Why safety now trumps freedom
“We still barely understand why homicide rates have declined consistently across the western world over the past 20 years,” admits Manuel Eisner, criminologist at Cambridge university. The rise of screens may have helped: nowadays many violence-prone young males spend their days on WhatsApp or PlayStation. But Eisner and other thinkers suggest another fascinating explanation: starting in the early 1990s, western countries entered an age of restraint. Our generation has chosen safety over freedom.
.. Perhaps coincidentally, the EU experienced “a marked decrease in recorded adult per capita alcohol consumption” from 1990 through 2010, says the World Health Organisation.
.. We now have evidence – which Elias didn’t – that western homicides have fallen fairly steadily for 700 years.
.. American teenagers’ “use of illicit drugs has generally declined over the past two decades”, says the Monitoring the Future survey.
.. Only one western realm of disorder survives, says Pinker: entertainment. Violent video games, rap music and online porn are everywhere. But, argues Pinker, most consumers of this entertainment are ironic: they don’t confuse it with reality. In fact, real violent entertainment – as in ice hockey – increasingly generates outrage. Today’s security-obsessed media encourage permanent fear. The evidence suggests an age of restraint.