A well-socialized child does not therefore lack aggression. She just becomes extremely good at being aggressive, transmuting what might otherwise be a disruptive drive into the focused perseverance and controlled competitiveness that make for a successful player. By the dawn of adolescence, such a child can organize herself into ever more complex games—joint, goal-directed activities that everyone plays voluntarily, and that everyone enjoys and benefits from, even if only one person or one team can win at a time. This ability is civilization itself in its nascent form, at the level of the
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