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I keep running into this issue, pretty much all over the place. If someone assumes, thinks, or even argues that pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers were happier and better behaved than the "civilizations" which eventually replaced them, they are often accused - and by very intelligent and articulate people - of falling prey to the "myth of the noble savage." The clear implication being that those traditional societies were just as screwed up as we are, and we shouldn't romanticize them.
But I think that their simpler, more family-centered, and less complex lifeways, much more in tune with nature and much more cognizant of their interdependence with each other and the earth, almost certainly produced happier people, by any measurable output. There is hard data that this is the case, and anecdotal data whenever someone from a more traditional culture rejects the "advances" of civilization. (By that I mean especially western industrial civilization, but also really any agriculture-based civilization from about 3000 BCE on).
There are a lot of very intelligent and articulate people on here, some of whom I suppose would scoff at the idea of the "noble savage." Why would our agrarian lifestyle be any better than that of hunter-gatherers, and why would it produce people who are better in any way than theirs did?
I bring it up because I just finished a book called "Hunt, Gather, Parent" about how traditional societies thought about and raised children, and seeing if some of those lessons can be adapted into our own parenting strategies. And ooo boy, the reddit critiques are a thing to behold. I think it's a phenomenal book, which should probably be read by everyone just on principle. But there are just so many people who still look down their noses at traditional ways of doing things and traditional worldviews.
But I think that their simpler, more family-centered, and less complex lifeways, much more in tune with nature and much more cognizant of their interdependence with each other and the earth, almost certainly produced happier people, by any measurable output. There is hard data that this is the case, and anecdotal data whenever someone from a more traditional culture rejects the "advances" of civilization. (By that I mean especially western industrial civilization, but also really any agriculture-based civilization from about 3000 BCE on).
There are a lot of very intelligent and articulate people on here, some of whom I suppose would scoff at the idea of the "noble savage." Why would our agrarian lifestyle be any better than that of hunter-gatherers, and why would it produce people who are better in any way than theirs did?
I bring it up because I just finished a book called "Hunt, Gather, Parent" about how traditional societies thought about and raised children, and seeing if some of those lessons can be adapted into our own parenting strategies. And ooo boy, the reddit critiques are a thing to behold. I think it's a phenomenal book, which should probably be read by everyone just on principle. But there are just so many people who still look down their noses at traditional ways of doing things and traditional worldviews.
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