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Originally Posted by Lauxa  I don't know about the "long ancestry" part. Most of our ancestors were probably peasants, not so long ago.
As societies become more complex and more dense, specialization of labor occurs. This allows the arts and the sciences to flourish, but it also relegates people -- lots of people -- into jobs that are somewhat less desirable. The rugged individualist concept worked because people were spread out enough. Farmers today still have some of that mindset, at least the ones I have met at farmers' markets and such. In the city there is less room for individualism and more need for order.
But there are still entrepreneurs in cities. Does that count? |
I think that there is a great deal of difference between the farmers of yesterday and the entrepreneurs of today.
I am going to deal with numbers and ratios not that I think my numbers are accurate but I think they may be useful for comprehending certain things.
Suppose we establish a knowledge-to-understanding ratio, i.e. the amount we know divided by the amount we understand (i.e. need to create).
I would say that a frontier family might have K/U ratio of 20/1. As time passes and there is less need for understanding (creativity) and more need for knowing because the demands of the frontier diminish and ‘civilization’ encroaches I would say the K/U ratio might go to 50/1.
After one hundred years I suspect the ratio might easily move to 100/1; after leaving the farm and moving to town and going to work in the factory the ratio might very well go to 1000/1.
Today’s modern man or woman may very well have a ratio of 10,000/1. The person with a PhD might very well have a ratio 100,000/1.
I have heard college professors say that you never really understand a subject until you try to teach it. I suspect a PhD who is also a long time teacher might have developed an understanding of many things and thus dropped the ratio back to 10,000/1.