good analysis! i've got a friend who's fond of the Steven Pinker, "things have never been this good" model of progress—the leveling-up that you're describing. it's an ongoing debate with us, because i've always maintained that those historical comparisons are impossible: we can't quantify the effect that greater metaphysical agency has on quality of life. it's something we don't even acknowledge within modernity.
we always talk about the end of life as a way to measure its quality, and assume that a life ending too soon in difficult conditions must be equally terrible for people outside modernity. but we can't relate to people who recognize with their whole being that the cunningfolk's healing magic is working—that the combined energy of the kin group or tribe is genuinely (not just metaphorically) lifting them up—and when their body finally fails, they'll literally ascend to the stars to join their ancestors.
i believe alienation due to loss of metaphysical agency is one of the most acute forms of suffering that humans can experience. although it's been turbocharged under modernity, it's only a recent condition, and people used to be free from it in ways we can't imagine now.
good analysis! i've got a friend who's fond of the Steven Pinker, "things have never been this good" model of progress—the leveling-up that you're describing. it's an ongoing debate with us, because i've always maintained that those historical comparisons are impossible: we can't quantify the effect that greater metaphysical agency has on quality of life. it's something we don't even acknowledge within modernity.
we always talk about the end of life as a way to measure its quality, and assume that a life ending too soon in difficult conditions must be equally terrible for people outside modernity. but we can't relate to people who recognize with their whole being that the cunningfolk's healing magic is working—that the combined energy of the kin group or tribe is genuinely (not just metaphorically) lifting them up—and when their body finally fails, they'll literally ascend to the stars to join their ancestors.
i believe alienation due to loss of metaphysical agency is one of the most acute forms of suffering that humans can experience. although it's been turbocharged under modernity, it's only a recent condition, and people used to be free from it in ways we can't imagine now.