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Hunter Gibson

Mr. Douglas

UWRT 1102-017

April 26, 2017

Why is the United States so Violent?

Since the founding of the United States, violence has been at the core of it all. Whether it

be the War of 1812 and The American Revolution or Segregation, the U.S. has long been known

for its violent and aggressive tendencies. While many other modern nations were once plagued

with these horrible and gruesome incidents, most of them have overcome and become mostly

peaceful nations. This leads to the real question of why is the United States so violent to this

day?

The answer to this question can simply be deduced to the populace of the U.S. It is said

that the people make up the nation and that this is even true in creating the personality of ones

own country. The people of the United States have long been seen by other nations as being these

rude brutes that do as they please. While this may not be entirely true, we should try to be aware

that our country is in fact partially composed of those who favor violence and crudeness instead

of proper morals and etiquette. There are several possible reasons that have led to the creation of

these violent people such as the immense number of back-to-back incidences that have transpired

since the founding of this nation, and our overwhelming sense of nationalism
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Before further developing the discussion about the root causes of Americans being

violent, statistical data should be provided to showcase how much more violent the United States

is in the modern era as compared to other developed nations. Among all the modern nations, the

U.S. has one of the highest crime indexes. According to Numbeo, a website that gathers the

crime and safety indexes of countries around the globe, the United States is ranked 53 out of 125
rd

countries and possesses a crime index of 48.76 (Numbeo). USLegal, a company that provides

legal information and services, describes the crime index as the compilation of overall crimes

including violent and property crimes, and applying those numbers to certain areas to analyze

which area is statistically more violent (USLegal). To describe the scale used by Numbeo, they

consider crime index numbers of 20-40 as being low, 40-60 to be average, and 60 or above as

high or very high. While the United States crime index may not seem too abhorrent when

applied to the scale used, the vast majority of these countries with crime index numbers of 60 or

above are significantly less developed and are in states of turmoil. Compared to the United

States, other modern nations such as Japan only have a crime index of 20.89, half that of the

United States (Numbeo).

One of the most accurate statements to make is that the United States of America was

built on a foundation of violence. In what seems to be an endless loop of fighting and violence,

the U.S. has repeatedly partaken in wars and internal conflicts. We gained our independence by

fighting a bloody war with our sovereign state, gained a significant mass of territory by warring

with Mexico, became a world power courtesy of the World Wars, and then been involved in

another war every 20 years (Quora). As stated by General Patton, Americans love to fight. All
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real Americans love the sting of battle (Smead). The other side to look at are the cases of

internal fighting such as rioting, lynching, and even vigilantism. Howard Smead, a history

professor at The University of Maryland, attributes the overwhelming violent nature of

Americans to the personal deeds of our ancestors. On his personal website, Professor Smead

goes into immense detail on how Americans have long been these independent people that often

take the law into their own hands rather than letting their government enforce the law. Smead

describes the key idea behind this mindset as localism. Localism can be defined as having

affection for a particular place (Merriam-Webster). In the earlier days of the U.S., vigilantes in

the less governed areas such as the frontier often took matters into their own hands and punished

those they thought of deserving it (Smead). This principle fragments the people and lets them

think that they are above the law. This largely contributes to the modern mindset of several

Americans owning a gun and thinking that they can take the law into their own hands instead of

letting the police handle it. This is has led to modern incidences such as shooting a burglar on

first sight and several other heinous and unlawful acts.

With this sense of individuality and mindset of having free reign, comes a large sense of

nationalism. It is very much accepted that Americans can be viewed as being some of the most

nationalistic people belonging to one country. We have always held this American dream where

we have a happy family, own a nice house in the suburbs, and can enjoy a nice barbecue with the

neighbors. While having pride in ones country is very much a fantastic thing, history has proven

time-and-time again that excessive nationalism leads to violence. According to Andreas Pickel, a

former professor at Trent University, there are several social concepts that are considered to

cause violent nationalism. A few of these principals are the idea of collectivism, or the emphasis

on the group rather than the individual (Merriam-Webster), beliefs that, stress culturally based
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rights above universal based rights (Pickel 16) also known as particularism, and intolerance

(Pickel 16). In the case of these three principals, they have appeared in multiple nationalistic

countries that have performed violent and heinous acts. Prior to World War II and even during it,

