Sunday Firesides: Self-Control for What?

Amongst the Amazonian Sateré-Mawé tribe, boys are required to place their hand into a glove interlaced with bullet ants — which administer one of the most painful stings in the world — and leave it on for ten minutes without uttering a sound.

Such rites of passage were once nearly universal in ancient cultures, as the quality tested — self-control — was …