I am not defending polymathwannabe’s position, I do not support his assertion. My point is, rather, that I am not sure that all the traditional societies required more of social skills / participation than the modern one.
There are a whole bunch of factors at play here. For example, on the one hand in the modern society an individual is, generally speaking, more powerful in the sense of being able to achieve more by himself and that makes his need for social support less. On the other hand, traditional societies were simpler in many ways and required less cooperation and coordination than the contemporary interlinked and interdependent world.
And, of course, all ages had their social butterflies and their hermits. People differ both in their need for social interaction and in the kinds they prefer and that has always been so.
Although I raised a challenge to the original claim, I’m genuinely curious about this, and I don’t feel strongly that I either agree or disagree with it. I don’t mean to claim all traditional or modern societies will have any particular pattern.
I agree with your second paragraph.
I think my current best try is something like: Coordination and cooperation are qualitatively different on different scales. Working on an assembly line (or designing an assembly line, or making business deals regarding an assembly line) is, in one sense, participating in a complex and massive coordination project. But it doesn’t make sense to compare this to the sort of social coordination that happens in interpersonal relationships, whose relative survival importance has generally declined.
To bring this back to the OP, my question is : Is the challenge of interpersonal coordination (or zero-sum status competition) sufficient for people to “conceive of a systematized method for satisfying their needs” that resembles the sort of thinking that we apply today?
Well, if we go to the OP, I think the claim is just not true. To give an obvious example, some early civilizations utilized massive and complicated irrigation systems. Such systems are clearly a “systematized method of satisfying their needs” which requires “careful planning and effort”. I am not sure what does it have to do with interpersonal coordination. Societies have been able to organize masses of people in service of a single goal for a very long time (Stonehenge, the Pyramids, etc.)
Of course, some societies did fail at this and you can still find a few of them hunting for bush meat in the jungle.
I am not defending polymathwannabe’s position, I do not support his assertion. My point is, rather, that I am not sure that all the traditional societies required more of social skills / participation than the modern one.
There are a whole bunch of factors at play here. For example, on the one hand in the modern society an individual is, generally speaking, more powerful in the sense of being able to achieve more by himself and that makes his need for social support less. On the other hand, traditional societies were simpler in many ways and required less cooperation and coordination than the contemporary interlinked and interdependent world.
And, of course, all ages had their social butterflies and their hermits. People differ both in their need for social interaction and in the kinds they prefer and that has always been so.
Although I raised a challenge to the original claim, I’m genuinely curious about this, and I don’t feel strongly that I either agree or disagree with it. I don’t mean to claim all traditional or modern societies will have any particular pattern.
I agree with your second paragraph.
I think my current best try is something like: Coordination and cooperation are qualitatively different on different scales. Working on an assembly line (or designing an assembly line, or making business deals regarding an assembly line) is, in one sense, participating in a complex and massive coordination project. But it doesn’t make sense to compare this to the sort of social coordination that happens in interpersonal relationships, whose relative survival importance has generally declined.
To bring this back to the OP, my question is : Is the challenge of interpersonal coordination (or zero-sum status competition) sufficient for people to “conceive of a systematized method for satisfying their needs” that resembles the sort of thinking that we apply today?
Well, if we go to the OP, I think the claim is just not true. To give an obvious example, some early civilizations utilized massive and complicated irrigation systems. Such systems are clearly a “systematized method of satisfying their needs” which requires “careful planning and effort”. I am not sure what does it have to do with interpersonal coordination. Societies have been able to organize masses of people in service of a single goal for a very long time (Stonehenge, the Pyramids, etc.)
Of course, some societies did fail at this and you can still find a few of them hunting for bush meat in the jungle.