4 ms·
Let's be honest, I doubt most of these people became gurus or lighthouse keepers. Most of them probably died young or killed themselves. But I do agree, the "go
by IdiocyInAction 8y ago
Let's be honest, I doubt most of these people became gurus or lighthouse keepers. Most of them probably died young or killed themselves. But I do agree, the "good job, a wife, kids and a house" is probably not attainable for everyone. But lets not pretend that this is somehow justified or fair or something; life is full of injustices.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoNo, but there were probably a lot more opportunities for solo types in the past. In a world that was a lot less committed to everyone oversharing and having a full set of soft skills even to be an engineer or accountant.
- yowlingcat 8y agoI can't agree with this more or upvote it enough. Having alone time and living a life of the mind was something that was /much/ more doable historically than it is in modernity. It's a great shame of modern existence in my mind, perhaps a cardinal one.
- mcguire 8y agoEngineers and accountants have always had to have a "full set of soft skills." You'd have to look at agriculture or hunting and trapping to find any significant group of lone individuals. And even then, during the American colonial period and likely before, anyone who didn't participate in society would be regarded as seriously odd, at best.
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y agoThat’s not accurate. “Softskills”, a wholly an individual pursuit, is a modern phenomenon. Individualism on this level is not even contextually concievable in historical societies which sufficed a lot of the purposes served by “softskills” with structure and culture. By maintaining a congruence of experience and balance of relations in a society as a whole, “softskills” as you are considering them, are relatively irrelevant. Of course, you will have your exceptions, but until electronic media/radio, great leaders did not even have the opportunity to deliver ther soft skills far. The whole individualist notion of “softskills” speaks to the atmosphere that rationalizes hikkikomori.
- watwut 8y agoYou don't need electronics for softskills to matter. You need people to achieve things through other people. That always mattered great deal. There are whole books of past leaders speeches. Generals trained the speeches. In ancient Rome, rhetorics was the most important things a citizen boy had to learn.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoBob Cratchit didn't need rhetoric, or soft skills, just the ability to keep Scrooge's records in poor working conditions, and say yes sir. Same for a bookkeeper, rail engineer or mill worker. Nor in the army or navy, unless commissioned (which was bought before about 1860, so you could be as dysfunctional as you like if you could afford it). Some of the most well known Victorians and Edwardians were pretty eccentric. To a degree that we'd probably find them dysfunctional today. Now we seem to expect a little of everything in everyone.
- watwut 8y agoBob Cratchit was made up, underpaid and abused. How is that argument for anything good? Bookkeeper needed ability to communicate with employer in about the same measure then accounting needs now. Ditto rail engineer. Lack of ability to fit in in army means a lot of bullying that you will have to endure. Nevertheless, it is not like you needed rhetorics to be marine now. We have well known eccentric people now. Neither implies all that much about average person life. Nor that the average person would get away with the same. House hold servant would not be tolerated eccentricity.