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The conditions of life in say, tsarist Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries to give one example are pretty well recorded, and they were not vastly changed from those in the 18th or 17th centuries. The vanishing of the traditional agricultural lifestyle is quite recent in historical terms, and it still persists to some extent today in certain countries. So we actually do have a pretty good picture of what pre-industrial life was like.
Naturally, they didn't know anything else. If you lock a kid in the basement from infancy and beat him five times every day of the week and only once on Saturday and Sunday, the weekend is gonna look pretty awesome to him, but most people who weren't raised in a basement wouldn't find being locked in a basement and being beaten once a day on weekends very fun.
You severely underrate how alien these people were. There's pretty good evidence they were practically incapable of abstract thought or logical exercises that would be easy for a small child in the modern United States (this being in reference to the great mass of common people, obviously, not a very small educated elite). You may be familiar with A.M Luria's study of Uzbek peasants as late as the 1920s and 30s as it's made the rounds in rationalist and rationalist adjacent circles. This was not because of any genetic inferiority, but because their world was so founded in the immediate and concrete that a basic "if A then B" syllogism was beyond their grasp. They were also shockingly violent. Besides their regular wanton cruelty to animals for practical reasons as well as for amusement, they were basically always ready to fight and kill each other over the mildest of slights. Sicilian immigrants to the US as late as the 20s, coming from one of the most backwards and least industrialized regions in Europe, had an astronomical murder rate because stabbing somebody in the throat for cheating at cards or hitting on your sister was just totally normal to them.
Yes, our ancestors were "like us" insofar as they loved their friends and families, liked to tell and hear stories, enjoyed food and sex, and feared death, but that's a pretty sparse overlap in my opinion. Outside of a tiny handful of intellectuals and philosophers, you probably wouldn't be able to hold any kind of real or meaningful conversation with a 16th century German even if you could speak his language perfectly, and you wouldn't want to anyway because he might crush your skull.
I am, but would appreciate either elaboration or a link to what you consider the strongest version of the Luria argument. I remember it being profoundly unconvincing, but I'd like to read it again to be sure I'm not missing something. Specifically, I understand the general form of the "if A then B" that was supposedly beyond them, but I'd like some detail on exactly what consequences you expect to derive from this claim, such that you think the absence of this ability would make their thought alien to me. How were they actually different in their lived experience, in their life choices, in how they acted and what they did?
None of these features seem alien in any way. Widespread examples of all of these characteristics are available in the modern world, and in America even, not to mention many other examples of behavior I find equally deplorable or abhorrent in many other varieties. None of this is even close to as alien as, say, the Apache or Comanche, and I would not describe them as bizarrely alien.
To be a bit more specific, they were "like us" in that they had exactly the same vices and virtues as we have, in roughly equal proportions; only the detail of how these were expressed culturally seems to differ. Further, they had most of the same major life experiences, and those we do not share have close analogues. I see no way to couch this as "a sparse overlap". I can read their stories and immediately grok the ideas behind them, and find them familiar to me. I'm pretty sure they had bullying, crushes, sweethearts, rivals, hated enemies, ambition, jealousy, deceit... I am confident they had people essentially like me, and people essentially like you, in short.
I would love to do so. And I do not particularly doubt that I would be able to do so. As for crushing my skull, I suppose you are doubling down on the incomprehensibly violent nature of the 16th century German peasantry; the "astronomical murder rate", the stabbings, the honor killings and so on. Truly, how could anyone communicate with such alien savages?
Well, here's the first graph result for the search "murder rate 16th century germany".
By the 1600s, the Germans are down to around 10 murders per 100,000, and the dread Italians are around 35. At that point, the 1600s Guido Menace would have moderately less violent that American blacks in the 2000s, and moderately more violent than those same blacks in the 2010s. I'd guess the Vile Huns were somewhere roughly in the ballpark of Appalachian whites from the same era. American blacks, in any case, are likewise not entirely unfamiliar with domestic violence, or indeed with animal cruelty for sport. And they're like this in the modern world with all the blessings of modernity, not least of which is a system of truly remarkable trauma medicine to turn 1600s murders into mere 2000s woundings. I used to work with a lot of underclass Blacks in an underclass job. Was I likewise underestimating how "deeply alien" my black coworkers were, or are these feelings of alienation reserved only for the distant past?
The disparity between your claims and the immediately-available evidence is confusing to me, to the point that I worry I'm reading the charts wrong. Is there something I'm missing here?
In any case, humans do heinous shit, always have and always will. None of this is new, or indeed old and forgotten, but rather simply is. None of it is incomprehensible. I imagine German or Italian peasants would be horrified by a description of American abortion practices, or OnlyFans, or Pride Parades, or indeed any number of our other modern abominations, but in fact none of that is new in its fundamental essence either.
Nice hat... strikes again (the 'first graph result' link is borked)
thanks. replaced it with another source of the same chart, should be working now.
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I don't really know what I'd call the strongest version of the argument, as I don't think Luria really was making an argument (well he was, but the argument was that socialist development was raising the mental level of the peasantry which is not really interesting) so much as just collecting data. But in any case here's a summary of the research. Here is Russell T. Warne describing a study in Africa which showed the same phenomenon.
That's a matter of taste. I would find it extremely frustrating and yes, alien, to hold a conversation with someone who was incapable of entertaining a hypothetical.
Killing somebody over a card game or killing a cat for fun are pretty alien to me. If someone did either of these things I would stay far away from them and consider them dangerous and anti-social, as would everybody else I know. Some people do do these things even today in the modern USA and they are generally considered to be acting in an extremely aberrant and objectionable way.
I would. The Comanche used to teach their children how to torture prisoners of war to death. That is bizarrely alien to my experience and I think it probably is to yours as well.
That's burying the lede pretty hard. The details of how base emotions, most of which are shared even by non-human animals, are expressed, are very important.
Wild animals above the level of insects have all these too. Maybe not jealousy.
You're the only one using the word "savage." They were different from us, which doesn't necessarily make them worse or better. I'm not even passing judgment. I wouldn't wanna live like they did, but that's just my personal preference, being as much a product of my environment as they were.
Compared to Germany's rate of 1 per 100,000 today, I would call that shockingly high.
I can't speak to that specifically, but yes there are pockets of life in modern society which are extremely alien to me. I have also interacted fairly extensively with "underclass" people, or at least people from a different social class than me, mostly whites and Mexicans (including some who have spent time in prison for violent crimes). Yes I have found their experiences and backgrounds very alien to my own, to the point where it was often difficult to find the common ground necessary for any kind of fruitful conversation. The feeling was mutual, and I imagine it would be even more the case with a 17th century peasant commune.
No doubt.
I live in a modern-ish suburb. My parents come from flatland hillbilly/swampbilly backgrounds with extended family members who have committed what would be felonies(mostly kidnapping) if they happened outside of deep deep rural areas to enforce family honor in the 21st century, seriously expect us to respect their disownments over religious issues, and other such clannish behavior. I'm not underclass but I've lived among them and seen the way they behave.
People underestimate the cultural gaps among a single ethnicity in the same part of the country in a single year, let alone across centuries and continents.
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You're a 21st century aristocrat expounding on the idea that you wouldn't get on with 16th century outlaw bikers. This is not the argument you think it is.
Being a middle class-ish American doesn't make me an aristocrat. And if I am then so is everybody else on this forum.
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