14

Nice subjet man, I'd love to help you out. I've studied ts myself for a while, and there really are several asects to discuss. If you have time, I'm certainly going to par example give something from my though and/or essays that might help. Right now it's impossible since I'm lacking a keyboard (using osk), but I'll buy one soon. I want to see mny opinions on this subject, hope we'll get them.

Sparky · Tue 09/10/2007 01:08:21

One factor is culturally acceptable alternatives to violence. For instance in many cultures in the USA, it's not considered manly to seek a nonviolent resolution to some situations. It might be interesting to track that over time, and see if attitudes have changed as levels of violence have risen and fallen.

Also I think it's important to differentiate between types of violence. Murder may not have the same causes as organized warfare, for instance. Unfortunately when asking a question this broad, it's hard to draw any type of valid conclusion. Perhaps for the purposes of your assignment you could ask a more specific question, then try to find some solid surveys or field work on the topic.

InCreator · Tue 09/10/2007 02:03:54

I think that to find better answer to this question, forget about peacetime murder rates here and there and think about war.

We had 2 major world wars in 20th century. After both, what happened? Extreme progress in everything.
War is what boosted culture of ancient Greeks and Romans, and most of the prospering civilizations in time have been built on dead bodies and loot.

I think that war = competition between Man and Man, and this inspires things. Even cold war (the fear of WWIII) forced both sides to do amazing things, one side sending a Man on to the moon and developing thermonuclear weapon, other doing same plus sending a satellite onto orbit and keeping most challenging and ambitious project with humankind in motion - global communism. Not to mention all other technologies it produced.

Law and order isn't what makes big things. It's anarchy, freedom to do anything. For example, not so many good things happened in Medieval era, when church and feudalism controlled everything (thus denying everything new). Everything (industrial era, etc) started AFTER this, with revolutions and reformations. Democracy contains healthy dose of anarchy, that's why whole world tries to grasp to it now.

Maybe fear for his life (even if it's not direct) keeps man improving and getting better. Isn't most advanced pieces of our technology (either directly or started from) improved measures of killing another human being?

And why are we getting more violent? Because we're better at that! Imagine yourself as a medieval king. You don't like other country. To do anything about them, you know that you have to sacrifice thousands of lives of you people. But now? Nuke, gas or poison the bastards and problem is gone. Don't people realize it collectively? Don't we all know that our country has an army somewhere, protecting us and destroying anyone who wants to rob or kill us - with most monstrous weapons ever made? Don't you pay taxes to have people and weapons to do killing for you? Where's motivation to be peaceful?

Violence is made extremely simple nowadays. With enough money to hire a lawyer and little plan you can exterminate or torture anyone you don't like. Sometimes I've been thinking that it's easy enough to even kill someone, atleast where I live. In Estonia, unwanted kill results in 3 years prison maximum. It's quite easy to stage an accident on someone you don't like. What happens? You will be put into pre-investigation lockup, it's nothing like real prison (you can have visitors, make phone calls etc), investigation takes 6 months to a year, and if you admit guilt, you'll be sentenced to a jail for a year, which will be considered carried out due time you've been locked up, plus maybe probationary period, which isn't really a punishment. To totally eliminate human you don't like, it's not that big price to pay. Especially since you never reach real prison. Works so well only first time though.
Any other things, like beating or so won't even usually be punished here - 3 years prison or fine. Few weeks in lockup is actually worst that could happen. No-one's dumb enough to get maximum punishment and walks off with a small fine. Fine! Add a good lawyer, you will be right in the end!

Western thinking and general softness about crime is the problem in my example. And I still haven't figured out why European Union and loads of stupid human rights movement organizations press this. It seems that people like violence? The more advanced and democratic, the more excuses to kick heads in?

Yeah, I know. It sounds awful. But there's some ends of a long string of thought, don't you think?

LUniqueDan · Tue 09/10/2007 02:44:11

The way you asked the question is a little large, and like Sparky said there's a difference with organised violence and by example, murder.

For 'common' (I hate this expression) violence, it's just impossible to know. We have almost no serious stats to make comparison before the XIXth century. But, for the record, remember how torture, slavery, alimentary cannibalism, infanticide, parental violence and other gladiator games were part of humanity everyday life.

For organised state violence, including warfare and genocides, we are effectively touching some peak in the 20th. I'm supose that to wage a war on ressources a state need some modern tools of calculations. That ballistic missile don't grow into trees as much as bad science stuffs are also a known cause of many modern bloodbath (think of the so-called 'race-concept' and the Holocaust, or 'Proletarian genetic' and the 30's Ukraine famine)

QuoteWhat do you think connects violence with history, philosophy, technological progress, and cultural diversity? Is violence the connection itself? Then what is the importance of violence in man's nature?

It's sad to said that a huge part of scientific progress came from violent stuff. Many historians will tell you that Middle Age and Renaissance progress came from the almost permanent war state they were living in. But some others will remind you that the Roman Empire discovered almost nothing.

On the more philosophical side, it's also possible to say that the actual scientific method is a systhematical conflict and challenge of ideas too.

But, in other hand, the progress can possibly avoid international BadTRip.

Think that very post of me can possibly be read all over the world (even in Britains - do you realise, Joan of Ark will kill me) while 550 years ago a 'dangerous stranger full of plague', was offently someones living in the next village.

Peace!

RickJ · Tue 09/10/2007 08:30:58

Quote
Basically, what I want to expose in my class is, why are we getting more violent the more we progress?

Sorry for being a contrarian but I don't agree with the premise that more progress brings more violence. If you look back through history there were some pretty nasty things going on. Practices such as slavery, genocide, conquest (i.e. Spanish Conquistadors), colonization, honor killing, torture, cruel and unusal punishments, ect, that were common in centuries past are no longer acceptable in the modern world. Many of these practices still prevail today in countries that have not progressed as much the rest of the world.

