bagatelle

I wish I could remember better - I saw a British tv-documentary a while ago. It's just impossible to live the same way in a small society than with a large group of people. There's a limitation to how many people you can actually know well and care for, I think they were talking about the range from 50 to 100.

They demonstrated their claims by showing how in a big city people would pass a stranger (an actor) lying in the street. An example from a small village showed a woman picking a letter beside a mail box and posting it, obviously thinking, it was dropped by someone she might know and wanted to help this way.

I believe that even in a small society, eventually someone may develop to become more dominant and start ruling the others.


Edit: I'm not sure if the program called 'Would you save a stranger?' is the same I'm talking about, since I can't view it online.