Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Stanford University defines the humanities as: The humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience.

That is a broad definition. Cultural studies are broken down to process and document what the humanities mean to individual cultures, because not all cultures have the same experience. Yet in truth, all humanity shares one thing in common, no matter what the culture. Extremes.

Every culture which exists has suffered extremes. At one end is the extreme of violent and hostile domination. Cruelty in extremes assure security for a culture struggling to survive. Wars are littered with human cruelty too ugly to document without losing sight that humans perpetrated those acts. The worst offenders caught are labeled monsters, human monsters.

When a society dominates a large enough region to feel secure, their humanity moves away from cruelty to pleasure. All those energies created to win security are now free to exercise themselves in experiencing the other end of the scale of emotions. Inevitably the unrestrained search for pleasure leads to those extremes, debauchery.  Fleshly lust does not always need a willing partner to satisfy itself.

A close examination of any culture will reveal a natural resistance to extremes. Extremes make people uncomfortable. A culture that has a long history will reveal a pendulum which swings back and forth over time to societies that exhibit puritanical control at one end of the swing to unrestrained pleasure seeking at the other. Extremes.

Philippians 4:5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

Societies with God at the center avoid extremes.

Extremist see that as a threat.