Now, for your class you should explain that there are other points of view and give an argument to support your premise. For example "Some people would say that there is less violence because of this, this, and this. I say that there is more because of that, that, and that. For the purpose of our discussion we will assume the latter is true".
It would also be good to clearly state what is meant by "more violent". For example do you mean ....
Weapons of war have certainly become more efficient in modern times. Does that make today's wars more violent or not? If the weapons are more efficient then it takes fewer people to fight a war. Which is more violent to get shot with a bullet or hacked up with a bronze sword? Does the tidy aspect of modern warfare make war more likely? Future wars may be fought exclusively by remote control, where machines battle each other on an inhabited battlefield. How does this affect the definition of violence if nobody gets killed or wounded; only the machines they control get destroyed?
Romans - Someone said that the Romans made very little progress. They invented concrete and used it to build innovative structures many of which survive to this day. Many of their aquaducts can still transport water to this day. They built roads to interconnect all of their cities and provided security necessary for commerce to thrive. They may have had many faults but to say they have contributed nothing in the way of progress is not quite correct.
When is violence justified? Probably in defence of one's self or in defence of someone else. Would you be justified committing a violent act to defend someone from robbery? Murder? Would you be justified committing a violent act to free someone from slavery? How about in the case of a bully who is threatening violence? About the only effective course of action is to meet violence with violence. Any concessions just embolden the bully and encourage him/her to make even more demands.

===================

As I said before I am not convinced that there is more violence now than there has been in the distant past and I would be interested to know exactly you mean by "more violence" and what facts you have to support your case.

If by "more violence" you are referring to the number of wars that occurred during the course of the 20th and 21th centuries then I can offer the following opinion. First of all I don't know one way or the other if the frequency of war was more or less during this time or not. However, for the purpose of discussion, lets assume that it was more frequent and discuss why this may be.

Progress is not homogeneous. Progress does not occur simultaneously in every countries at once. An invention or discovery occurs in one country and then spreads to other countries. Some countries are quicker than other to assimilate or adopt the new knowledge than others. So can end up with some countries living in the modern world and others living in the old world.

The ideologies of some countries are compatible with ideologies of other countries. For example in some countries the people believe that everyone should be free to say whatever they want or practice the religion of their choice (including none). In other countries people believe that everyone should practice their religion and not make any negative comments about it and that God wants those who don't to be killed.

These two things have always been true of course but before the advent of the global telecommunications, and modern warfare in the early 20th century, countries far apart in geography, ideology, and/or progressiveness could ignore each other much more easily than they can today.

Now suppose some old world country decides to commit genocide in order to eliminate undesirables? In the past nobody would know about it or at least not until it was all over with. Well now, there are live pictures on CNN, the internet, etc and everyone knows about it. People in progressive countries see it, believe it is wrong, and before long want to take action to stop it. This is especially true if there is some kind of connection, cultural, historical, economic, etc to the victims, the oppressing or neighbouring countries. So what can be done to stop the killing? Diplomacy? Is that working in Darfur? Yugoslavia? Seems like the only thing that ever works is military action of one kind or another. It's hard to negociate with someone who just wants you dead.

This reminds me of something I haven't seen in this thread or thought of so far and that the political violence of the 20th century that was particularly brutal and widespread. By political violence I mean that a country commits violent acts against it's own citizens. I could easily be persuaded that this is in fact true, now that I think of it.

- Soviet Union, Stalin Kills 20-30 , enslaves 18â€"20 in forced labor camps
- Germany, Hitler kills 11 million in concentration camps
- Cambodia, Khmer Rouge Kills 3 million (40% of population)
- China, Deng Xiaoping Kills 600-3000 in Tiananmen Square
- China, Mao Zedong Kills 50 million
- Iraq, Sadam Hussein kills 500 thousand
- North Korea, Ill & Son, 1.6 million
- Turkey kills 3.5-4.3 million Armenians, Greeks, Nestorians, and other Christians
- Japan kills 6 million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese
- Pakastan kills 1.6 million East Pakastanies (now Bangledeshies)

While researching the above numbers I came across this book, "Statics of Demoside" which was on this website. I think you will find the information there to be very helpful to you in preparing for your class. Sorry for the long post but hopefully you will find something of use.

Let us know how it turns out. Best of luck!

Stupot · Tue 09/10/2007 13:42:41

This isn't really an area I've given much thought to, but as soon as I read the first post I was reminded of this little short animation from "Bowling for Columbine" about why America is such a violent country (paricularly regarding guns).

If you haven't already seen this it's a pretty good summary of Amercan history.

I know Michael Moore isn't everybody's cup of tea (nor mine in fact) but this little clip stuck in my mind.

[Edit]
Would it help if I included the URL?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a4vGtDPSxiY

police brutality · Wed 10/10/2007 05:16:07

Thanks A LOT for the info. No, really, A LOT. This is excellent.

The reason for why I more or less centered the project on 'the 20th century was the most violent' concept is because the teacher said he thought it was, and that it'd be interesting to discuss. I could say I disagree and base my presentation on that, but I think he's right. Specially after reading InCreator's reply. RickJ your advice was excellent (Specially the 2nd, it helped me structure better my whole project) and I'm writing it down on the sides of my papers to be better prepared.

I really appreciate the advice given here. When I wrote this post my project was going in a completely different direction and was more or less lost, and was too broad as you noticed (Which is why the teacher advised me to try to narrow down the concept to talk about) now I think I'll make a very good presentation.

EDIT

Although, when talking violence as part of our culture (trivialization of murder, virtual hedonism etc) the teacher said I shouldn't mention Columbine as it's a sensible subject.