If it bleeds, it misleads: on violence and misery the Cassandras are wrong
- Published on Wednesday, 02 November 2011
You would think that the disappearance of the gravest threat in the history of humanity would bring a sigh of relief among commentators on world affairs, writes Steven Pinker in The Guardian . Contrary to numerous expert predictions, there was no invasion of western Europe by Soviet tanks, no escalation of a crisis in Cuba or Berlin or the Middle East into a nuclear holocaust. The cities of the world were not vaporised; the atmosphere was not poisoned by radioactive fallout or choked with debris that blacked out the sun and sent Homo sapiens the way of the dinosaurs. ...
Not only that, but (again, contrary to expert predictions) a reunified Germany did not turn into a Fourth Reich, democracy did not go the way of monarchy, and the great powers did not fall into a third world war but rather a "long peace", which keeps getting longer. Surely the experts have been acknowledging the improvements in the world's fortunes from a few decades ago.
But no – the pundits are glummer than ever. ...
Why the gloom? Partly it's the result of market forces in the punditry business, which favour the Cassandras over the Pollyannas. But mainly, I think, it comes from the innumeracy of our journalistic and intellectual culture. If we don't keep an eye on the numbers, the programming policy "If it bleeds, it leads" will feed the cognitive short cut "The more memorable, the more frequent", and we will end up with what has been called a false sense of insecurity.