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2. I think that the perceived barbarity of the 20 and 21 centuries are a function of salience and expectations. Unspeakable barbarities were committed before that time, yet they remained largely unseen because the means of recording and disseminating images of these barbarities did not exist. Secondly, the post - WWII growth in standards of living, social welfare protection, progress in science an international cooperation created high expectations about a life free of death suffering and disease. By these high standards, today's warfare, or for that matter, poverty appear unacceptable - even though they are quite minor by the pre 20-century standards.
Wojtek
^^^^^^ CB: Seems accurate that capitalism has brought an explosion in the mode of destruction together with that in the mode of producution. So, we have means of mass destruction, W'sMD, like never before in history. Nuclear weapons are a quantum leap in forces of destruction over all previous ones, as are most W'sMD.