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Book: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
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Authors: Steven Pinker
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slippers had already been heated up for her over a fire of coals.... She had to put on the red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she dropped to the ground dead.” 42
As we shall see, purveyors of entertainment for young children today have become so intolerant of violence that even episodes of the early Muppets have been deemed too dangerous for them. And speaking of puppetry, one of the most popular forms of children’s entertainment in Europe used to be the Punch and Judy show. Well into the 20th century, this pair of bickering glove puppets acted out slapstick routines in ornate booths in English seaside towns. The literature scholar Harold Schechter summarizes a typical plot:
It begins when Punch goes to pet his neighbor’s dog, which promptly clamps its teeth around the puppet’s grotesquely oversized nose. After prying the dog loose, Punch summons the owner, Scaramouche and, after a bit of crude banter, knocks the fellow’s head “clean off his shoulders.” Punch then calls for his wife, Judy, and requests a kiss. She responds by walloping him in the face. Seeking another outlet for his affection, Punch asks for his infant child and begins to cradle it. Unfortunately, the baby picks that moment to dirty itself. Always the loving family man, Punch reacts by beating the baby’s head against the stage, then hurling its dead body into the audience. When Judy reappears and discovers what’s happened, she is understandably upset. Tearing Punch’s stick from his hands, she begins to lay into him. He wrestles the cudgel away from her, pummels her to death, and then breaks into a triumphant little song:
Who’d be plagued with a wife
That could set himself free
With a rope or a knife
Or a good stick, like me? 43
Even Mother Goose nursery rhymes, which mostly date from the 17th and 18th centuries, are jarring by the standards of what we let small children hear today. Cock Robin is murdered in cold blood. A single mother living in substandard housing has numerous illegitimate children and abuses them with whipping and starvation. Two unsupervised children are allowed to go on a dangerous errand; Jack sustains a head injury that could leave him with brain damage, while Jill’s condition is unknown. A drifter confesses that he threw an old man down the stairs. Georgie Porgie sexually harasses underage girls, leaving them with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Humpty Dumpty remains in critical condition after a crippling accident. A negligent mother leaves a baby unattended on a treetop, with disastrous results. A blackbird swoops down on a domestic employee hanging up laundry and maliciously wounds her nose. Three vision-impaired mice are mutilated with a carving knife. And here comes a candle to light you to bed; here comes a chopper to chop off your head! A recent article in the Archives of Diseases of Childhood measured the rates of violence in different genres of children’s entertainment. The television programs had 4.8 violent scenes per hour; the nursery rhymes had 52.2. 44
HONOR IN EUROPE AND THE EARLY UNITED STATES
If you have an American ten-dollar bill handy, look at the man portrayed on it and give a moment’s thought to his life and death. Alexander Hamilton is one of American history’s most luminous figures. As a coauthor of the Federalist Papers , he helped to articulate the philosophical basis of democracy. As America’s first secretary of the treasury, he devised the institutions that support modern market economies. At other times in his life he led three battalions in the Revolutionary War, helped launch the Constitutional Convention, commanded a national army, established the Bank of New York, served in the New York legislature, and founded the New York Post . 45
Yet in 1804 this brilliant man did something that by today’s standards was astonishingly stupid. Hamilton had long exchanged bitchy remarks with his rival Vice President Aaron Burr, and when
As we shall see, purveyors of entertainment for young children today have become so intolerant of violence that even episodes of the early Muppets have been deemed too dangerous for them. And speaking of puppetry, one of the most popular forms of children’s entertainment in Europe used to be the Punch and Judy show. Well into the 20th century, this pair of bickering glove puppets acted out slapstick routines in ornate booths in English seaside towns. The literature scholar Harold Schechter summarizes a typical plot:
It begins when Punch goes to pet his neighbor’s dog, which promptly clamps its teeth around the puppet’s grotesquely oversized nose. After prying the dog loose, Punch summons the owner, Scaramouche and, after a bit of crude banter, knocks the fellow’s head “clean off his shoulders.” Punch then calls for his wife, Judy, and requests a kiss. She responds by walloping him in the face. Seeking another outlet for his affection, Punch asks for his infant child and begins to cradle it. Unfortunately, the baby picks that moment to dirty itself. Always the loving family man, Punch reacts by beating the baby’s head against the stage, then hurling its dead body into the audience. When Judy reappears and discovers what’s happened, she is understandably upset. Tearing Punch’s stick from his hands, she begins to lay into him. He wrestles the cudgel away from her, pummels her to death, and then breaks into a triumphant little song:
Who’d be plagued with a wife
That could set himself free
With a rope or a knife
Or a good stick, like me? 43
Even Mother Goose nursery rhymes, which mostly date from the 17th and 18th centuries, are jarring by the standards of what we let small children hear today. Cock Robin is murdered in cold blood. A single mother living in substandard housing has numerous illegitimate children and abuses them with whipping and starvation. Two unsupervised children are allowed to go on a dangerous errand; Jack sustains a head injury that could leave him with brain damage, while Jill’s condition is unknown. A drifter confesses that he threw an old man down the stairs. Georgie Porgie sexually harasses underage girls, leaving them with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Humpty Dumpty remains in critical condition after a crippling accident. A negligent mother leaves a baby unattended on a treetop, with disastrous results. A blackbird swoops down on a domestic employee hanging up laundry and maliciously wounds her nose. Three vision-impaired mice are mutilated with a carving knife. And here comes a candle to light you to bed; here comes a chopper to chop off your head! A recent article in the Archives of Diseases of Childhood measured the rates of violence in different genres of children’s entertainment. The television programs had 4.8 violent scenes per hour; the nursery rhymes had 52.2. 44
HONOR IN EUROPE AND THE EARLY UNITED STATES
If you have an American ten-dollar bill handy, look at the man portrayed on it and give a moment’s thought to his life and death. Alexander Hamilton is one of American history’s most luminous figures. As a coauthor of the Federalist Papers , he helped to articulate the philosophical basis of democracy. As America’s first secretary of the treasury, he devised the institutions that support modern market economies. At other times in his life he led three battalions in the Revolutionary War, helped launch the Constitutional Convention, commanded a national army, established the Bank of New York, served in the New York legislature, and founded the New York Post . 45
Yet in 1804 this brilliant man did something that by today’s standards was astonishingly stupid. Hamilton had long exchanged bitchy remarks with his rival Vice President Aaron Burr, and when
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