5 ms·

The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4 humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take care of a child. Two? 6-8. Sin

The book Hunt, Gather, Parent touches on this a bit. It takes 3-4 humans, not necessarily adults but cousins and whatnot, to take care of a child. Two? 6-8. Since western societies broke up tight knit communities, the support system for this in the west has been lacking and jerry rigged with tired parents and nannies etc ever since. The reason for the breakup is fun - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholic-church-ban-in-the-middle-ages-loosened-family-ties/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/roman-catholi...

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Interesting hypothesis, but I don’t know if I buy it. Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until recently). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an education and a well paying job, etc). The latter basically destroys any chance of “village raising a child”, because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is moving around for their economic opportunities.
- em-bee 3y ago
  If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible choices. why not choose both? i'd love to live in a small tight knit community. going to school and getting a good education does not prevent that. and with more options to work from home it is now even more possible than it was in the past. also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain independence. they are forced to move because they can't find work at home. in europe the majority of people live where they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is more likely that future generations will have jobs there too, so they can stay.
  - dsign 3y ago
    This. I grew up poor and moved far away from my family to change it. In the rich land where I now live, most people I’ve met could do a little better by moving to another town but they choose to remain close to their families and their birth community. With that said, they still have to raise their children on their own, because it is culturally inappropriate to ask, accept or (god forbid![^1]) offer help. [^1]: You want to do what with our kids? What are you? A budding, wanna-be child molester? You never know, the media says they are everywhere. No sir, and you have upset me so much that I’ll write to my local representative to install CSAM surveillance in all the phones.
    - apwell23 3y ago
      I am guessing women have low labor force participation rates in the poor land you moved from ?
      - em-bee 3y ago
        i would guess quite the opposite. from what i have seen in places that i have been to women are doing most of the work, like selling food at the market while i saw more men hanging around doing nothing. i guess some of the men that did work went elsewhere for the better jobs.
        4death4 3y ago
        Listing some specific places would be a good way to validate your anecdote with actual data.
        em-bee 3y ago
        not really. it would still just be the experience of one person in one place. not enough to generalize. someone made a guess, and i countered with a different guess. i am however not ready to go on a deeper exploration here until i have had more opportunities to observe other similar places and spend more time to talk to some of these people to get a better understanding of their situation
- zbyforgotp 3y ago
  I think the analogy to fibers in food is very good (which I take from Wood o Eden). We now discover all kinds of similar phenomena.
- elcritch 3y ago
  That linked article also appears incorrect about the Eastern Orthodox Church as well. The churches in the east inherited the Roman ban on marrying cousins.
pfisherman 3y ago
The linked article is pretty ridiculous. I am pretty sure it leaves out a lot of nuance from the underlying work - as these types of press releases normally do - but there is a bunch of stuff in there that just does not make sense. First the taboo against consanguineous marriages was most likely because of genetic diseases. Biology may not have been very advanced, but people were smart enough to pick up on patterns. Similar to taboos against cannibalism despite having no concept of prion disease. If this was pushed by the catholic church then explain Italian families! Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history?
- watwut 3y ago
  > Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history? I don't think so. The heros journey does not need to be about "rugged individualism" at all. Not is about it all across cultures and history. We like stories about rugged individualism. We prefer them. And oftentimes, we change original stories fro. other culture to fit the patterns we like or ignore those that don't fit them. And also, across cultures and history, the hero journey is far from the only or even primary kind of story.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history? I dont thi k thats true at all - Lets see, oldest stories - buddhism, hiduism - none of them are about individualism. I wouldn't say the christian writing or that of ancient Egypt is about individualism either. The oldest 'hero's journey' I can think of, would be myths of ancient greece - but ewually, many of them are not heroic, they are dramas. The dominance of this genre is a compeltely modern phenomena
- nerdponx 3y ago
  The whole point of the hero monomyth is that the hero is a hero. They're an exceptional individual, sometimes the child of a god, sent on an exceptional quest that nobody else can accomplish. And even so, they are reluctant to leave society at first, and eventually return to it. I don't think its purpose is primarily to facilitate individual aspiration.
jseliger 3y ago
So does The Anthropology of Childhood, which is a fun book: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/02/10/the-anthropology-of-childhood-and-the-common-rejoinder-to-your-friendss-parenting-delusions https://jakeseliger.com/2015/02/10/the-anthropology-of-child....
concordDance 3y ago
The main reason for the break up is the movement of people. Into cities for economic reasons or off to university.
thepasswordis 3y ago
Western Society seems to be doing pretty well.
- OccamsMirror 3y ago
  Based on the only metric we care about: money.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    Also on life expectancy, happiness, child mortality, and looking at migration figures, revealed preference too.
csomar 3y ago
Buddhist countries (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia) have a West-like kinship intensity index. So, hmm, no. You can do better (as better than Muslim like countries and the Western individualistic societies).

