answer:For the last few hundred years, we have become increasingly less violent. Check out Steve Pinker’s book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, which includes numerous graphs showing the decline. If you have doubts, just think about what society was like in the Middle Ages. Slavery was accepted, people regularly engaged in duels, there were dozens of capital offenses, capital punishment included such practices as drawing and quartering, people were burnt as witches and you could be sent to debtor’s prison. What processes have been taking place to cause violence to decline? There are several explanations that have been offered. Some have said that the rise of the state, with its police and courts, is a factor. Others point to the small world effect. Our increased transportation and communication abilities has enlarged our tribes. It has also been suggested that our increased learning and use of abstract reasoning is a factor. How else to account for laws protecting animals?