Everything is going to be alllllll right
I live and work from home which means I don’t get out as often as is probably healthy. A lot of my view of the world is formed by the news I read and sometimes I find myself getting a little pessimistic.
I came across the following statistics last week while reading Freakonomics (thoroughly recommended) which helped put things into perspective. If you think humanity is going to hell in a handbasket I hope these figures help you as much as they did me:
| HOMICIDES [not incl. wars] per 100,000 people | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| En | N+B | Sc | G+S | It | |
| 13th and 14th c. | 23.0 | 47.0 | na | 37.0 | 56.0 |
| 15th c. | na | 45.0 | 46.0 | 16.0 | 73.0 |
| 16th c. | 7.0 | 25.0 | 21.0 | 11.0 | 47.0 |
| 17th c. | 5.0 | 7.5 | 18.0 | 7.0 | 32.0 |
| 18th c. | 1.5 | 5.5 | 1.9 | 7.5 | 10.5 |
| 19th c. | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 12.6 |
| 1900-1949 | 0.8 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 3.2 |
| 1950-1994 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.5 |
*En = England, N+B = Netherlands and Belgium, Sc = Scandinavia, G+S = Germany and Swizerland, It = Italy
(Source: Manuel Eisner, “Violence and the Rise of Modern Society” Criminology in Cambridge, October 2003, pp 3-7)
Tags: chinup, glasshalffull, homicides
What’s up with those Italians? They seem to outkill everyone throughout the millennium. Must be all that wine… Or could it be, no, it couldn’t be the Catholic Church?
It is ironic that despite these numbers, many people believe that it’s more dangerous to live now than it was, say 50 years ago.
Italy? Two words: Don Corleone.
Unfortunately, stats can be beguiling. You’ve got to watchout for those economists – they can skew anything!
According to those stats the number of homicides in England in 1994 should have been 495 when in fact it was 750. Which, just for interest sake, makes the real stat 1.36 per 100,000. So what of the other stats; psh.
However, some other stats paint another picture.
Consider the global priorities in spending in 1998
Global Priority $U.S. Billions
Cosmetics in the United States 8
Ice cream in Europe 11
Perfumes in Europe and the United States 12
Pet foods in Europe and the United States 17
Business entertainment in Japan 35
Cigarettes in Europe 50
Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105
Narcotic drugs in the world 400
Military spending in the world 780
And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:
Global Priority $U.S. Billions
Basic education for all 6
Water and sanitation for all 9
Reproductive health for all women 12
Basic health and nutrition 13
Ever been to Africa or India or even downtown Auckland? Why not attach yourself to an aid agency battling higher food prices, bureaucracy etc. to feed the richless, homeless and the pointless – of which there are numerically more today than ever!
Forget about your proportions – they only deceive.
There’s no need to go to hell.
Interesting stuff…
I reckon things aren’t getting gradually worse or gradually better, but that things change up or down at various times and in various places. More modernity and more information, etc. has NOT equalled less crime, so the ‘onwards and upwards’ thing is a myth; while on the other hand, the perspective that ‘the world’s going to hell in a handcart’ is less-than-accurate, because 1) the picture just isn’t that bad in some places, and 2) things have been pretty-darn awful at other times in human history…
-d-
Hi BC, are you able to supply the source for that figure? And is that just for 1994 or for the period in the chart?
Source for stats MurderUk.com
Granted trends in crime seasaw over time.
Also, stats supplied by the British Home Office(http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page54.asp) indicate that the number offences in Britain range between 10-20 million per year. Interestingly this stat does not include property or business crime.
I hate to be picky BC but if I give you a range and quote you an average for that range, taking one year out of that range doesn’t negate the original average. What you need to do to test those figures is to provide conflicting figures that cover the same range or break it down into more detail to show trends within trends.
The original point of the post was that I often think that things were better in the olden days but that in reality the facts show that I might be apply rose-tinted glasses to history. There were a lot of things you could die from back then but these days in modern society our chances of survival are much better. Much of the fear I feel is provided by isolation and the media focussing on ‘dramatic’ news.
Point taken.
Doesn’t pay to apply rose-tinted glasses to any age really.
Although crime stats may be the focus of your argument, that things are alright, it may pay to look beyond those stats and note the well-being of society in general. From that perspective people ‘feel’ there is reason for labelling our present age as the Age of Anxiety.
The decrease in mortality rates in general probably have more to do with rising living standards by simple solutions such as access to clean water, better housing and education, than advances in technology. However, there seems to be a downside for those in the developed world and indeed in the developing world adopting western lifestyles, to contract first-world diseases of obesity, such as hypertension and diabetes for example. It seems that the string of life is just so long.