Last night Laura and I were out drinking with some friends. After talking politics for a while, one of my friends lamented the vitriol found in the talk radio circuit these days. “The parties used to debate, now they just spew insults.” She also felt that the animosity she perceives in the media is escalating to an alarming degree. In the spirit of lifting her spirits a bit, I endeavored to point out that no, people are no more angry or violent today than in the past, and in fact we live in a world that is trending towards less violence, not more.

This didn’t go over very well, and my statement was responded to with arguments that people are greedy and will do anything to get what they want. Violence is ubiquitous and widespread because of some deep flaw in human nature that we can do nothing about, and there is cause for despair. No, I countered, the vast majority of human on human violence can be linked to real world reasons. The largest reason being the scarcity of resources. It is sometimes very difficult to see this, because there are several large red herrings that mask the underlying causes. Red herrings like race, religion, class and politics.

Take for example, the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990’s. People who read the news or saw the excellent movie Hotel Rwanda know that the killing there involved two ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. These two groups lived together without any animosity for hundreds of years. The first cultural split came when the Belgian colonial government took over in 1916 and favored the Tutsi over the Hutu, on the basis that Tutsi had lighter skin that Europeans at the time considered a sign of superiority. Over the next 46 years of their rule the Tutsi gained more power and wealth than their Hutu counterparts. Class division bred animosity and by the time the country declared independence in 1962 this animosity was reaching the boiling point and the first acts of violence erupted.

These first incidents of violence did indeed have reason. Hutu were becoming increasingly destitute and were entrenched in a system that did not allow them the same opportunities as the Tutsi in their society. Everyone wants a better life for themselves and their children. The longer one lives in a society that doesn’t offer means to do that, or actively prevents that, the more prone they are to violence. In essence, they cannot access an adequate share of the resources available to all.

It is certainly true that violence begets violence, and you can view the genocide in the 90s as an escalating of the violence that began in the 60s. The first violence began as the Hutu tried to regain equal footing with the Tutsi. At first there were just a few small incidents, but violence begets violence and the killing spread. The Tutsi of course, were not content to sit back and be murdered so they retaliated in kind. Many people died. The country was in chaos until 1973 when a Hutu named Habyarimana was able to gain control of the country and effectively brokered peace between the two groups. Under his rule for 15 years, the country prospered.

Unfortunately, it prospered a little too much and the population soared. Drought, deforestation, soil erosion, and a sharp decline in coffee and tea prices in the world market all converged to once again bring matters to a head. The old animosities were still there, but years of peace and prosperity, coupled with an effective rule of law held violence in check. As resources became scarcer, the Hutu and Tutsi resumed killing each other and a civil war broke out. War made matters worse and there was an entire generation of young men that were disaffected, angry, and easily recruited into militias. In 1993 a peace agreement to allow a multi-power government was signed. Either corrupted by power or afraid of a Tutsi invasion, Habyarimana turned against the Tutsi, not only turning a blind eye on Hutu on Tutsi killing, but even encouraging it and arming Hutus. Once more the Tutsi respond with violence culminating in a missile attack on Habyarimana’s plane that killed everyone on board.

This was the catalyst for a genocide that would kill 11% of the total population of the country. The world would view this genocide as old ethnic hatred that was so entrenched that nothing could have been done about it. Except that the ethnic hatred wasn’t really that old, and there were reasons for it. Even more, it isn’t the case that the violence was limited to Hutu on Tutsi killing. A third ethnic group, the Twa, who consisted of only about 1% of the population, was almost entirely exterminated. These people had nothing to do with the ethnic divide between the Hutu and Tutsi, but were massacred anyway.

If the reasons were simply ethnic hatred, how can it be explained that a community in northwestern Rwanda of almost all Hutu (only one single Tutsi lived there) turned on each other and killed about 5% of the population there? Or the fact that as matters worsened for the Tutsi, they fled the country until there were virtually none left, yet the genocide continued with more Hutu on Hutu and Hutu on Twa violence. Clearly there was more going on that just ethnic hatred.

A good place to start is with population density, which was 760 people per square mile at the onset of the genocide. Compare that to about 610 people per square mile in the United Kingdom and 950 people per square mile in Holland. The difference of course, is that the latter have modern agricultural methods, a first-world infrastructure, and thriving trade with other nations. These are the things that compensate for that population density and Rwanda had none of them. Its biggest exports of coffee and tea were not sufficient anymore to gain additional resources through trade. Their agricultural techniques were insufficient to supply surplus to non-farmers and people were going hungry. To exacerbate the problem they drained marshes and cleared forests to make more farmland. It seems logical, but in fact causes soil erosion that decreases crop yields considerably throughout the entire area. By 1989 the country was in the grip of an all-out famine.

