Individualism is still a new concept to humans. It doesn’t feel like it, but only because we can’t imagine our modern lives without it. The reality is, for most of human history, you were defined by your family first, and yourself second (if at all).
Strangely terrifying and humbling at the same time, right?
History lesson (and, please note, this whole post was inspired by this Yancey Strickler essay from a few years ago, and then his excellent Jackson Dahl/Dialectic podcast interview):
Around 1000 AD the Catholic Church made it illegal to marry your cousin. Up to this point, families of any and all levels of influence loved the cousin marrying option because it consolidated and extended family power. All that Game of Thrones stuff – you can see how and why it makes sense.
So the Church breaks up these power structures and of course it has an unpredictably spiraling impact. Within a century you had an explosion of trade posts turned to proper cities, complete with guilds and universities. For the first time ever, people had to find new communities and opportunities outside of blood ties.
This is the greatest disruption in our understanding of the modern self.
Until… now?
