Aging Capriciously

Before we discuss social violence, we need to define what we will be talking about:

1. Social Violence — violence arising from social conflict, alienation, inequality, bullying, gangs, community breakdown, and interpersonal disputes.

This is one big category.  How many people are really impacted by social violence?:

Because “Social Violence” spans multiple categories, tracking an exact, single daily number is difficult.  However, data from federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) outline how this breaks down daily across the United States

• Community & Youth Violence: Over 1,900 young people (ages 10 to 24) are treated in U.S. emergency departments each day for physical injuries resulting from community assaults and interpersonal violence
• An estimated tens of thousands of people in America are directly impacted by interpersonal and community violence every single day, with millions more suffering from the chronic, long-term effects of social conflict, bullying, inequality, and alienation.
• Intimate Partner & Domestic Violence: According to the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), an average of 24 people per minute experience physical violence, rape, or stalking by an intimate partner. This equates to nearly 34,500 victims every single day. Furthermore, domestic violence hotlines receive over 20,000 crisis calls daily.

I will devote an entire blog to Domestic Violence later in this series.

There have always been bullies.  I remember growing up hating bullies.  When I went into the military, there were bullies at every base.  My father taught me early on how to deal with bullies.  I spent as much time helping others deal with bullies as I did myself.  However, bullying has become a norm not only in physical space but also in cyber space.  It has become an epidemic in cyber space as people can hide behind firewalls and phony aliases. 

Cyberbullying rates have risen significantly, with roughly 31% to 33% of U.S. teenagers reporting they have been cyberbullied within the last 30 days. Long-term data shows that up to 58% of teens have experienced some form of online harassment at least once in their lifetimes.

Recent studies highlighting the scope of cyberbullying reveal several key trends:

Demographics and Key Shifts

• Rising Rates for Boys: Historically, girls reported higher rates of online harassment.  However, recent data from the Cyberbullying Research Center shows a sharp increase among boys, with 36.6% reporting recent cyberbullying compared to 28.6% of girls.
• Age Vulnerability: Early adolescence is the highest-risk period.  Children aged 12 to 13 years old (those transitioning into middle or high school and receiving their first smartphones) experience a major spike in victimization.

Other forms of social violence albeit not well documented are evident to parents of young children.  Years ago, when I was a child, I would walk to school by myself, today that is no longer the norm as parents drive their kids to school or the bus stop where they wait until their child gets on the bus. 

On Halloween we used to go trick or treating by ourselves and often get cookies or homemade treats.  Those days are also over as parents drive or accompany their children house to house and throw away anything that is not shrink wrapped.  Many children simply go to supervised parties rather than brave the dangers of the open street. 

This leads us to the issue of pedophilia.  Growing up I never heard of the word.  Today, it seems everywhere you turn, a pedophile is lurking in the shadows.  Nevertheless, the dangers from pedophiles shrink in comparison to the dangers from other sources.

While clinical pedophilia drives a significant and highly dangerous portion of chronic, serial child sexual abuse, as many as half to three-quarters of individual child sex crimes in the U.S. originate from situational, non-pedophilic offenders. — https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi429

In the macro-data of child welfare agencies, over 75% of all child maltreatment perpetrators are parents or primary caregivers, where neglect and physical abuse dominate the figures. — https://laurenskids.org/awareness/about-faqs/facts-and-stats/

Furthermore, roughly 35% to 40% of detected youthful sexual offenses against children are committed by older juveniles (adolescents or teenagers acting out due to trauma, peer hazing, or developmental issues) rather than adult pedophiles.  —  https://laurenskids.org/awareness/about-faqs/facts-and-stats/

I want to conclude this section on Social Violence by talking about social conflict.  I think we see a great deal more of that in many places. 

Social conflict is the struggle for agency or power in society.  Social conflict occurs when two or more people oppose each other in social interaction, and each exerts social power with reciprocity in an effort to achieve incompatible goals but prevent the other from attaining their own.  It is a social relationship in which action is intentionally oriented to carry out the actor’s own will despite the resistance of others.

To be more specific, airlines have now become havens for people engaging in social conflict.  School board meetings with the public can and do become places where civility pales and sometimes seem non-existent.  Town council meetings often devolve into acrimony with name calling and people being expelled from the meetings.  Even grocery store lines can become places of hostility as more and more people are in a hurry to get someplace.  One could write a book about road rage which has been on the increase for many years. 

• Roughly 82% of U.S. drivers admit to actively driving aggressively or showing road rage within the past year.  (https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/road-rage-statistics/)

• Vocal and Visual Outbursts: Around 42% of drivers admit to loudly yelling or cursing at others, and roughly 38% acknowledge using obscene hand gestures.  (https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/road-rage-statistics/)

• Physical Altercations: While minor incidents make up the bulk of data, roughly 11% of motorists admit to taking extreme actions, such as intentionally bumping another vehicle or stepping out of their car to confront someone face-to-face.  https://newsroom.aaa.com/2025/09/study-finds-almost-all-drivers-experience-road-rage-but-it-can-be-stopped/

What is happening in America?  Where is the violence and rage coming from?

Metis, my AI assistant gives the following answer:

America’s rage does not have a single cause.  It grows from a convergence of forces: economic insecurity, political polarization, social isolation, rapid cultural change, distrust of institutions, and a media environment that rewards outrage.  Social media magnifies grievance and repeatedly tells people whom they should fear or blame.  Politics increasingly portrays opponents not simply as wrong, but as enemies threatening our way of life.

At the same time, we seem to have lost some of the social restraints that once moderated public behavior.  Frustration more readily becomes confrontation; disagreement becomes insult; inconvenience becomes personal offense.

Most Americans are not violent.  But we have created an environment in which anger is constantly stimulated, amplified, and sometimes legitimized.  Perhaps the deeper problem is not that Americans suddenly became worse people.  We have built systems that profit from keeping people frightened, divided, impatient, and angry—and then seem surprised when some of that anger becomes rage.

My next Blog Post in this series on Violence and Hate in America will look at: 

Racial and Ethnic Violence