Nazi Germany is often viewed as being incredibly collectivistic in that the citizens were expected

to devote all their affection and efforts to the betterment of German society, rather than

themselves. Those who were seen as being detrimental to the overall recovery and development

of Nazi Germany were often pointed out and persecuted. This led to the perfect setup for the

Jewish populace to be designated as the scapegoats for the mass losses incurred from the first

World War. The ideology of culturally based rights being viewed deemed as being more

important than universal rights have led to many times of discrimination and oppression. An

instance of this can be applied to the United States during the 1900s. The true American, who

could be identified as a white male, was thought to be entitled to better treatment and more

privileges than other groups. This atrocious belief led to the creation of Jim Crow laws and other

social norms that isolated and harmed minorities such as different racial groups and women. The

concept of intolerance has long been a deciding factor in mass violent incidences such as mass

genocides. In the case of the people of Armenia, which is a historically Christian nation, millions

were slaughtered between 1894 and 1896. After the crumble of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey,

under the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, took to silencing the Armenians by destroying villages

and slaughtering the citizens. This insatiable desire to destroy these people had been fostered for

quite some time due to the Armenian people often being wealthier and better educated than the

Turks. Another reason was the thought that Armenia would ally with Turkeys rival Russia, due

to both countries having a large Christian following. This cleansing of this ethnic group can be

attributed to the idea of intolerance in that the Armenians practiced a different religion than the
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Turks and that they wished for their own independence from Turkey (History).

While the examples provided above can be viewed as showcasing nationalism as being

too violent, the principles they can attribute their deeds to are present in the modern United

States. Collectivism, which can be considered to be the main idea of American patriotism, is

clearly evident in current American society. Many patriotic Americans possess this simpleton-

like mentality of either being with them or against them. Take the all too common example of

strong militarism thats not too uncommon of a belief in Americas patriots. Many stalwart

Americans view those who dont support this ideology as being unpatriotic and ostracize them

from their social cliques. This, in turn, leads to many Americans blindly following the group and

creating this mindless creation of Nationalism that all too often leads to violence and disputes. To

further develop the claim of nationalistic Americans, a select portion of these people view their

Ancestral identity and origins as being just American and not identifying their European

country of origin (Gaddie). Claims like these often lead to the concept of particularism and

intolerance that has persisted since this countrys founding. These people who identify their

ancestry as being only American often lean Conservative and view foreign influences as

tainting their country and believe in strong immigration reform to prevent the U.S. from

becoming more diverse (Gaddie). They also clearly demonstrate the principal of particularism

when they deem themselves as being more entitled to certain jobs that they often complain about

immigrants stealing. These views of superiority often result in conflicts among different

groups such as hate crimes and discriminatory actions.

The United States has long been renowned for being a nation with violence at its roots.
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We have endured several wars since our founding and persevered through them all. Although

several other modern countries experienced a much similar history of war, why is the U.S. still

more violent than them? Among the multitude of answers that could be provided, two are quite

evident; the overwhelming frequency in which the United States has partaken in bloody

conflicts, and our overwhelming sense of nationalism. Due to these two, the U.S. has remained in

a violent state akin to third world countries.

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Works Cited

Armenian Genocide. History. http://www.history.com/topics/armenian-genocide. Accessed 24

April 2017.

Crime Index for Country 2017. Numbeo

https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp. Date Accessed 22 April 2017.

Gaddie, Keith and Giodel, Kirby. The American Nationalism Problem. HuffintonPost.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-gaddie/the-american-nation-

probl_b_8733102.html. Accessed 24 April 2017.

Index Crime Laws and Legal Definition. USLegal. https://definitions.uslegal.com/i/index-

crimes/. Accessed 22 April 2017.

Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/. Accessed 22 April 2017.

Pickel, Anderas. Nationalism and Violence: A Mechanismic Explanation.

https://trentu.ca/globalpolitics/documents/Pickel071.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2017.

Smead, Howard. Why Americans Are So Violent Howard Smead,

http://www.howardsmead.com/. Accessed 22 April 2017.

Why are Americans so violent compared to other industrialized nations? Quora.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Americans-so-violent-compared-to-other-
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industrialized-nations. Accessed 22 April 2017.