When I was a young man, my grandfather would tease us boys by telling us “In my day it was wooden ships and iron men. You boys will be lucky if you are wooden men in iron ships.” I’m not so old that my grandfather lived in the age of sail, so it was just a way for an old man to have some fun teasing his grandkids.
That said, he had a point. A boy coming of age a century ago was facing a much tougher world and would have to be tougher to live in it. There’s little doubt in my mind that men of my generation are softer than the men of father’s or grandfather’s generation. It’s not just the material excess we have today. When I was a little kid, I had it much easier than the prior generations. My grandfather, for example, quit school at 13 and went to work in a coal mine.
Steve Pinker has made a strong case that men have grown decreasingly violent over each generation. His data corresponds with the historical record, which is what makes it such a strong argument. We know, for example, that banditry was a serious issue in the Middle Ages. Traveling from one town to the next was dangerous. Today, we travel from town to town without thinking about bandits, other than cops running speed traps. The only danger there is to your wallet.
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