I believe an individual can be and often is wiser than a society or civilization. I mean this in the sense that the civilization is basically wrong where the individual is basically right. If you want to paint the picture that a civilization is actually right, is actually wise, and can be more-so than any individual, then I don't understand--either the lessons of that civilization are progressively lost (forcibly), or they are retained and individuals living in the end of the civilization's age retain the full breadth of that civilization's wisdom.

Also, I believe there is a limit to truth, or at least there are limits insofar as the human condition can realistically appreciate. Therefore I find it most plausible that numerous people while incarnated in human coils possess equally optimal levels of wisdom... but this day is not yet here, heh..

A person cannot exist without interaction among others, but the required extent of this interaction varies. If you don't need more friends or you cannot find more friends of quality, then that's how it is. If you do need more friends and you can find more friends of quality, then all the better. The feeling of loneliness by itself is neither good nor bad, and never defines one's person.

As a little project I'm expressing my paradigm in collage. Share in this thread images that are special to your black metal heart. (Maybe I'll steal one or two.)

Everyone disagrees and everyone agrees, it's a single spectrum. A (very marginally) better question would be why some people disagree more or less strongly, and then the reasons would need to be qualified towards that distinction.

Now if I didn't humor anyone else with this disagreement, at least I humored myself. It also helps in sharpening the 'ol sword. Not to mention that you get a glimpse into the working of another mind.

Of course there's a pretty obvious possibility nobody's mentioned yet, that people disagree partly out of humble compassion.

What I don't understand is, if existing primitive tribes where there is no monogamy and children don't know their fathers have happy children, why doesn't Western society?
Does the void actually come from comparing yourself to others, other kids who had a dad show them how to ride a bike? What is to be said of all those missed experiences?
I can agree that the father in a patriarchy does shape masculinity and femininity in his children, but that is because more discipline is needed on top of their genetic femininity and masculinity. Patriarchy is a cooperative system that has to run smoothly through generations.
Probably the darkest thought that crosses my mind is how black children without fathers seem to be more okay than white people without fathers. I don't mean this in terms of their SAT scores or criminality, but in their general confidence. They seem to be keeping it together more than white children who crumble emotionally. White people are more prone to existential anxiety, perhaps due to higher IQ.
I don't want to consider the idea that certain races are biologically hardwired to be used to certain mating schemes, due to different hormones and future/present oriented thinking, and such. It's possible, but I'm just not ready to think about that.

It think you're taking enormous liberties in comparing the environments and realities of primitive tribes with those of modern society. For instance how can you assume that women in primitive tribes are happier? Furthermore at the end of the day it's not all about happiness.

In my experience people who say it's impossible for anyone to be objective about themselves, they are full of contradictions which are blatantly false if analyzed with even the slightest bit of logic, and thus they have learned to ignore logic and truth in favor of subjective relativity.

I fully recognize the real, unavoidable consequences of what's typically understood as 'desire'. However in my view arguing against desire often leads to ignorance because it promotes faith, just like the original post of this thread cautions against the tree of knowledge and instead promotes a concept of 'Love'.

When people hear arguments against desire they almost always think of asceticism, but asceticism is only one possible path beyond desire and people shouldn't (and won't be) forced down it. I believe, as do many others, that desire remains even in enlightenment - but desire of an all-permeating, effortless and light variety.

Today's English vocabulary isn't great at isolating the negative side of desire. You could say desire is bad when it focuses on any one thing in particular and thus obfuscates one's wider vision. For example if you so badly want to hit a bullseye with a bow and arrow then you'll be preoccupied with attaining that slim objective and the personal satisfaction you attribute to it.

The opposite, however, is not to want to hit the bullseye less, nor is it to shift one's intention towards being unconcerned with hitting the bullseye. The act of desire is a two-sided coin involving both the state of desire as well as the individual allowing the state to arise. When one perceives their desire to be terribly specific and intense then they are small because they care for and invest themselves in nothing but that desire and the corresponding outcome; but when one steps back and is mindful of a greater context then the desire seems less, not because it diminishes but because it occupies a proportionally smaller portion of one's attention alongside other higher things.

From a wiser perspective, the act of hitting the bullseye cannot be completely separated from what comes before or after it, as for instance one cannot truly 'slice' time to delineate one action from another since time is infinitely divisible or, more accurately, non-existent (scientifically plank time, by the way, only indicates human limitation to measure time, but does not actually identify constituent units of which time is composed). A matrix of patterns, existence always involves things within things, acts within acts, processes within processes, and I would not want to sully my experience of going to the archery range with the experience of obsessing over a particular shot and forgetting about the beautiful sky overhead or the stillness, playfulness and power within.