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Eugine_Nier comments on Three more ways identity can be a curse - Less Wrong Discussion
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Yes, people with divergent ideas are more likely to be exiled.
There are also many cultural and structural differences between industrial and pre-industrial societies, e.g., as Paul Graham mentioned in this essay:
That goes with a general problem in society - age cohort segregation. It always strikes me as odd that people think schools provide socialization. Putting a bunch of kids in age segregated isolation is a recipe for Lord of the Flies, not socialization in terms of civilization. Civilization is passed on by those who are civilized, not created out of thin air by those who are not.
Spending most of the time in age-segregated environment is harmful.
Maybe even harmful for learning, because it actively prevents the voluntary "younger people learning from their older role models". It gives teachers almost a monopoly on passing information to the next generation, which is suboptimal, because teachers usually don't do professionally what they teach. (For example a teacher of a computer science does not have the experience of an IT professional. So the next generation of IT professionals starts only with the teacher's knowledge, and must learn many important things after school on their own. E.g. many people working in IT use a lot of free software: Firefox, Libre Office, etc. but most of the high schools in my country still teach only Word and Excel. And I avoid starting a flamewar on a choice of a programming language; but the teacher's favorite is usually the one they learned at university, maybe 20 years ago. Forget about version control, agile development, or anything necessary for productivity but non-essential for textbook examples.)
The worst impact is probably on children with higher- or lower-than-average intelligence. The children with higher intelligence are actively prevented from applying their natural solution: seeking company of older students. The children with lower intelligence must keep up with the speed that is too difficult for them, or go to a "special" school and bear the stigma; they don't have much of a choice to slow down.
School is basically hell for everyone as far as learning goes. One size teaching that needs to fit 30 at a time. I'm so jealous of kids these days with Khan academy and the internet generally. I used to read my encyclopedia for fun, until the love of learning was largely squashed out of me for a few years until I transferred to a private high school with standards that required some effort on my part.
But I don't think that's the biggest problem with age cohorts. The effects on socialization are worse, IMO. Breeds a bunch of cocky little twerps who think they know everything, but know nothing. No respect for their elders who actually know a few things they don't, and little experience leading and taking care of the young. All experience is boiled down to status games with your rough peers, with little input or guidance from the civilized. There is no real achievement, because it's a fantasy land where others are providing the resources to live. Similar to prison.
"Yes, people with divergent ideas are more likely to be exiled."
I did mention creative achievement as well, not just divergent thinking. So are musicians and actors among these exiled? These seem like the type of professions that are lauded in mainstream culture more than exiled. Creativity correlates both with being attractive to the opposite sex and suicidal ideation (not to mention suicidal completion). Now, sexual attraction doesn't necessarily prove that these are socially acceptable professions, but I think it is premature to call these people "exiled" without additional evidence.
Sources:
http://www.ajol.info/index.php/safp/article/view/13477 "Specialties with high suicide risk are musicians, dentists, nurses, social workers, artists, mathematicians, scientists and police officers"
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8726961 "This may partly explain the high suicide rates witnessed for occupations such as artists, High-risk occupations for suicide 7actors and entertainers, musicians and merchant seafarers. Nurses have previously been identiļ¬ed with high suicide rates. (I also want to point out nurses. While nurses aren't necessarily more creative, they are certainly not exiled social pariahs) "
http://repository.unm.edu/handle/1928/10410
I still stand by the position that depression being rooted solely on the basis of tribal exile, or as an evo-psych emotional reaction to tribal exile, as grossly simplistic.
The risk to lose friends make people to rationalize their behavior to make them more similar to a group, convincing himself of some identity, or optimizing toward a set of habits of the average guy of her group. Additionally, contrarian thinking signals status too.
For much of human history yes.