In my travels and readings I've found that countries have distinct tendencies toward violence that clearly emanate from their culture, not from objective markers like poverty, income, etc. For example, in the 1990s Ecuador had the lowest homicide rate in the Americas, despite often crushing poverty. In the early 2000s there was a surge of Columbian immigrants in search of work. Columbian culture was far more violent than Ecuador's, much like the U.S. (as opposed to simply a consequence of organized crime), and rates of violence soared. Not because the Columbian immigrants were criminals, but because those who resorted to crime did so in a more violent manner.
But my point wasn't to say that the U.S. is unsafe. Just that what makes a culture (and people) violent isn't superficial behaviors. Guns don't make America violent. America loves guns because we're a violent society. To be clear, we love guns not because we feel we have to defend ourselves, but we because we fetishize the idea of defending ourselves amidst our own violence. Take away the guns and homicides might drop, but the tendency toward violence will simply remain latent, and all the other manifestations of that culture of violence will remain. It doesn't mean we can't become a safer, better society. We have and we are. We'll just follow a different, often trailing path as compared to less violent societies.
If we want our kids to internalize a different set of norms and expectations, it's these subtle cues that we have to watch for, not the artifice. Kids can see through artifice, at least to the extent they haven't internalized the norms the artifice reflects or disguises. They don't need to be protected from video games or gun culture or gore; they need to be taught to recognize our society's preference for conflict over cooperation, for winner-take-all strategies, rather than to let it seep in quietly. Those cues are subtle and pervasive and to some extent exist even within, e.g., Disney's otherwise saccharine world. For example, Disney's woke culture messaging (as well meaning and useful as it is) reflects the narrative of two groups pitted against each other, one right and one wrong, where the latter either needs to be vanquished or converted. Unlike in traditional fairy tales, in American narratives the boogeyman is your nextdoor neighbor, not a troll or a witch. We think we're sending sophisticated, moral, good messages, and we are, but it's not all we're sending.
But when you say the US is "exceptionally violent" that is indeed what you're saying.
> they need to be taught to recognize our society's preference for conflict over cooperation, for winner-take-all strategies,
Oh come on. This just reads like selection bias. Just drive to work some day, and look at all the cars cooperating so the traffic smoothly flows. They go to work, and cooperate with the people at the workplace, cooperate with their suppliers, cooperate with their customers, and pretty much everyone they interact with all day, every day.
The winner-take-all mentality is in organized sports, which are specifically designed for that, and those are in every country. (And even then the teams have to cooperate with each other, and cooperate with other teams on rules and schedules.) But not much in other activities. Humans would all literally die in short order if we don't cooperate.
Thought I'd throw in this thought:
Free markets are based on voluntary cooperation. Socialism is based on forced cooperation. I can't even think of a functioning system based on non-cooperation.
Compared to present countries, not the past, the US indeed is exceptionally violent, especially given the wealth in the country.
* Homicide rate is among the highest of all OECD countries, for example: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?location...
* The US still has legal capital punishment.
* The whole approach to the penal system being very revenge-based, resulting in very high incarceration rates etc.
* The prevalence of sexual violence, e.g. compare the US with Canada: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health...
First off, what is and is not an OECD country is selection bias right from the start. "Among" the highest is subjective as well, and it's far from the highest. Next, the US is a large and diverse country. There are some neighborhoods with very high homicide rates (in Chicago, for example). This is not at all representative of the rest of the country, but it averages into the statistics.
The TV series "Sons of Anarchy" is certainly entertaining, but has nothing to do with reality in the US.
The homicide rate is still very, very low compared to deaths from other causes. It doesn't even rate a mention in lists of deaths from causes. I wouldn't characterize that as "exceptionally violent".
> The US still has legal capital punishment.
28 states have capital punishment, 22 do not. In 2019, 22 people total were executed. While this is 22 too many and it needs to stop, it is statistically insignificant compared to the population of 328,000,000.
> The whole approach to the penal system being very revenge-based
I agree with that, but don't agree it makes society violent.
> The prevalence of sexual violence
I clicked on the reference, expecting to see rates of conviction for sexual violence. It's not there.
American society is brutal in many respects. It is truly winner-take-all and rest be damned, you should have tried harder. Be it medicine (you either can afford it or are screwed - unimaginable for any european country), education (public universities are almost/totally free everywhere), penal system etc.
I find it interesting how US top 1% succeeded to persuade the remaining 99% of the population that this is best system for them, when clearly it isn't. Not if you want the best place for your kid to grow up and be given fairest and best chances and have a good safe life. I guess Hollywood helped, but rather than contemplating some conspiracy it seems to me its more some sort of self-fulfilling myth.
We know class mobility is largely a myth, and US society is deeply divided into classes based on money. And as for violence - its there on more noticeable levels than across the pond.
Indirect coercion due to lack of the means of subsistence is not voluntary.
> Socialism is based on forced cooperation.
It's not. Socialism is not Stalinism.
I am rather shocked at this sentiment. We live in an incredibly peaceful culture, in historical context. For example, people used to be hung in the town square. Burned alive for entertainment. People would wander around town with a sword, picking fights to the death, and it was legal.
I once asked my dad why punishments for people who conspired against the king were so public and so hideously brutal. He replied that the people lived in brutal times, death at a young age was common, so it had to be amped up to get their attention.
These days, I never even saw a dead body (outside of a mummy in a museum) until my 50s. It's incredible if you think about it.