Max: Pax Moderna
Edge 206
In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davies, '[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.' Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the most important and most underappreciated trend in the human saga: Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth.
In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion.
In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davies, '[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.' Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the most important and most underappreciated trend in the human saga: Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time on earth.
In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion.
posted by Max Dobberstein at 4/02/2007 06:58:00 PM
1 Comments:
We have a very good example in some recent US Wars. In WWII, on D-Day, approximately 10,000 soldiers died - in one day. The Viet Nam war killed nearly 60,000 American soldiers and over a million Vietnamese combatants.
The Iraq war has killed just over 3500 American soldiers.
In Viet Nam, we dropped untold amounts of dumb iron bombs, indiscriminately killing everything in their path. Today, we still drop iron bombs - but nearly every one of them has a $20,000 dollar JDAMS system attached to it and the bomb hits within 10 feet of it's intended target. These days, instead of carpet bombing, B-52s loiter over a battle field dropping individual smart bombs on individual tanks. This put our soldiers well out of harm's way and gives us artilery in the sky.
I'm not saying that 10 deaths are less tragic than a million deaths. I'm not saying that war is right just because we can do it better, cheaper, cleaner or faster. I am saying that we as a people have demanded more responsible war-fighting from our leaders and they have responded.
With the furor that has been raised over the lives lost in Iraq, and with the successes of Unmanned Fighting Vehicles of various stripes, I think this is a trend that will continue.
Post a Comment
<< Home