Media predominantly fuel us with almost instant bad news e.. v..e..r..y day. LOL, obviously before tv no one would have been so aware of conflict in far distant and terrifyingly troubled lands. And many are doing it tougher than they have experienced before, so that personal stuff is projected onto the world by many of the many. Those two, and the fact that so many operate on feeling more than on fact and reason i think are basic reasons why so many see the world today as a more dangerous place than ever.
This one of Slate's gives a decent picture of the reality of the situation.
Never mind the headlines. We’ve never lived in such peaceful times.
By Steven Pinker and Andrew Mack
An explosion rocks the Syrian city of Kobane during a reported suicide car bombing by the Islamic State, as seen from the Turkey-Syria border, on Oct. 20, 2014. The small picture is very bad, but the big picture of violence around the world is about as good as it’s ever been.
Photo by Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images
It’s a good time to be a pessimist. ISIS, Crimea, Donetsk, Gaza, Burma, Ebola, school shootings, campus rapes, wife-beating athletes, lethal cops—who can avoid the feeling that things fall apart, the center cannot hold? Last year Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before a Senate committee that the world is “more dangerous than it has ever been.” This past fall, Michael Ignatieff wrote of “the tectonic plates of a world order that are being pushed apart by the volcanic upward pressure of violence and hatred.” Two months ago, the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen lamented, “Many people I talk to, and not only over dinner, have never previously felt so uneasy about the state of the world. … The search is on for someone to dispel foreboding and embody, again, the hope of the world.”
As troubling as the recent headlines have been, these lamentations need a second look.