Being more of an essayist as opposed to a Twitter-ist, I enjoy reading essay style magazines. That’s not a surprise to anyone who has read more than one or two of my posts (all 3 or 4 of you . . . if that many). And you also know that one of my favorite essay magazines is The Atlantic. I often comment here in an essay format about some of the essays that appear in each new Atlantic issue (kind of like fighting fire with fire, perhaps). So that’s what I’m going to do right now. Fasten your seat-belt, here we go with another Jim G essay, FWIW.<\/p>\n
The March 2015 Atlantic contains an article by Jonathan Rauch entitled \u201cBe Not Afraid<\/a>\u201d. Rauch’s main point is that President Obama was entirely correct in saying last August that even though many Americans believe that life in America is more dangerous than ever, in truth we’ve never been safer. Rauch ticks off a list of facts and expert opinions that weave together a picture of an America and a world where the risks of violence and mayhem continue a long-term historic decline. The headlines we read focus upon on-going terrorist attacks in major cities; armed conflict<\/a> in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Mexico, Yemen, central Africa, etc.; near-plague-like conditions from Ebola<\/a> in Liberia and Western Africa; and nuclear weapons in the hands of irrational ideologues (North Korea and Iran). And yet, when compared with the past, even the not-so-distant past, fewer and fewer people are actually dying from such conflicts and threats. Even crime is way down in the US and most other industrialized nations. <\/p>\n Well, QED<\/a> (quod erat demonstrandum, Latin for \u201cit had to be proven and so it has\u201d). According to Rauch, \u201cAmericans’ threat perception has never been as distorted as it is today.\u201d And thus we need to thank our intellectual President for lecturing the public about this, even though his approach draws fire from the many pandering populists in the GOP. In sum, the masses are being irrational once again, and so thank goodness for the brainy elite like Obama (and the people who write and publish The Atlantic) to set them straight. <\/p>\n Of course, given my own somewhat contrarian nature, I’m not sure if I’m going to buy into Rauch’s thesis. Yes, I’m sure that the facts and statistics that Rauch cites are correct. Statistically, the average American probably is safer from violent death or displacement than a century ago, a generation ago, and even a decade ago. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Americans should sit back and celebrate this fact. <\/p>\n Even if the overall chance of experiencing violence has gone down, there is still something about the nature of the remaining (and still significant) threat that can justify a rational concern on the part of the populace. First, the remaining threat level can be more surprising, more novel, and harder to foresee. In today’s fast-changing and high-tech world, things can and often do happen that are unlike anything from the past. Second, even if the probability of a threatening event has gone down, the potential severity of the remaining threat could be going up. <\/p>\n With both crime and terrorism, even as their occurrences become less frequent, their outcomes seemingly become more horrendous. Even if fewer people are injured or dead on average, the effect on society of what remains can be much more severe \u2013 the social aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks being exhibit # 1. The Palestinian Intifada attacks against Israel in the 1990’s and early 2000’s showed that a modern society can become inured to a constant exposure to \u201clow-level\u201d violence, i.e. Incidents that injure or kill only a handful at a time. But a series of rare but unanticipated, novel and extremely severe events can bring about big social changes, and those may not be all that positive (think back, if you are old enough, to how simple airline travel was 20 years ago; and if you can go back 30 or 40 years, recall how getting on a 707 was hardly any worse than getting on a bus, even if much more expensive)(you might also remember that 707 travel was a lot more comfortable than a trip on a modern airline; today you get the comfort level of riding that bus, but not the convenience). <\/p>\n So I think that Rauch and Obama need to be a little more psychologically nuanced in their analysis of public fear levels. And perhaps they could also throw in some understanding and sympathy (give Bill Clinton credit \u2013 for all his sins, he had a lot of empathy and even sympathy for the plight of the common man and woman — something that \u201cProfessor Obama\u201d just doesn’t seem to connect with). <\/p>\n Oh, and here’s an interesting little tid-bit right from that article (at least from the print version). There is a chart on page 20 entitled \u201cThe Fear Factor\u201d showing two time-lines proceeding from 1993 to 2013. One line represents the declining violent crime rate in the US; the other reflects survey results regarding the percentage of Americans who believe that crime increased in the previous year (check out this chart<\/a> about fear-of-crime poll results, and this one<\/a> on actual crime rates, to see what the Atlantic chart is getting at). For over half of the graph space (the one leading into the present), the trend in the crime perception statistic has continued to climb, and now exceeds 60% of the population; meanwhile the actual violent crime rate has continued to decline. <\/p>\n Oh, those stupid Americans. But take a look at the trends in the crime perception line; it decreases almost in lock-step with the crime rate from 1993 to 2001; then it suddenly bends like a V and starts a long march upward. OK, just what might have happened in 2001 that would have upset a lot of Americans and made them more sensitive to the overall threat of violence surrounding them?<\/p>\n Do I need to say it? Come on, I already did, in my 6th paragraph . . . The bigger question in my mind is, just why didn’t Rauch say it in his article . . . <\/p>\n