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What if Our Ancestors Didn’t Feel Anything Like We Do?www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/human-ancestors-emotion-history/684959/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo
285 sats \ 2 comments \ @zuspotirko 26 Dec culture
A common assumption is that throughout history, people have experienced the same basic range of emotions. A radical field of history now challenges this assumption, Gal Beckerman reports.
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111 sats \ 1 reply \ @freetx 26 Dec
Rob Boddice, a historian at HEX, argues that human emotions are not universal but shaped by culture, biology, and historical context.

He challenges the idea that emotions like anger, love, or pain are experienced the same way across time, emphasizing "experiential relativity."

I think most historical writing counters this....if Virgil / Catullus wrote about romantic love in ways that we easily understand today....how would it be possible if there wasn't a shared connection?

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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @zuspotirko OP 10h

I think it's hard to argue people in the past did not feel love or grief - they certainly did.

More interesting questions here is if they felt the same love or the same grief. I do not even know if grief feels the same to you as it does to me. Another question is If I would list all feelings I would mention happiness, sadness, fear, anger, shock, disgust first - maybe people in the past would have mentioned 5 or 7 instead of my 6 first - what does it do to our feelings if we have different words for them? Back in the day child mortality was so much higher - it would make a lot of sense if loosing a child carried a different kind of sadness with it than it does for us today.

For me this article sparked so many thoughts about this topic. It's kind of mindblowing, no matter how much feelings are universal and how much is shaped by our current culture.

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