Great post from Adam Mastroianni as usual, lots to chew on -- but to treat deviance and risk as equivalent seems a bit of a leap. The graphs line up, but just about any wide-reaching measure was put on its current trajectory sometime in the 70s-80s (see [0]).
The hypothesis that lower 'background risk' leads to lower voluntary risks (drugs, unprotected sex, etc.) makes sense. But as far as arts go, I think the cultural homogeneity we see is more of a direct effect of globalization than anything else. In other words, the default state of highly interconnected societies is one of convergence; the variety of the 20th century can be attributed to growth in communication and exposure to new concepts. Now that media technology has somewhat stabilized, we see a return to the cultural stability that has defined humanity for most of its existence.
The hypothesis that lower 'background risk' leads to lower voluntary risks (drugs, unprotected sex, etc.) makes sense. But as far as arts go, I think the cultural homogeneity we see is more of a direct effect of globalization than anything else. In other words, the default state of highly interconnected societies is one of convergence; the variety of the 20th century can be attributed to growth in communication and exposure to new concepts. Now that media technology has somewhat stabilized, we see a return to the cultural stability that has defined humanity for most of its existence.
[0] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/