The Paradox of American Violence: A Historical Appraisal

This paper is interpretive rather than empirical. It attempts to explain the paradoxical conclusion, advanced in Violence in America and sustained by cross-national com parative data, that America's history has been replete with violence, but that our vital public institutions have remained remarkably stable. Four relatively unique aspects of the American experience are adduced to explain, first, why Amer ican violence has been largely deflected from our vital public institutions, and second, why the American social structure and processes have been particularly conducive to violence. These four are: (1) the liberal-federal political structure and capi talistic economic structure; (2) unparalleled racial and ethnic pluralism; (3) affluence; and (4) the national character and values, especially as reflected in the commitment to equality, the taboo on authority, and the conflict between liberty and equality. It concludes with a brief critique of two recently popular yet contradictory theories that purport to explain collective violence: on the ideological right, the notion that human aggression is an instinctive consequence of evolution; on the new left, the moral indictment that elites have conspired repressively to defend privilege.