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Originally Posted by muppet
Basically Millennials and Gen Z are better educated and behaved, and hopefully improving with each new generation. We Gen Xers were the most criminal generation since medieval times by some measures, but hey we were brought up by Boomers. The days of going out after the pub and stabbing a few old ladies for their jewellery are past me now, as I totter into old age and railway documentaries.
Throw in increased surveillance and forensic technology through the ages, and would-be criminals are put off.
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I don’t think that the effects of WW1 as well as the post war chaos and political violence which were amplified by the Great Depression factor into the unbelievably violent nature of WW2. What the deaths of over 100 million people and the effects that the killing and the victims of the killing had on society is greatly underestimated I believe.
Mental health and modernization is another aspect of society that is neglected for example the rates of alcoholism post civil war in the US were outrageous not to mention opiate addiction. The technology of the civil war being so far ahead of tactics especially at the beginning led to the grievous losses of life. The low velocity solid lead bullets didn’t chip bone like metal jacket of a bullet will do today if it clips a bone, it resulted in bones being shattered and the high amount of amputations.
Obviously coming into the modern era it wasn’t just America or the West that suffered through such grievous trauma during this period of transition. The Taiping Rebellion in China is considered by many to be perhaps the bloodiest war in history with 30-50 million dead 5-10% of the national population.
The boomers had issues with their parents many of who especially those who fought in the Pacific saw some of the most horrific fighting of all times. Alcoholism, PTSD and its subsequent effects such as anger, depression and flashbacks were mostly suffered through in silence.
There’s a great book by the son of Eugene Sledge the author of With the Old Breed of HBO’s The Pacific fame. W. Henry Sledge took his father’s notes from his drafts and wrote a remastered version of With the Old Breed. He has a great antidote about what it was like to be the son of a veteran who saw fighting of the type that was common across WW2. His brother wanted to watch Patton when it was playing on TV and convinced his dad that it was well done as the beginning sequence of artillery bombardment played out Eugene had a flashback and broke down rushing into the kitchen and punching the refrigerator over and over. His wife rushed in and called him down but the sound of artillery brought him right back and he went to his coping method in the foxhole of just pounding on whatever was in front of him I suppose.
Obviously the question of what triggers violence or mental health issues via trauma are much more complicated and nuanced. However the great wars of the 20th century and social engineering to attempt to fix aspects of the problem seem to have caused more severe consequences or new consequences. Prohibition in America is one of the most famous but by far not alone.
One could look at social problems in a European but non western nation like Russia and look at the extreme drug abuse issues like with heroin substitutes like Krocodil or the sort of MDMA substitute of Meow and the horrific consequences to the user. The social problems relating to collectivization the Holodomor, the Great Terror and then WW2 are well known one could extrapolate mass social trauma towards issues with mental health, alcohol & drug abuse and generational consequences.
I don’t like to point at a certain generation or group of people when discussing violence mental health issues and violence. I think it’s dangerous in terms of trying to understand it problem and finding a solution. Maslow's hierarchy of needs has provided insight into the increase in political radicalization in the documentary Dear Kelly by Andrew Callaghan. The parallels between economic hardship and political radicalization and mental instability are hard to miss when you look at the situation under that light.
We have examples of mass trauma and inter communal violence across the latter half of the 20th century in many major countries colonial wars in Europe, wars like Korea and Vietnam in America (and others). The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China, the partition of the British Raj in India and Pakistan as well as global instability and a innumerable civil wars, coups and political and social instability across the world during the Cold War.
Bad things happening are not new to humanity but the level of violence and death arguably are and the interconnectivity and sharing of information is something new. Mass media and entertainment are an interesting X factor to consider as an adjacent component to our lives. I would still argue that we live in one of the best times ever to be alive but the game setting for mental health perhaps is set on high and we have just begun to acknowledge PTSD from war let alone from say generational domestic violence and other issues.
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