The age of a society

One of the blogs I follow posted about some mistreatment of a bear cub on a Korean TV show, and while I agree that the footage is pretty terrible, with terror evident, and that the obligatory Korean sound track of oohs and ahs and laughter is as terrible, I realized one thing. Maybe a society can have an age - some are infants, others children, and then adolescents and adults.

What would characterize the child? Well, most children have a distinct lack of empathy as illustrated in the above incident. The fact that animals generally get badly treated, and that their interactions with each other tend to be violent and physical, indicates that Korea is perhaps a child.

However, considering America and that they find so many of the humiliating and painful incidents depicted on America's funniest videos, well, funny, they have to rank right up there.

Are there any nations that can be considered adults? Who behave responsibly? I can think of only one, the Swiss. They stayed neutral in WWII, offering help and succour to wounded of both sides, they are trusted as the world's bankers (and some might argue with me that this gives them no credibility, since much of the money is stolen or tainted), and they have a low crime rate while upholding democracy.