"You only have to sample a couple of Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses plays to realize just how violent and just how bloody things used to be. Back then, leading politicians did not merely make speeches using battle metaphors; they fought each other to the death in real battles. Now we live in the disciplined society, channeled and regulated by rules rather than the passionate tides of aristocratic pride and dynastic feud. We've gotten to the point where postmodernist Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish makes the disciplined society into something banal and second-rate.
It was the Church that led the move away from violence, according to Charles Taylor. It wanted to upgrade everyone's commitment to Christ, and that meant taming the more violent sectors, in particular the warrior nobles and the bloody-minded peasants."
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