Back in the days when there were small, stable communities, people who had more or less stayed together in one place for generations, people got into it with each other just as much as they do today. But there were a couple of big differences.
One is that they had more investment in dispute resolution, because they were all of a tribe. To fail to resolve disputes would mean, ultimately, the demise of the community.
The other is that since everybody knew each other, it was relatively easy to determine who the arbiters were. They were not people who got themselves into positions of power by force or trickery, not in a healthy community. They would be the elders who were known to be fair, who had known everybody all their lives, who had a good insight into human foibles, people who had a knack for seeing through misrepresentations. People…
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