For most of human history people lived wholly among those who knew them
Evidence
To large numbers of contemporary humans, there is nothing peculiar in the situation of living out one’s life amid persons one does not know. In an urban, urbanizing, and increasingly crowded world, this state of affairs is expected and tolerated, if not always appreciated. But to large numbers of other humans-some now living, most long deceasedthis state of affairs would appear very peculiar indeed. For throughout a major part of human history (and prehistory), in most times and most places, men and women have lived out their lives not in great cities or urban sprawls, but in small and isolated worlds-in bands or tribes or villages or towns. However varied the human condition in these little worlds-and it varied enormously-they shared one crucial characteristic: the absence of anonymity. Their peoples were born and reared, they reached adulthood and married, propagated, grew old and died, surrounded always and almost exclusively by persons who knew them and who were known to them. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 39
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: The historical absence of anonymity across human history grounds the reader’s comparison of urban versus pre-urban social conditions.
Related
- Most of human history was lived in small worlds lacking anonymity (similarity 0.91)
- Pure anonymity is intolerable, so urban dwellers must know their strangers (similarity 0.80)
- Urban life fundamentally means coping with strangers and anonymity (similarity 0.79)
- City size creates a peculiar condition of mutual personal anonymity (similarity 0.79)