[lbo-talk] dignity, respect, and homicide rate

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Wed Dec 19 05:48:40 PST 2012


Interesting thesis. Basically, he says elsewhere that the history of violence and gun violence more generally has to do with distrusting the government. This is not about law and order so much as a sort of identity politics. This makes sense in terms of Perry Anderson's thesis about the rise of nationalism and collective identity.

Elsewhere, also, he talks about how throughout history, whenever a minority group (e.g.,Chinese in California) have felt disrespected, they've had high rates of violence and gun violence. Which is interesting. There's a tendency to claim that the "trouble with diversity" is that it speaks to issues of respect and ignore material needs. But, interestingly, respect and being treated with dignity matters to the people who must suffer the disrespect and lack of dignity - perhaps enough so that rates of interpersonal violence change as a consequence? Dunno.... (There is some related ideas and research in Elijah Anderson's work on dignity, respect, and poverty in Streetwise.)

http://cjrc.osu.edu/researchprojects/hvd/AHSV/It's%20No%20Mystery%2011-22-2009%205-2010.pdf

"The relationship between violence and feelings about government tracks separately by race. The black homicide rate peaked between 1971 and 1974, when black trust in government reached its post-World War II low. The white homicide rate peaked in 1980 during the final year of the Carter administration, when white trust in government reached its postwar low because of accumulated anger over busing, welfare, affirmative action, the defeat in Vietnam, and the seizure of American hostages in Iran. That rate7 per 100,000 white persons per yearwas by itself three to fifteen times the homicide rate in other affluent nations.

Why does faith in government have a profound impact on interpersonal violence? How people feel about the government plays an important role in determining how they feel about themselves and society. If people believe that their government shares their values, speaks for them and acts on their behalf, they feel greater self-respect and gain confidence in their dealings with people outside their families. What matters is that citizens feel represented, included, and empowered. When people doubt the honesty and competence of public officials and question the legitimacy of their government, especially on the national level, they can feel frustrated, alienated, and dishonored. And those feelings, in turn, can stimulate the hostile, defensive, and predatory feelings that lead to violence against friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Trust in government is not the only prerequisite for lower rates of violence, but it is a powerful one, and we have now traced a persistent correlation between such trust and low homicide rates through the histories of dozens of nations reaching back at least as far as the seventeenth century. The inauguration of the first black president and the passing of the Bush administration re-legitimized the government in the eyes of most Americans for the first few months of 2009. African Americans and other racial minorities, who live disproportionately in America's cities, were especially affected by these events. Their greater trust in government and the political process and their positive feelings about the new president led to lower rates of urban violence. The question is now whether feelings of trust will deepen over the next few years and encompass a broader share of the American people. It took twenty-five years of strong leadership and largely successful foreign and domestic policies to build trust to the level it attained in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and a willingness on the part of the American people to support policies that entailed great risk and enormous sacrifice. Whether Americans will be able to rebuild such trust in the absence of a Great Depression, a World War, and a Cold War will determine to a large degree whether the drop in violence will prove fleeting.

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