Talking about Social Progress the other day I began to wonder if it would be possible to quantify how strong a societies relationships were. A way to quantify social progress. I don't know what value exactly could be had by doing that. It might be a way to determine how different cultures compared to each other. Or if your society was headed in the right direction.
British anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorized that there is a maximum number of people a single person can maintain stable social relationships with. The number is commonly thought to be around 150. The average number of relationships had in a society could be a good input for measuring social progress.
The number of general social connections is important, but there are other relationships that are specifically important. Stable and strong romantic relationships, namely marriages, are critically important for the well being of both the couple as well as any children. So the divorce rate and marriage rate would both be important numbers to consider.
Lawsuits are a sure sign of relational breakdown. You only seek legal arbitration if you are not able to work out disagreements independently. So the per capita lawsuit number would be a good input.
Suicide rates might also be a means of measuring average relationship strengths. The more aloneness and disconnection people feel the more suicides there could be.
Putting it all together one could come up with a number to measure a country, state, region, or city, and how socially progressive it was. It would be very interesting to build something like that up and determine if it was at all representative of the overall advancement and functionality of that specific society group.
No comments:
Post a Comment