lotsofpulp 3y ago

Interesting hypothesis, but I don’t know if I buy it. Much of India had also long barred cousin marriages, probably long before the Roman Catholic Church, but the dependencies and village raising the kids dynamic still existed (until recently). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapinda If I were to guess, the main causal factor is economic/security independence. If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that (e.g. getting an education and a well paying job, etc). The latter basically destroys any chance of “village raising a child”, because no village bonds will exist, since everyone is moving around for their economic opportunities.

em-bee 3y ago
If living in a tight knit village, sacrificing your freedoms is the best option you have, then that is what most people choose. If there exists an option for you retain your freedom and have financial independence and physical security, then people tend to choose that you make it sound like these are opposing incompatible choices. why not choose both? i'd love to live in a small tight knit community. going to school and getting a good education does not prevent that. and with more options to work from home it is now even more possible than it was in the past. also, people didn't move because they wanted to gain independence. they are forced to move because they can't find work at home. in europe the majority of people live where they grow up and do not move far from there, unless lack of local jobs forces them to. which is one reason why big cities are popular and growing because jobs are there, and it is more likely that future generations will have jobs there too, so they can stay.
- dsign 3y ago
  This. I grew up poor and moved far away from my family to change it. In the rich land where I now live, most people I’ve met could do a little better by moving to another town but they choose to remain close to their families and their birth community. With that said, they still have to raise their children on their own, because it is culturally inappropriate to ask, accept or (god forbid![^1]) offer help. [^1]: You want to do what with our kids? What are you? A budding, wanna-be child molester? You never know, the media says they are everywhere. No sir, and you have upset me so much that I’ll write to my local representative to install CSAM surveillance in all the phones.
  - apwell23 3y ago
    I am guessing women have low labor force participation rates in the poor land you moved from ?
    - em-bee 3y ago
      i would guess quite the opposite. from what i have seen in places that i have been to women are doing most of the work, like selling food at the market while i saw more men hanging around doing nothing. i guess some of the men that did work went elsewhere for the better jobs.
      - 4death4 3y ago
        Listing some specific places would be a good way to validate your anecdote with actual data.
        em-bee 3y ago
        not really. it would still just be the experience of one person in one place. not enough to generalize. someone made a guess, and i countered with a different guess. i am however not ready to go on a deeper exploration here until i have had more opportunities to observe other similar places and spend more time to talk to some of these people to get a better understanding of their situation
zbyforgotp 3y ago
I think the analogy to fibers in food is very good (which I take from Wood o Eden). We now discover all kinds of similar phenomena.
elcritch 3y ago
That linked article also appears incorrect about the Eastern Orthodox Church as well. The churches in the east inherited the Roman ban on marrying cousins.

pfisherman 3y ago

The linked article is pretty ridiculous. I am pretty sure it leaves out a lot of nuance from the underlying work - as these types of press releases normally do - but there is a bunch of stuff in there that just does not make sense. First the taboo against consanguineous marriages was most likely because of genetic diseases. Biology may not have been very advanced, but people were smart enough to pick up on patterns. Similar to taboos against cannibalism despite having no concept of prion disease. If this was pushed by the catholic church then explain Italian families! Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history?

watwut 3y ago
> Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history? I don't think so. The heros journey does not need to be about "rugged individualism" at all. Not is about it all across cultures and history. We like stories about rugged individualism. We prefer them. And oftentimes, we change original stories fro. other culture to fit the patterns we like or ignore those that don't fit them. And also, across cultures and history, the hero journey is far from the only or even primary kind of story.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Is “the hero’s journey” not a story about rugged individualism that has been told over and over in different forms across cultures since the beginning of history? I dont thi k thats true at all - Lets see, oldest stories - buddhism, hiduism - none of them are about individualism. I wouldn't say the christian writing or that of ancient Egypt is about individualism either. The oldest 'hero's journey' I can think of, would be myths of ancient greece - but ewually, many of them are not heroic, they are dramas. The dominance of this genre is a compeltely modern phenomena
nerdponx 3y ago
The whole point of the hero monomyth is that the hero is a hero. They're an exceptional individual, sometimes the child of a god, sent on an exceptional quest that nobody else can accomplish. And even so, they are reluctant to leave society at first, and eventually return to it. I don't think its purpose is primarily to facilitate individual aspiration.

jseliger 3y ago

So does The Anthropology of Childhood, which is a fun book: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/02/10/the-anthropology-of-childhood-and-the-common-rejoinder-to-your-friendss-parenting-delusions https://jakeseliger.com/2015/02/10/the-anthropology-of-child....

concordDance 3y ago

The main reason for the break up is the movement of people. Into cities for economic reasons or off to university.

thepasswordis 3y ago

Western Society seems to be doing pretty well.

OccamsMirror 3y ago
Based on the only metric we care about: money.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  Also on life expectancy, happiness, child mortality, and looking at migration figures, revealed preference too.

csomar 3y ago

Buddhist countries (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia) have a West-like kinship intensity index. So, hmm, no. You can do better (as better than Muslim like countries and the Western individualistic societies).