Learning from one another and early human groups.

By: Brittany

Preface: The first part of this post I am going to discuss is based on an objective viewpoint.

I read an article today in the New York Times that discussed a new anthropological opinion on how humans split from chimpanzees about 5 million years ago. The new discovery is based on a group of hunter-gatherers that would have been more willing to learn from one another through cooperation and social learning. The new discovery, being that most hunter-gatherer peoples are not “highly-related,” implies that cooperative behavior “was the turning point that shaped human evolution.” The article goes on to discuss other reasons that men and women living in hunter-gatherer societies have followed a similar pattern as their chimp counterparts, such as females leaving tribes once they hit puberty to avoid incest. But what interests me are the social patterns that anthropologists have recently discovered and how they apply to us today, to us who are not living in traditional hunter-gatherer societies.

Those who lived within small networks of hunter-gatherer societies and neglected to contribute to the greater social network stinted their knowledge of new information and skills. So how important then is it today that we surround ourselves with a broad social network of people? I would argue that it is very important. And if our network of people is so small that it actually prevents us from gaining knowledge and information, it would be wise to open up through social venues. (Although today we have the Internet, the media, and a plethora of other modes to gain information.) It is assumed, in all of this, that we would like to expand our minds with differing, contrasting perspectives on issues and ideas.

I recently stumbled upon (literally) a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt that said, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.” If we are taking full advantage of education, technology and daily close proximity to other thinkers, it is assumed we will want to discuss, argue and listen. It’s part of our humanity.

And one more while we're at it: Mark Twain points out in The Innocents Abroad or, The New Pilgrims' Progress, "Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Source: New York Times