In the past, meeting non-social needs required more social support
I am not sure about that—subsistence farming is pretty self-sufficient. Individual, separated homesteads were the norm in several cultures/time periods and given how you don’t count trading with others as social interaction, someone living with his family on a distant farm (without any telecommunications) probably had much less “social support” than a modern nerd spending his time on the ’net.
″...given how you don’t count trading with others as social interaction”
It’s more complicated than that. Checking out at the grocery store is low on social modeling. Trade in a barter economy is more social. “Trade” in the sort of gift economy that characterized most previous societies is really really social.
″ Individual, separated homesteads were the norm in several cultures/time periods...”
What time periods are we talking? My model of most historic farming practices still involves things like extended families living in same area for long periods of time (“clans”), reliance on “group work” for things like harvesting, and the common presence of a relatively close village. In many place, like ancient China, you had very nuanced communal farming systems, centered around shared access to irrigation.
Perhaps more importantly, in the absence of a strong impersonal state, all disputes would be settled in ways that required great demands on social modeling, rather than the straightforward appeal to a justice system.
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 sure about that—subsistence farming is pretty self-sufficient. Individual, separated homesteads were the norm in several cultures/time periods and given how you don’t count trading with others as social interaction, someone living with his family on a distant farm (without any telecommunications) probably had much less “social support” than a modern nerd spending his time on the ’net.
The family still counts as support from other people.
The stereotype of a person who can actually manage alone is a trapper.
Do you mean someone who hunts animals with traps, or a monk of the Order of La Trappe?
Someone who hunts animals with traps.
It’s more complicated than that. Checking out at the grocery store is low on social modeling. Trade in a barter economy is more social. “Trade” in the sort of gift economy that characterized most previous societies is really really social.
What time periods are we talking? My model of most historic farming practices still involves things like extended families living in same area for long periods of time (“clans”), reliance on “group work” for things like harvesting, and the common presence of a relatively close village. In many place, like ancient China, you had very nuanced communal farming systems, centered around shared access to irrigation.
Perhaps more importantly, in the absence of a strong impersonal state, all disputes would be settled in ways that required great demands on social modeling, rather than the straightforward appeal to a justice system.
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.