Have humans become more or less brutal with time?

Question

Well I guess my question is very easy to understand isn't it? I mean are ancient humans more or less brutal than modern humans?

Answer 1

I think they would be more brutal on a wider scale if we didn't have the kind of laws that we have keeping it down to a dull roar.

Answer 2

They are probably the same. Only now our tools are better. Instead of beating your enemy up with a club you now beat your enemy up with  missile.We are just more efficient now.

Answer 3

It depends on the society you want to study. It is a bit of a vague question. Try to do a comparison of studying warfare and brutality in some ancient societies compared to some of our modern societies.

Answer 4

That depends on the human. Back in Ancient Rome hoards of people used to entertain themselves with a lot of very sick and twisted things that even the most crazed serial killer today wouldn't even imagine. But then again there are dictators that still do a lot of awful things, killing innocent people for no reason other than for their own benefit. Overall I'd say less brutal because it's a smaller world and you'll get a lot of heat for being too crazy, back in the old times people could do literally anything they wanted without any reprocussions.

Answer 5

Who else finds ACE's answer amusing?

"well we have become more smarter ..but the violent ways will never end. any smart person would no that."

ACE, do you consider yourself to be one of the "more smarter" people of which you speak?

Answer 6

You also have to understand that your question itself is routed in our culture itself; the question and our definition of "brutalism" is intricately tied with the culture and time period you find yourself in.  Your question has a cultural evolutionist bent, which is a big no-no nowadays in Anthropology.

Answer 7

humans haven't changed - just technology

Answer 8

well we have become more smarter ..but the violent ways will never end. any smart person would no that.

Answer 9

Define your question I dont understand

Answer 10

I believe humans are extremely more brutal now, we've just found alternative brutalities and found justification for the physical brutalities that still exist!

Answer 11

Less, but not by much.

Answer 12

We are much less brutal than ancient humans.  We don't feed people to lions. We don't burn people at the stake. We don't hang people from trees and let their bones rot there. We don't send people with infectious diseases to remote islands that have no foods available, no shelter, etc.. We don't wipe out entire religious groups because they don't agree with us.

We don't chop off the hands of a thief. We don't brand women who have s*x with other than own husband.  We don't leave babies who have died in the streets to rot.  We don't consider orphans to be 'bottom of the species' in worth.  We don't give blankets that are infected to an entire race of people.  We have stopped slavery.  There are lots of 'not so far away' things that we have stopped doing.

Answer 13

Less. Much much less.