I don't know if there ever was a golden age of social skills. A lot of our past social structure was based on getting along through conformity. Being socially skilled was not as much as being open to interaction of others as it was pretending to be someone others wanted to interact with. That works well in homogenous, boring societies. But ask anyone who doesn't fit in, and it's often a living nightmare. That's not what I consider social skill.
To reach social skill, we need to begin exploring and accepting each other not as people like us but as people different from ourselves while realizing that is good and valuable, not scary.
