I'm sure I wouldn't be posting this, were it not for the irony of still having the Gopnik article fresh in my mind, when I heard something interesting that seems to relate to it.
One of the things Gopnik commented on was the mysterious 40% drop in the crime rate that can't be attributed to any of the conventionally-expected causes.
While listening to a podcast today of a Real Time with Bill Maher broadcast from several months ago, I heard someone mention the fact that the U.S. crime rate continues to be low, despite the conventional logic that crime rises as the economy tanks. One of the guests then said, very matter-of-factly that it was due to the elimination of lead in house paint.
Maybe I'd heard something somewhere in the past about the relationship between lead and violence, but it hadn't seriously registered.
I did just enough "research" (ha!) when I got home to learn that it is, at least, a credible theory that lead in paint and gasoline directly contributed to a rise in violent behavior. There have been studies that look at data from nine different countries around the world that seem to show a twenty-year lag between the elimination of lead from gas and paint and a reduction in crime.
One of the premises seems to be that children eat paint chips all the time. And I guess, when those chips contained lead, twenty years later the little nippers held up the liquor store or knifed grandma. Now, I have no memory of every having eaten paint chips as a child, or ever having seen a child eat them. But then I've never pointed a gun at anyone and asked for money, or personally known anyone who has. So, there you have it, I think. Proof.
The thing that puzzles me is the fact that lead poisoning was recognized in ancient Greece before Christ, and it was also understood in Rome. Why was it still allowed in paint and gasoline in the 2nd half of the twentieth century? You might wonder why I would be so naive as to even ask that question, since cigarette executives were still suppressing internal reports and denying a causal relationship between cigarettes and health problems at that same time.
Who knows where the truth lies about the relationship between lead and violence? But the very possibility of a relation as direct as this does argue for a little bit more humility and less self-rightousness in the way we deal with criminals.
3 comments:
I love it. Always root for the simple answer to a complex problem, but it might be a simple problem!
While I applaud your viewpoint, I have to tell you that it is difficult for me to treat the guys who broke into my home, stole stuff and violated it with "humility and less selfrighteousness." Ah, yes, another way I don't compare to Gandhi.
You mention cigarettes, and while the executives are a wonderful target, what about those of us who knew...and continued to use tobacco? How about some individual responsibility here? People still seem to fool around with mercury despite the long history of what it does. Maybe handling mercury in high school chemistry is why I still post to blogs??
I'll bet that, truth be told, those darned Republicans all ate lead paint chips back when...
Bob,
Thanks very much for your comment here on the blog. Now other people can understand what I've been putting up with patiently, like a saint, in our email exchanges. I kid.
If it was the mercury in high school chemistry class that is responsible for your post, well I will have to rethink my position on the evils of poison, because it is a good outcome, and should make George Umbarger proud.
Do I need to say that, while I don't consider you and your fellow paint-chip Republicans evil, neither is there any risk that I'll ever confuse any of you with Gandhi? As regards the persons who broke into your house, presumably, based on your neighbor's information, they were too young to use leaded paint or gasoline as an excuse.
Apparently studies show there is a pattern in the U.S. and nine other countries between the removal of lead from gasoline and a reduction in the crime rate twenty years later. A causal relationship has been suggested by some people, but clearly not proven. However, even if the relationship between exposure to lead and crime were proven, it does not follow that the guys who broke into your house were innocent victims of lead poisoning who should be excused. I wish I had been a better student, because there is a logical fallacy involved, and it has a name.
(While we're on the subject of Gandhi, I have to say that one of the people who I have most admired over the years is a man in Topeka, whose first name was Bill, but whose last name I cannot for the life of me remember, who was an activist leader in getting the death penalty abolished in Kansas in the 1970s. Yet, when he was a teenager, he had witnessed his father's murder by someone who had broken into their home. I think of him every time I see some family screaming for retribution and claiming some kind of imaginary “victims' rights.”)
By the way, I didn't mean to suggest a simple solution; I'm not sure I meant to suggest a solution at all (or even define the problem). I did want to suggest that a link between exposure to lead and subsequent violent behavior seems to be plausible, and that the interconnections between all of us and the larger social situation is complex and rarely self-evident.
Truly, I think the people who are seriously trying to find a simple solution are the ones who have championed harsh mandatory sentencing laws and zero tolerance policies.
Finally, you and I have talked about this many times. Personal responsibility is a great thing, and we both managed to quit smoking. I don't know about you, but I feel more lucky than righteous. There is nothing inconsistent with taking personal responsibility and also holding corporations responsible for their deliberately harmful activities. And remember we're talking about the use of an addictive substance deliberately marketed as something else.
Maybe instead of the lawsuits against the tobacco companies, people should be suing the company executives who lied and suppressed data....to hold them personally responsible for their misdeeds.
Gerry,
Now your friends can see, and give you proper empathy, for your saintly patience in corresponding with a confessed conservative. He does, folks, sign his emails "Mahatma."
I always hope for the simple answer. It is so enticing, so seductive. After all these years, I have been fooled many times with the latest perpetual motion machine or carburetor that runs on water and had been suppressed by the car industry.
This one is one that I could really yearn for. It seems to not be motivated by anyone's greed or need to make a name for themselves in the academic world, so I am really hoping it pans out.
I am in an expansive mood today, though, as it seems that things are going well in KC, Florida and Portland. I have spent so many years as the guy at the back of the parade that I don't trust those very much.
Regarding your friend in Topeka, I really believe that revenge is a concept that should be removed from the civilized world's lexicon. As I have mentioned before, there are at least three compelling reasons for me to be against the death penalty: the cost in money and energy; the fact that innocent people (virtually always men) are killed; and the fact that it is revenge sold as "justice." Society has the right and the duty to protect itself from the bad guys, and that should be the goal.
Someplace, I need to continue my investigation of how justified I am in my opinions that are based on personal experience, but that's another topic.
Again, I don't seem to be able to resist a bit of baiting.
Yes, I feel fortunate to have moved past the addiction to tobacco, although one of my friends and I have decided that when we hit age 85, we are going to start smoking again because we still have the urge (it is that insidious) and by that time, who cares? I, of course, have to weigh that against my self-predicted demise--at age 95 to be shot by a jealous husband.
Dang, nobody takes me seriously.
Let's continue to hope that the reduction in crime spreads and goes deeper. The reasons, including the regular ones like aging of the population, are interesting and the lead-based one is fascinating, but here's hoping we continue to get good results.
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