The first rule of human thought is that everything is somebody else’s fault. American whites note that violent crime is mostly committed by blacks or Hispanics, who see all their problems as due to whites. Terrorism is the domain of Muslems. Democrats blame everything on Republicans and vice versa.

Most of the world points out that America causes most of avoidable destruction and suffering on the planet. The Americans believe themselves virtuous, indispensable, exceptional, and entirely dedicated to promulgating democracy. No group is itself guilty of anything.

Nobody (except feminists) says the obvious, that all of these evils are committed by….

Men.

It is always men–some other men, of course, men of another race or country, or religion or tribe or social class. We ourselves–men–are pure. But however you cut it, it is men.

The crucial problem for humanity is, probably always has been, how to control men, how to to harness their vigor and inventiveness for the common good while restraining their penchant for destruction, mass homicide, individual mlurder, rape, pillage, depravity, and foolishness.