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Notes -
One of the pet theories without any serious digging I have, is that these things may come in waves. From my observation some societies that were considered as most polite societies like Japan or Scandinavia or England were incredibly violent in the past, they were places where you could get your head chopped off for looking at somebody the wrong way. So people created social technology of politeness and elaborate social rituals in order to prevent such a situation from happening - getting challenged to duel or having your balls blown off are some serious incentives for good behavior. Until some new people come around who think that all this politeness and social norms are gay, weak and lame and that they should be able to do what they want. And the cycle repeats itself.
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