The world is becoming more peaceful

No violence in Germany or Sweden then?

There’s violence and condoned violence. The c word is the one to watch. It comes in many sponsored guises.

I'm certainly not seeing less violence, or is it being reported more? Almost everyday I hear about some poor teenager being stabbed to death - usually by other teenagers, workers being attacked for just going their jobs, more people being arrested for carrying weapons,

These days, also, it is easier to hit and run because so many have cars. Government sponsored violence has always been with us but it may be more obvious now because of the internet. On the scale of things the UK is pretty good compared with other countries or at least they keep it well hidden. At least people don’t ‘disappear’.

The opposition is sleeping. Agree I looked on mumsnet and all think that Starmer is a useless leader.

I gather most on here, replying in the main to one person, who never has facts to back up wild claims, is against Brexit, living in hope we will somehow get out of it, failing that the country can go to rack and ruin to prove a point. We have had a pandemic, brilliant vaccine programme, businesses helped, some unfortunately haven’t survived, others have started up. We have to work collectively for the common good because this is it.

Sparkling

I gather most on here, replying in the main to one person, who never has facts to back up wild claims, is against Brexit, living in hope we will somehow get out of it, failing that the country can go to rack and ruin to prove a point. We have had a pandemic, brilliant vaccine programme, businesses helped, some unfortunately haven’t survived, others have started up. We have to work collectively for the common good because this is it.

You know, you can ask me those questions and start a dialogue going, but instead you choose to use a passive/ aggressive tone in your post that sets up an atmosphere that is neither conducive to dialogue or frankly very well mannered.

I agree Sparkling

A tv programme suggesting that the world is becoming more peaceful...no facts, is just wild speculation.
The world is as violent as it ever has been, it’s obvious to see that ( which thanks to modern communications, we can see!)
Of course countries like communist China now and past ones
Like the USSR as well as any like Germany under Hitler etc cause violence perpetrated from their governments BUT....
Trying to draw the conclusion from that ( as you are doing)ww with the UK government just doesn’t wash.In fact I’d go further and say it’s ridiculous.

Gill telling a poster to go away so like minded ‘government critics’ can have a cosy chat never works.

There have been quite a lot if studies showing a reduction in some types of violence lemongrove it's not just one TV programme, it's quite a complex picture. Judging levels of violence based on what you see on TV is really not an accurate data measure.

Well....that’s just what ww did!

I think what I will do is to get the facts from the programme and post them. I did say in the OP that the facts suggesting that the work is more peaceful was not the object of discussion, but that the assertion by the researchers that societies who are more authoritarian, nationalistic and populist (causing division) are vectors for greater violence, was what I hoped people might like to discuss.

“World is more peaceful”

I’m getting breakfast now so it will have to wait until I have time to sit and trawl through for the facts.

The facts from one tv programme is useless.I realise that wasn’t the object of the discussion, the object was to encourage
Speculation that the UK government is swinging so far to the right and to become so authoritarian that this will add to more violence.It isn’t and it won’t is the short answer.

I rest my case.

Steven Pinker - psychologist has argued that interstate warfare has dropped dramatically, and battlefield deaths from fewer and fewer lethal wars over time have declined which was the object of the thesis. Pinker goes further, and argues that violence has lessened over the past 10000 years.

However intrastate violence is more complicated and this it what some posts have pointed out, and what I am arguing as did the researchers that intrastate violence is more prevalent in some societies than others.

Interesting ideas but 'battlefield' deaths have changed due to an increaeed use of technology rather than human bodies. Did the programme consider the fall out from conflicts. Were not many of the famines in recent decades a consequence of wars / conflicts?

Rather tedious that what seemed an interesting thread title soon morphed into same-old, same-old, from WWM2.

However from all I’ve seen on the news lately, I’m not sure where the idea that ‘the world is becoming more peaceful’ comes from!
Not sure a good many in sundry parts of the world, who are driven from their burnt-out villages after seeing relatives slaughtered, would agree.
Never mind the likes of Belarus, etc.

Until recently I was a life long Tory although not a particularly vociferous one. I am, however, now deeply concerned about the nationalism which has reared its ugly head over the last decade or so. It is so easy for a populist government to coerce the population to be suspicious of different views and to rise up against them, not necessarily in a rioting way but in very vocal ways.
The past year has shown us how easy it is for a government to incite hatred for those who do not toe the line even if they have perfectly good reasons to do so.
As I get older and have mixed with a larger variety of people through work over the past ten years I find I have become more tolerant of difference and certainly less right wing, more slightly left of centre whereas I used to be slightly right of centre.

I think that is right. Populism in all its forms is by its very nature divisive, and to mix it with nationalism and then an authoritarian government is imo lethal.

I think we definitely have examples of it in Trumps America, although I’m unclear about the authoritarian bit, but populism and nationalism has caused division in the USA not seen for decades, probably since the 60s.

I have looked at some of Pinkers work, it is interesting, I have also read studies on Victorian crime for example which were particularly horrifying.

I think, if we regard ourselves as just animals (which, of course we are) one of our traits is that of being territorial. Eg neighbours arguing about boundary fences, gang warfare in inner cities. And nationalist governments tap into that basic instinct. I’ll never forget when we used to travel round Europe a lot being in one country on a border that had been changed after WWII and they were still angry that they were regarded as, I think, Italian and not their previous country. And another thing that has always stuck in my mind. I was sitting in my car outside a library and saw a young man pushing a pushchair. It just struck me that it was something I would never have seen just a few years before. Apologies for me rambling on but these have been light bulb moments in my life that, many years later I still think of (and are probably totally irrelevant to the OP!). That and doing a short psychology course which told me about the Millgram (sp) which shocked and scared me so much and still does.

I agree that in general the world is becoming less violent and certainly murder rates tend to back that up. And we have not had a conflict involving multiple countries for decades now. Yes, knife crime, particularly in London, is worrying, but it does seem to be mostly a by-product of the illegal drugs industry (and I personally would deal with that by legalising the lot), rather than an indictment of society at large.

As for the current government being an autocratic, fascist dictatorship - really? If you suborn words like this, how are you to describe somewhere like Nazi Germany or Mao's China? There is no possible comparison. Like every government since WWI, we have a bunch of social democrats in Parliament; the only change we get is some degree of twiddling with the balance between state and corporate control.

Illegal immigration is a problem which somehow needs to be managed. Those who criticise Pritti Patel do need to come up with some other solution which doesn't effectively throw open the doors of the Welfare State to the rest of the world - we simply can't afford it. I don't know how to do it for the UK but Australia has managed to stop the flow of Boat People from South east Asia by a similar policy to that being suggested now, so I guess it's worth trying. Has to be better that any encouragement to people to risk their lives in small boats on the Channel - or in unventilated containers.

This is rubbish, sorry. When there is a stabbing in London every day somewhere, which is not the case if you look back over the past. Till that stops violence to me, is increasing.

Thanks Whitewave, for starting such an interesting chat line. My daughter told me about that programme, so I will try to find it on 'demand'. Watching world news, I am inclined to agree that much of the violence just now is 'state sponsored'. For example the plight of the Rohingas in Myanmar, and the recent crackdown on protesters there, the fate of the Uighurs in China, Lukashenko refusing to accept his democratic defeat in Belarus. And guess what, that Government bill, to stop protests, and defend statues!!!!, has just got through the House of Commons with a 100 vote majority.

I don’t think prople in the Middle East would say the world is more peaceful.