Dangerous Old Men

A classic blog comment by Grim still resonates. It starts to explain the apparent paradox of tranquil-yet-heavily-armed America:

The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men.

Do read Grim's entire comment.

The author of yesterday's BBC article reports rarely seeing public drunkenness in America. Having a bunch of dangerous old men around is an excellent deterrent to feral young male drunken behavior like that. It also provides the role models that young males desperately need.