Decline of Western civilisation ...

David Gould

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European murder rates: (per 100,000 people)

Century _______England __Netherlands Scanadanavia Germany Italy
13th/14th ______23 ______47 _________- __________37 _____56
15th __________- ________45 ________46 __________16 _____73
16th __________7 ________25________ 21 __________11 _____47
17th __________5 ________7.5 ________18 __________7 ______32
18th __________1.5 ______5.5________ 1.9 _________7.5_____ 10.5
19th __________1.7______ 1.6________ 1.1_________ 2.8_____ 12.6
to 1950 _______0.8_______1.5________ 0.7_________ 1.7______ 3.2
1950-94 ______0.9_______ 0.9 ________0.9 _________1 _______1.5



Figures taken fromo criminologist Manuel Eisner "Secular trends of violence, evidence and theoretical interpretations (Crime and Justice: A Review of Research 3 2003).
 
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David Gould

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You do not think that a decline in murder rates is favourable? Weird.


As to the point of my opening post, it is an attempt to demonstrate to those people who think we live in horrible times that their beliefs on this matter do not accord with the facts.
 
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Scholar in training

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David Gould said:
You do not think that a decline in murder rates is favourable? Weird.
If you would read the sentence preceeding that, you would see that I do not consider murder rates indicative of the progression of society as a whole. I can play that type of game as well: judging by the atrocities that were committed during WWI and II, and the enormous death tolls on civilians, particularly in WWII, we are worse off than we ever were; and with the imperialism in the United States in the latter half of the century, along with the civil rights movements that occured in Britain's various colonies in the East, we are living in chaotic times.

Of course, it's very easy to analyze either particularly isolated or particularly broad data and draw erroneous conclusions from it. :)
 
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HypnoToad

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As to the point of my opening post, it is an attempt to demonstrate to those people who think we live in horrible times that their beliefs on this matter do not accord with the facts.

One does not have to commit murder to be immoral.
 
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David Gould

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Scholar in training said:
If you would read the sentence preceeding that, you would see that I do not consider murder rates indicative of the progression of society as a whole.

Fair enough. But surely they must be factored into the whole picture - in other words, they make up part of the story.

I can play that type of game as well: judging by the atrocities that were committed during WWI and II, and the enormous death tolls on civilians, particularly in WWII, we are worse off than we ever were;

Are we? Remember that we need to look at the death tolls not as totals but as percentages of the population as a whole.

In many military campaigns through history, every man, woman and child of a resisting population were killed. So while perhaps 40 million Russians died, with half of that being civilians, that equates to only 10 per cent of the civilian population. And Russia suffered the worst proportion of civilian casualties of any nation involved in the war. If we isolate the Jews as a nation, of course, then the percentage for them becomes closer to the 100 per cent figure of earlier wars.

The history of warfare has actually been more and more towards soldiers killing soldiers rather than soldiers killing others. If you look at the British or Australian or American experience - of even that of France - the actual percentage of people injured or killed in the war measured against population is tiny.

and with the imperialism in the United States in the latter half of the century, along with the civil rights movements that occured in Britain's various colonies in the East, we are living in chaotic times.

Chaotic times? What does that mean, exactly? Times have always been 'chaotic'. The US civil war was hardly a stable time. Neither was the US revolution. And the British civil war was hardly a day at the beach.

Of course, it's very easy to analyze either particularly isolated or particularly broad data and draw erroneous conclusions from it. :)

Yes, it is.
 
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Abbadon

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Decline of Western civilization... I wish.

It'd be kind of nice if it just plummeted instead of going down slowly. Then I could adjust now and be done adjusting instead of having to gradually adjust.

Yes, the world would be a 'bad' place (supposedly) if that happened, but I've decided that learning to be comfortable in uncomfortable places is the secret to happiness. There will always be areas where you will be uncomfortable in life, so you might as well get used to it.

So I think it would be better for the world to just get as bad as it is going to get before I wake up next afternoon (no, not next morning, next afternoon). Then I can get on with my life in a hell-hole instead of having to get used to a crummy world just after I've gotten used to the not-as-crummy-but-still-not-so-nice world over and over.
 
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HypnoToad

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David Gould said:
Um, no. But do you think that high murder rates or low murder rates are better?
Irrelevent.

If people can be immoral without commiting murder (as you just agreed), then the fact that murder rates have gone down doesn't necessarily mean society is becoming better overall.

Just wondering, do your murder rates include abortion? How would the figures look if they did?
 
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Abbadon

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David Gould said:
Um, no. But do you think that high murder rates or low murder rates are better?

Depends. Are the victims members of the aristocracy?

No, I don't mean that. Low murder rates are better, but I don't know that many people read the chart.
 
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gwenmead

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Something I clued into when I was earning my history degree is that the "rise" or "decline" of a civilization is actually pretty difficult to quantify or describe.

Empires, nations, cultures, and civilizations come and go all over the world. That's the way it's always been. I noticed that many civilizations that appear to "decline" and later vanish aren't really gone, they've simply changed into something else. Plus one civilizations "decline" usually means another's "rise". Mostly I just look at history as being a record of change.

