Once in a while, we entrepreneurs philosophize about ourselves. Are we hunters or gatherers? Or maybe we are more concerned with agriculture and farming?
Before the last great climate change triggered the end of the ice-age, with the finish of the Upper Palaeolithic (between 45,000 and 9,000 before Christ), humans changed their eating habits. After having mostly acquired their food as hunters or gatherers, the disappearance of animals from their hunting grounds forced them to start agriculture and farming.
Compared with hunting and gathering, however, agriculture and farming is rather boring. It is strenuous, stereotypical work that has to be done in order to cultivate the soil and look after the livestock. Also, many factors determined whether or not the harvest was plentiful.
On the other hand, hunting is something that will only work with well-coordinated teamwork and a functioning communication. Success or failure followed instantly, while the quality of agricultural labour showed itself only after months of waiting, praying and uncertainty. Bad weather could destroy everything in an instant.
As opposed to this, a strong social awareness kept the hunters together. When hunting, you always have to rely on your neighbour. Hunting grows trust in each other in a team. Hunters need excellent communication techniques without having to say much. In the end, the hunted animal was perceived as a result of a danger overcome together.
Hunting anecdotes will still warm up the spirits of the parties concerned decades later. But nobody likes to hear stories about agriculture. The romantic allure of the alliance between humans and their hunt regularly takes hold of war veterans. Often, they totally suppress the atrocities of war in favour of the idyll of camaraderie. Even today, as soon as you arm men in an alliance, such a social structure will quickly develop. It has to balance an emotional deficit we standardized people in our modern society experience.
Now, are entrepreneurs hunters or gatherers?
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
The major part of this text is from an email by Klaus-Jürgen Grün triggered by a discussion about the question: which culture has done more to promote human progress, for example with respect to language – that of the hunters or that of the farmers?
P.S.2
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