By all measures men are the more violent gender.
Interpretation
Men tend to exhibit more violent behavior than women.
In this quote, Steven Pinker highlights the tendency for male individuals to engage in acts of violence more frequently than females. This observation touches upon the biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors that may influence violent behavior, suggesting that this pattern is deeply ingrained in human nature and society at large.
In practice
In a discussion on gender roles in society, this quote could be the centerpiece for explaining patterns of violence.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
What most needs explanation is not why some people are criminals, but why most people are not.
What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.
I've seen attack ships on fire on the shoulder of Orion, I've seen moon beams glisten at the Ten hauser gate, all those memories, lost like tears in the rain.
Adam and Eve derived the fullness of joy and bliss from their contemplation of all the animal creatures.
I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year.
One cannot inquire into the foundations and nature of mathematics without delving into the question of the operations by which the mathematical activity of the mind is conducted. If one failed to take that into account, then one would be left studying only the language in which mathematics is represented rather than the essence of mathematics.
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