Staying Like Foragers

For over ten millennia of the farming era, most folks saw themselves as tightly tied to small groups that lived in a largely alien and hostile world, under the thumb of empires and elites selected by tradition and power, elites not embarrassed by their privilege, interested in the general welfare, nor open to persuasion by argument. Few saw grand arcs of history as the sorts of things that they could or should much influence.Today, in contrast, most people and especially elites see themselves as part of a single big world, with elites selected more by merit, embarrassed by unmerited privilege, interested in general welfare, and especially smart and open to persuasion. So we see world arcs and problems as things to be dealt with by smart elites talking stuff out until they agree, and most everyone is eager to join in such talk to seem like elites.How did this change? In 2010, I started to explore this explanation: modern values are mainly a reversion to forager values.[Forager]…