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a way only with a good thrashing. "Spare the rod and spoil the child"
was a deadly serious maxim.111
The youngsters of England in those days displayed a brutality
the Bedouin would have understood. They tethered chickens in the
yard, then pelted them with stones until the tortured creatures finally
died. They burned cats alive. They pitted animals against each other,
encouraging the beasts to tear each other limb from limb. And all of
this was considered good, healthy fun. Said one approving poet about
cock-throwing--tying a bird to a stake or burying it up to its neck in the
ground, then letting school-children stone it to death--"'Tis the bravest
game."112
When the 16th and 17th Century British reached adulthood, they
didn't get over their love of violence. Englishmen set dogs on bulls for
sport. The dog would clamp its teeth on the bull's nose, tear off its ears
and shred its skin. In the end, either the dog would slash the bull's
throat, ripping its jugular and killing it slowly but painfully, or the bull
would gore and trample the dog to paste. One way or the other, the
crowd would be amused.113
The British didn't restrict their delight in pain to animals. They
whipped and hung their criminals in public. And huge audiences
showed up with picnic baskets to watch.
But a few hundred years later, the British ganglion of memes
evolved, and parents changed their mind about how children should
be raised. They offered a bit more affection. Soon the scenes of
brutality in English streets came to an end.114
In much of Arab society, the unmerciful approach of fathers to
their children has still not stopped. Public warmth between men and
women is considered an evil. And a disproportionate number of Arab
adults, stripped of intimacy and thrust into a life in which vulnerable
emotion is a sin, have joined extremist movements dedicated to
wreaking havoc on the world.
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