Life seems to have become so cheap in this new millenium, Sucide bombing have suddenly become part of our daily lives, it is now part of our daily lives to read about missing ppl esp girls being found dead , people getting killed by muggers and wierdos and even as a result of road rage. Reading that soldiers are killed in various wars around the world is now not as shocking as it would have been in the past.............i can go on and on with various examples but what has really changed in our society to make life so CHEAP!!!.
It's not evidence of anything more than the ability of the human brain to discount that which it sees repeatedly. Well perhaps its also evidence of the ability of the news media to keep escalating as we become used to what was shocking last year (and, thus, no longer entertained by it).
Life isn't any cheaper; remote death and destruction are just displayed to us more frequently and thus discounted. When its close then the equation changes.
Look at how upset Americans became on 911. If a few thousand people had died in bombings in Poland or the Ukraine or better still, Chad, what do you think the reaction would have been. I'll give you a hint ... its a long way away from us ... poor people ... hmm, whats for dinner?
Remember that social mores move in cycles perhaps in part for the reasons mentioned in the first paragraph. We're probably at an extreme of this particular cycle. It'll be interesting to see how it all is in 2020 assuming the reason we're noticing this isn't that we're so old that we feel disconnected from current cultural norms and will be dead before the next swing.
Too many people, too little room for humans . Plus pace of life is crazy.... I opted out a long time ago and fortunately live at the pace I want, trading when I want.
I may not be rich but I'm not poor nor am I stressed.
0007,
I also wonder if some of the "low violence" in the 50s was caused because quite a few who would have contributed were dead.
I say this seriously. Although the police in NY claim to have reduced crime their in the 2000s vs the early 1990s there is more evidence that it was reduced because a change in abortion laws back in the 1970s prevented the babies being born who would have fueled that US crimewave --- so maybe WWII had a similar effect on 50s violence?