Our high population density in the western world is supported by modern marvels of architecture that can stack people on top of each other in comfort. In a non-modernized rural country this is not the case. Most people needed a farm to survive, and as the population grew these were divided and sub-divided many times over so that by 1993 the average farm was 0.07 of an acre. Quite literally, all the land suitable for farming was used up and the younger generation of people had nowhere to go. By 1993, 100% of the male population under the age of 25 was still living at home with their parents (67% for women, who still moved out occasionally due to marriage).

Take a second and imagine that as a young man you couldn’t go off to college, get a job, or get your own apartment. There is no room in the house or food to feed a wife, so you can’t marry. You are trapped with your parents at precisely the worst time of your life to be trapped with them. Not to mention you go to bed hungry every night. There is no gainful employment to be had and no signs that the situation will improve. I consider myself to be a pretty peaceful fellow, but would probably harbor murderous thoughts too if I were in that position. Indeed, much of that “ethnic” violence was in fact inter-family violence. Fathers killed sons, sons killed fathers, and siblings killed each other.

“It is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe out an excess of population and to bring numbers back into line with the available land resources.” That quote is from an analysis by Catherine André and comes out of Jared Diamond’s excellent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed which provides a much better account of the situation than what I just summarized.

The point of recounting this tragic tale is that the violence had real reasons behind it. It is not simply one group hating another group. It is my estimation that the vast majority of violence in the world actually has a rationale and an origin. Fear and discontent breed violence. The reasons for discontent are many and varied, resource scarcity ranking highly. There is significant correlation between poverty and violent crime. The reasons for this are much debated, but the correlation is a fact. And indeed, when areas become more affluent, they see crime rates decline. The more educated people become, the less violent they are.

Perhaps the most telling statistic also comes from Mr. Diamond’s book: The countries that are suffering the most environmental stress and overpopulation in the world are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Soloman Islands, and Somalia. The countries with the most violence, poverty, civil wars, and humanitarian atrocities are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Soloman Islands, and Somalia. It’s the same list.

This list gives me hope because it implies we can understand the root causes of what breed violence and can address the problem instead of throwing up our hands and saying “those crazy people will never stop killing each other.” I am fairly well traveled, but have never ventured into third world countries. I have spoken to people who have though, and read other’s accounts. It is my firm belief that people everywhere are very consistent with what they want out of life. They first want all the basics: food, water, shelter. They want to live their life peacefully and pursue their interests. They want prosperity. They want more for their children than they themselves have.

When all these conditions are met populations are relatively peaceful. It isn’t an easy thing to achieve though. First you have to have a strong economy, access to resources, the ability to trade with others, a system of laws that doesn’t favor one group over another and an uncorrupt law enforcement force. In America, our famous Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Far from being some communist rhetoric, this phrase refers to an individual’s treatment under the law. In other words, it is also self-evident that some people are smarter, faster, more agile, and more driven that other individuals, but in the eyes of the law, we are all the same. If a congressman or a movie star commits a murder, we expect them to be prosecuted the same as if a homeless man committed the crime. Yeah, I know it doesn’t always shake out like that, but it is supposed to- and to a large degree in the western world it does, a few O.J. Simpsons notwithstanding.

I tried to make these sentient points last night over drinks to be countered by arguments citing domestic violence in the U.S. and the rise of serial murderers and wackos that go on shooting sprees. I concede the point that a few bad apples will always exist. Some people are just simply bad no matter what, but the majority of bad acts are perpetuated by people that would have otherwise not committed those acts had the circumstances been different, and there are very real things we can do to change those circumstances. What’s more, when we see widespread violence in an area, there are those who would like to set those people apart as being fundamentally different from themselves. I don’t believe this, and I think that people who do are just taking the easy way out. Much like Rwanda, the situation is often complex and takes time and analysis to understand. People either don’t want to do this because they are lazy, or refuse to because they like to think of themselves as superior. The problem of course, is that this point of view is counterproductive.

My dad is the type of guy that pines for the “good ‘ole days.” If you sit down with him for an afternoon he’ll try and convince you that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. If only we could return to those Leave it to Beaver days of yore. Thankfully I have read enough history to know that’s only his nostalgia talking. I look at the history of our species and can see clear progress. Bad things happen. Setbacks happen. But the overall trend is good. Less violence, less infant deaths, longer life spans, improved medicine, equality of races and genders, better systems of government, broader economies, and more and more entertainment options. For so many of us, life is good. I would rather be alive here and now than any time in the past and would think that in 200 years people will look back on us and see hardships and brutality that eclipses that of their world. Progress takes a long time and our lives are short.

So don’t despair. We can and do make the world a better place every day, despite the vitriol, anger and violence. There has never been a time when politicians haven’t resorted to lying, cheating, blaming, yelling, and whining. There has never been a time when people haven’t killed, tortured, maimed, beaten, and raped each other. The good ‘ole days are an illusion, progress is not.