Violence and peace- Where are we heading to ?

Talk to anybody in your neighborhood, office colleague or Uber taxi driver about the present day world. Most likely, we all likely to get a similar world view that, things are not going well in this world, violence is all-pervading, human life is at peril etc. People offers an even more pessimistic view about the future, predict that the world will witness more violence, more sufferings, much more terrorism, etc. Majority of us would like to believe that a bleak future is waiting for the humanity in the coming decades.

Having noticed this phenomenon, I would like to make a proposition that the world we are living in, is the most peaceful and far less violent than the one our fathers were living.

To prove the above point, I would like to bring out some unidirectional changes that happened in the last 30-40 years, in our lifetime, which is too visible to us, yet we ignore its relevance.  All these changes are proving that we had done away with many implicit and explicit forms of violence in the last couple of decades itself. Many things would look small, but its cumulative impact is much bigger than we imagine. 

a) Caning and child beating-

30-40 years, it was normal for a school teacher to cane children. Parents themselves were advocating physical punishments (read, beating with sticks). Not anymore now. We have strong rules and regulations against canning, protection of children, a slew of legislation like POCSO Act, etc which makes sure that our children face much less pain today.

b)  Ragging and bullying 

  People who were in Colleges and Universities in 80 s and 90 s must have been either a victim or a perpetrator of campus violence and inhuman treatment towards juniors called Ragging. This barbaric practice was legitimized in the name of ‘better interactions’, making junior students ‘tough’ etc. However, in the last few years, we realized that it is to be ended and we armed ourselves with better rules and stringent enforcement. The result- Ragging got almost vanished from our campuses.

c) Animal sacrifices and self-inflicted acts of violence-

Gone are the days when we used to kill animals in the name of god and inflict violence on our own body for propitiating gods and goddesses. Not anymore. Our gods are happy nowadays with our monetary offerings and they don’t ask for ‘blood’ anymore.

d) Domestic violence-

      Beating your wife and starving her was believed to be the right kind of response when she indulged in something which you didn’t like. 

     However, if you wished to be the same, you would have already landed up and rotted in jail.  Our legislatures were enlightened enough to pass laws against Domestic violence to see that violence even inside four walls of your home itself will not be tolerated and women are to be treated with dignity. Similar is the case with marital rape.

e)  Capital punishment –

     

     Capital punishment had been banned in most of the modern Nations and in many others, it remains only in paper. Even in our Country, even though it is still in the statute, it is given only in ‘rarest of the rarest case’.  It implies human civilization had moved away from impulsive, retribution oriented punishment towards a more humane one.   

f) Lockup torture, violence perpetrated by Police, etc-

     

     Earlier, Police were seen as an instrument of violence. They could perpetrate any amount of violence against citizens if they wish to do so. Not any more, particularly in states like Kerala, etc. Police are now coming under Human right watchdogs and any deviance would be treated as a dereliction of duty and will not go unpunished. 

      g) Our pets and animals

     We treat our pets and domestic animals far less cruel than one generation before. Laws are there in place on how to transport animals, how they should not be paraded in festivals, circus, entertainment, etc. Recall how our Courts banned Jallikkattu and restrained elephant parades in festivals like Poorams in Kerala. Again, laboratory tests on animals are much regulated now and our school children don’t dissect mouse and frog anymore.

)     f) Reduction in recreational violence –

The consensus here is that one cannot inflict pain and misery on animals just to make ourselves happy. Hence, you can’t hunt animals in the forest, kill tigers for their skins, and shoot an elephant for their tusk. Similarly, shark fins are banned and killing the shark for their fins is prohibited in most of the countries. So, sharks are safer now than what they were earlier.

      

The above-mentioned changes are not exhaustive but an illustration of how things are moving and in what direction. Similar things can be talked about homicide, rapes, burglary, etc even though data is not readily available. Collectively, here we can see that any and all kinds of violent behavior is losing its legitimacy and social approval. 

I am sure that these kinds of changes are happening not by accident even though I am not certain why it is happening. Still, I can point out some plausible reasons why things are moving in this direction.

There are a few socio-political and technological forces that had a modernizing effect on human behavior. Firstly, we are all valuing lives, limbs, and dignity of strangers much more than what our grandparents used to bother about. This is because we humans are seeing each other as much more valuable economic agents with whom we can trade, exchange ideas, work with, and co-create value. As author Yuval Noel Harare says, it is now more profitable to do trade with strangers than raiding and killing him.

Increasing feminization-

Does our society go feminine? Yes. As per author Steven Pinker, both sexes had become increasingly feminine. Ideas like chivalry, self-respect, revenge, social shaming, etc are having a different set of meaning than what it used to be in earlier times.

Campaigns for rights-

 Social groups are actively involved in protecting and safeguarding the rights of sexual minorities, children, prisoners, animals, and many other groups who are believed to be incapable of articulating themselves. These volunteers are instrumental in identifying cases of violence and are making critical public policy interventions to take suitable remedial actions.  This was not the case earlier.

State and its policing forces too are gaining more capabilities now and are less tolerant towards violence unleashed by non-state actors.

My conclusion here is simple. It is not that everything is perfect today. Many things are yet to do. Still, we are living in a far better and prosperous world than what our fathers and grandfathers used to live. We are better fed, better employed, and better educated than any generations who lived before us. Our lives and limbs are far safer and our chances of getting died or mutilated in a violent incident are far lower than any point of past.  Many times, we don’t fully appreciate undergoing changes that resulted in the reduction of violence, and once changes got entrenched, the process was forgotten. We take it for granted, without realizing that changes have indeed happened. 

Therefore, there is no reason for us to complain about the present and compare it with the past.  Even though we often get romanticize with our past and have fear about the future, the truth is exactly the opposite. Extrapolating the trends and trajectories, it is quite sure that in the future, our children will be in living in a world which would be better than the one we have. There is certainly no case for being pessimistic and worried.