In the little over a week that its been since the Boston Marathon bombings, I have heard reactions that run the gamit from non-chalance to deep seated anger and frustration. I have also heard questions posed that seem to indicate that our world has taken a quick turn for the worse with increasingly frequent episodes of public violence, violence that affects more than one or two people, but dozens and hundreds. Were the Boston bombings horrible? Yes, there is no doubt about it. Yet, outside of the maniacal, mentally deranged individual who goes on a shooting spree seemingly every year now, I think we have fared pretty well when it comes to episodes such as this most recent one which seem to indicate a desire to sow the seeds of terror amongst a population. Since 9/11, which was an act committed by foreign terrorist groups (unless you are a conspiracy theorist and think otherwise), this is the most public display of violence with the sole intent of spreading fear and terror amongst a population in over a decade. We have had little mishaps here and there, but most of those were foiled luckily. Yet the questions persist as to why this happened and what is happening to our world that we must face incidents such as this on a regular basis. While I don't have all the answers, I do have thoughts as to why incidents like this seem to happen on a more regular basis and why there is a more general concern amongst individuals when something like this happens. First, I think we need to put a few things into perspective. Lets consider for a moment how lucky we actually are to live in the United States where these incidents are relatively few and far between. Bombs going off in a large city meant to create massive loss of life and destruction of property are not that common of an occurence. All we need to do is take a look at the Middle East, the perpetual religious conflicts that seem to create more violence than peace, and perhaps even take a quick look at Syria which for the past 2 years has been dealing with death and destruction on a daily basis. When all is said and done, we need to consider where we are and how good we actually have it. For what its worth, there is no place I would rather be than where I am right now, living in Connecticut in the United States. I have nothing against other countries, but I'll take my chances right here. Now on to other plausible explanations.
The one major factor which would seem to increase the amount of incidents of violence that we have is population growth. We currently have over 7 billion people cohabitating our planet. With every year that goes by, that number goes up and with the increase in population comes an increase of people who are mentally unstable or pre-disposed to act out violently against others. While in general it may seem that our society is becoming more and more violent, I wonder what it would actually look like if we took into account population growth and percentages of violent incidents, including bombings, as compared to the overall population. I don't know the numbers, but I would have to say that both lines, population growth and violence, would be about the same. If it seems like there are more episodes of public violence, it is because there are more people in the world and the percentage of "crazies" has increased along with our population. While it might not seem like much of a consolation, it might at least ease the mind when it comes to understanding things a little better. We have to remember that violence is a part of human history. Ever since man became who he is today, he has acted out violently against others. Look back in history and give me a period of time that was completely peaceful. I guarantee that you probably won't find one. The big difference between years ago and now is the advent of media, both news media and social media. While we have seen the impact that the news media has had on relating information of wars, bombings, violence in general for decades now, it is the more recent creation of social media that brings everything to our doorstep. We may not want to watch the news because it is full of negative news, violence too close to home, scams, and other crap, and for the most part we can avoid that by turning to our favorite social media outlet, yet not for too long. The moment something horrific happens, such as the bombings in Boston, every person and their mother on Facebook knows about it. It spreads like wildfire and within minutes after something happening, half of the population of the United States knows about it and can't turn it off. Why? Because its Facebook and how many of us can really turn it off? There was no Facebook when 9/11 happened, but its here now and it spreads the fire quickly.
There is also the argument that can be made that we are teaching our children that violence is OK as a way of retaliating. Parents let their children watch increasingly violent movies at younger and younger ages. They let them surf the web full of anger and discontent. We see acts of violence on the news, and in our everyday lives. Some will take this as a sign that it is OK for them to act violently and as a result, do that. Its a fact of life unfortunately, and one that is highly unlikely to go away anytime soon. So what can we do when we live in an increasingly violent world, or at least one that seems that way? We have two options as I see it, we can react out of fear, shut out the world, arm ourselves, get prepared to take action against whoever might hurt us, or we can choose to live in peace, to not let the violence affect our everday lives. People think that since the world is becoming more violent, we must prepare ourselves against the possibility that something might happen to us. We can try all we want to fend of violence, but if someone is dead set against committing an act that will impact our lives, then we will be able to do relatively little to combat it. If we act out violently in response, we do nothing to remedy the situation. Its all in our hands, how we respond, and I know most people will respond by not letting the terror or fear set in and going about their every day lives. However, there are also those who will increasingly live a life in fear of their neighbors, in fear of those who look a little different, and this attitude will only exacerbate the situation. If we do not treat those who are different or who look like they will act violently with respect and decency, then they will increasingly turn towards their violent tendencies to fulfill whatever it is they are seeking to fulfill. Violence in the world will increase as our population increases and so to will our knowledge of violent episodes as the media, both news and social, spread the information to every corner of the globe. We must simply take our stand against it and seek to live lives of peace, we have no other option.
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