The article is interesting, and, while almost impossible to verify, it probably is also correct. However, I'd be reluctant to attribute much "progress", as our human nature actually is unchanged. Michael Vick plead guilty to torturing and electrocuting dogs just a few weeks ago, what's changed again???
>A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
>by Steven Pinker
>
>In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was
>cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly
>lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davies, "[T]he
>spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the
>animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally
>carbonized." Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the
>world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the
>most important and most underappreciated trend in the human saga:
>Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today
>we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time
>on earth.
>by Steven Pinker
>
>In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was
>cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly
>lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davies, "[T]he
>spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the
>animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally
>carbonized." Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the
>world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the
>most important and most underappreciated trend in the human saga:
>Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today
>we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species' time
>on earth.
The decline in violence corresponds to lots of things...including unprecedented availability of previously scarse resources, like food!, and the rise of the Nation State, public education (so your dad didn't just beat you into working the farm for example), etc. etc. etc. Our lives, in general, are far less harsh than lives lived 300 years ago...and most of us are reluctant to rock any boats!
Political power is administered by force or threat of force...
The last successful people's revolution, where the people had equal fire power to the government, was the French Revolution!
The last successful people's revolution, where the people had equal fire power to the government, was the French Revolution!
So, what the author declines to mention, is that we're now living in a situation that is generally Ruled By Law. The local bandit/bully cannot terrorize the neighborhood, or police are called...
That wasn't true way back when. And, what passes for "entertainment" today would probably astound/digust those in the 1500's as much as roasting cats astounds/disgusts us today.
The definition (according to Milton Berle, I believe) of Humor is when something bad happens (to somebody else!). That hasn't changed either.
Frish
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