The ancient Greeks had an idea that the world was in decline, as expressed in their mythologies about the different Ages of Mankind. Fast forward some 2500 years and folks in the 19th century rewrote history as a story of continual progress. I don't think either position is entirely right. Humanity gains and loses knowledge and technology all the time. Nobody knows anymore how to make Greek fire, for instance. I dislike the argument that today's technology is somehow more advanced than that of the past. Technology is simply tool development, which is what humanity has been doing all along. I'd argue that the essential difference between today's tech and that of early humanity is a matter of quantity, not necessarily quality, mainly because I don't think the mental processes in figuring out a new tool have really changed in the last 40,000 years.

But that's just me. And I'm kind of digressing anyway.
 
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David Gould

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gwenmead said:
Something I clued into when I was earning my history degree is that the "rise" or "decline" of a civilization is actually pretty difficult to quantify or describe.

Empires, nations, cultures, and civilizations come and go all over the world. That's the way it's always been. I noticed that many civilizations that appear to "decline" and later vanish aren't really gone, they've simply changed into something else. Plus one civilizations "decline" usually means another's "rise". Mostly I just look at history as being a record of change.

I agree. However, there are clear trends that can be measured within certain cultures/nations. And these trends can be examined against claims - for example, the claim by many Christians that the world is in a worse state now than it was in the past. At least some Christians claim that murder rates are very high now, and use this as evidence of the decline of Western civilisation - looking ahead, of course, to the coming apocalypse. This is my main point here - to refute this notion by looking at the actual data.

The ancient Greeks had an idea that the world was in decline, as expressed in their mythologies about the different Ages of Mankind. Fast forward some 2500 years and folks in the 19th century rewrote history as a story of continual progress. I don't think either position is entirely right. Humanity gains and loses knowledge and technology all the time. Nobody knows anymore how to make Greek fire, for instance. I dislike the argument that today's technology is somehow more advanced than that of the past. Technology is simply tool development, which is what humanity has been doing all along. I'd argue that the essential difference between today's tech and that of early humanity is a matter of quantity, not necessarily quality, mainly because I don't think the mental processes in figuring out a new tool have really changed in the last 40,000 years.

But that's just me. And I'm kind of digressing anyway.

It depends on how you measure quality. We can do things faster than we could previously. We can go further. We can live longer. We can get entertainment more easily. Is this better? Or is this more?

Personally, I think it is both.

However, it is interesting to note that happiness studies done all over the world say that once a person rises above subsistence level in economic terms their happiness becomes high and, on average, remains high - and this is true whether they are a Bangkok prostitute or a successful business person in the US.

I agree that technology is the application of the same mental processes it always was. But it depends on how you measure something as to how comparatively good it is next to something else. A car is better at getting you further faster than a pair of boots. But a car will not keep your feet warm when digging in the garden in winter.
 
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David Gould

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Abbadon said:
Depends. Are the victims members of the aristocracy?

Unlikely. Historically, the vast majority of victims of murder are poor.

No, I don't mean that. Low murder rates are better, but I don't know that many people read the chart.

People never do. :( ;)
 
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MuAndNu

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Not sure how this will figure into the discussion....

More people were killed in the 20th century than in previous centuries because

1) there were more people available to kill and

2) there was the technological means to kill many more at once.

I doubt it could be shown that Hitler or Stalin were any worse than, say, Caligula or Ghengis Khan, but the latter men lacked the technological means to kill on such a vast scale.
 
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Quijote

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David Gould said:
As to the point of my opening post, it is an attempt to demonstrate to those people who think we live in horrible times that their beliefs on this matter do not accord with the facts.

Those who believe that we live in horrible times must not know how to change a tire ^_^

Life is certainly easier and more pleasant now a days than it was 50yrs ago (let alone 500yrs ago).

Now, if by "horrible" people refer to immorality...well then they have a good case.

cheeers
 
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Maynard Keenan

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Oh people are no more or less moral in general than they have ever been. Cultures and times change, at times are better and worse, but always changing. People always think things are bad because we like to cry about what used to be or what might be rather than seeing the good in what we have.
 
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Quijote

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Maynard Keenan said:
Oh people are no more or less moral in general than they have ever been. Cultures and times change, at times are better and worse, but always changing. People always think things are bad because we like to cry about what used to be or what might be rather than seeing the good in what we have.

I agree that individuals now might be more or less moral in general than they have ever been. However, I would argue that today's [Western] society is more accepting of immorality than ever before.

cheers
 
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SparkyMel

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Quijote said:
I would argue that today's [Western] society is more accepting of immorality than ever before.

I agree.
I mean, look at society's stance on sex before marriage, on homosexuality, on abortion... it tells you in the Bible what you're supposed to do about these things, but because society thinks it's right, it's easy to get sucked in... it makes it confusing for people who are being pressurised by society.

But just because society thinks its right, it doesnt necessarily mean that it is. Take Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four" for example. Winston gets sucked in by society eventually. Maybe one day we'll all get sucked into the moral values of the majority... :o
 
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