I did not sleep well after watching the film Civil War, about a violent conflict within the United States. In the film, a rogue soldier slaughters people he does not regard as “real Americans,” then dumps them in a mass grave. Some journalists covering the horror are torn between their mission to hold up a mirror to society and their quest for the adrenaline rush of embedding themselves in the action to get the sensational scoop.
I watched this film, as my son slept peacefully in his bed, fully aware that Dave Williams, chair of the State Republican Party, publicly anticipated civil war if “election fraud,” a fiction of his vivid imagination, continues. Aware that influential Republican activist Joe Oltmann has urged his followers to “go get our guns” and “do bad things to bad people” because allegedly “they’re going to steal the election in November.” Aware that an Ohio legislator anticipated civil war while speaking at a rally for Donald Trump and J. D. Vance (he later “regretted” his “divisive remarks”). Aware that, on the morning of the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Lauren Boebert Tweeted, “Today is 1776.” Aware that numerous Republicans called for civil war if Trump were convicted of his crimes (as he has been).
Often we take peace for granted. We take civilization for granted.
Recently, as my son attended museum camp, I walked briskly through the zoo, seeing animals gathered from around the world—elephants and giraffes from Africa, wallabies from Australia, flamingos from South America. At the nature museum, I looked at fossilized bones from an ancient T-Rex discovered, by children, in North Dakota. In City Park I observed the island refuge in the middle of an artificial lake for water birds, modern relatives of the ancient theropods. Nearby, water pumps continuously thrust up pillars of water for no purpose than to delight children, who shrieked playfully, oblivious to the city skyline rising in the background. Women pushed younger children in strollers beneath the shade of old trees.
This is all so normal in our modern world that we usually do not even think about it. But it is not normal in the context of human history, which spills over with blood and violence; it is a rare and precious achievement. One that we ought to take care to protect and nourish.
The problem of crime
The world is not idyllic for everyone, of course. Violence and chaos continually threaten. In Denver, 99 people were shot and wounded the first half of this year, and 35 killed, down from 141 people shot and wounded and 38 killed the first half of last year, the Denver Post reports. The city’s homicide rate has “dipped . . . but still stands well above pre-pandemic levels,” Axios reports. Homicide rates thankfully have dropped more in many other major cities. The Colorado Sun looked at statewide crime trends for last year, summarizing, “Crime in Colorado fell in nearly all categories while remaining higher than pre-pandemic levels.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, whose vehicle was stolen some years ago out of a store parking lot, made crime a major theme of his recent State of the City address:
“Often when we talk about public safety people think of crime. But the opposite of crime is not safety, the opposite of crime is joy. What we want for our city is a place where every neighborhood is brimming with joy, where your kids can ride their bikes, you can go for a late night run, your mom can walk to and from the store without you ever having to worry about safety. That is why we have launched an ambitious plan to make Denver the safest big city in America. We have held community meetings in every council district to listen to residents about what our neighborhoods need, and the feedback is clear that safety is about more than police work, it is about social work, and economic development work, and educational work. It is about street lighting, and arts activation, and youth summer jobs.”
Johnston goes on to describe some specific programs, most of which probably are good ideas. Still, sometimes I worry Johnston leans too much on platitudes: “We know that the best way to stop crime is to prevent it, and the best way to prevent crime is to build trust.” Yes, we need trustworthy police, in part so people will report crimes to the police. We also need police to catch the bad guys and for prosecutors to put them behind bars!
The importance of social trust
Conspiracy mongering and violence-tinged rhetoric might be effective at riling up certain people for political ends. But it is corrosive of public trust and of the general health of our society. Here is how a Notre Dame Law Review study of a couple years ago summarizes what is at stake:
“Social trust . . . has been extensively studied in economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, and it has proven to be one of the best predictors of overall societal well-being known to social science, with remarkable and well-documented effects on economic success, effective government, levels of participation in civil society, and compliance with the law. Social trust is of particular interest now, in our politically polarized era, as it seems to be the very thing partisan polarization destroys.”
The creation of a peaceful and prosperous civilization is a profound achievement, one that we ought not take for granted. Our thoughts, words, and actions help create the world our children will live in.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
