Well, why has violence declined? No one really knows, but I have read four explanations, all of which, I think, have some grain of plausibility. The first is, maybe Thomas Hobbes got it right. He was the one who said that life in a state of nature was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Not because, he argued, humans have some primordial thirst for blood or aggressive instinct or territorial imperative, but because of the logic of anarchy. In a state of anarchy, there's a constant temptation to invade your neighbors preemptively, before they invade you. More recently, Thomas Schelling gives the analogy of a homeowner who hears a rustling in the basement. Being a good American, he has a pistol in the nightstand, pulls out his gun, and walks down the stairs.
Dakle, zašto se razina nasilja smanjila? Nitko zapravo ne zna, ali pročitao sam četiri objašnjenja, i mislim da je svako od njih donekle uvjerljivo. Prvo od njih je: možda je Thomas Hobbes bio u pravu. On je rekao da je život u prirodnom stanju bio "usamljenički, siromašan, gadan, nasilan i kratak." Ne zato, tvrdio je, što su ljudi po prirodi krvožedni, ili zbog agresivnog instinkta ili teritorijalnih pitanja, nego zbog logike anarhije. U stanju anarhije postoji stalno iskušenje preventivnog napada na susjeda, prije no što on napadne tebe. Kasnije je Thomas Schelling iznio analogiju s kućevlasnikom koji čuje buku u podrumu. Kao dobar Amerikanac, ima pištolj uz krevet, uzima ga i spušta se niz stube.