Wolf posits they're all wrong, that evolution ceased when man learned language and further that evolution ceased for the animals as well. He fills out his theory very nicely by setting each proponent for the main things we think, or in their place and their time.
Chief among his argument are demonstrations of sensory deprivation in which subjects begin hallucinating within hours. Also he places emphasis on status. Wolf describes how status is defined depending on the group one finds oneself, and how status actually determines physical evolution, that is, speech determines evolution, and not evolution creating speech. Wolf cites Noam Chomsky addressing the speech in animals. It doesn't exist. Chomsky maintains there is no sign that speech evolved from any form lower than man, there is no missing link to speech, there is absolutely nothing in any other animal to link up with.
Even before I left graduate school I had come to the conclusion that virtually all people live by what I think of as a "fiction-absolute." Each individual adopts a set of values which, if truly absolute in the world--so ordained by some almighty force--would make not that individual but his group . . . the best of all possible groups, the best of all inner circles. Politicians, the rich, the celebrated, become mere types. Does this apply to "the intellectuals" also? Oh, yes. . . perfectly, all too perfectly.Wolf describes brain studies that locate areas of the brain that control behavior. He is claiming our sense of self is entirely environmental, that removed from environment humanity ceases to exist. Wolf insists without language there is no culture no humanity at all. And Wolf claims evolution stopped when man began to speak.
Apparently this is creating buzz for a new non fiction book and from this intriguing contrary essay of his I'm interested but I do not see anything yet on his Amazon page.
Oh, Kingdom of Speech out in August.
Preorder Amazon, Kindle version.
17 comments:
Evolution is still taking place, but it happens so slowly that you never see it. For example, humans still have wisdom teeth even though their mouths and jaws have grown somewhat smaller because their food sources have changed over time, so this requires, for many wisdom tooth extraction. Conversely, there are people who are showing up without any wisdom teeth or very few at all. I'm an example of someone who only had two sets of lower wisdom teeth and never developed uppers. I know people who have had none. So evolution is still continuing.
Studies have shown that as some people become more and more open minded, portions of their brains go missing.
Also, as to teeth, and Wolf avoids this, they're getting smaller. The incisors are diminishing. Large-incisored jaws are evolutionary things of the past and horse-tooth faces like John Elway are atavistic.
I heard it on the teevee toob. But that was a color console, not even a flat screen. It wasn't even digital. Before the internet even, so you know, information evolved.
Wolf also uses Patti Hearst and Stockholm syndrome for support in his analysis about reality being environmental.
Patti snapped back. She didn't snap back to unreality, she snapped back to what is most solid.
How do I have a sense of self after transfusions. Those are BFDs, don't you think? It's not just a top off the tank, it's the life fluid of others coursing through you, now part of you, now you. After five, then eight, that's a lot of plastic bags. The process takes all day over a couple of packages of blood or whatever that liquid is. How in the world can there be any sense of self after every single cell is replaced? Especially like that. No me comprehendo le moi. Does each memory have to be rethought? No, I don't think I am product of my environment like that, the "hallucination" reported is too vague, no matter how cogent the sensory depravation demonstrations, even as the "environment" is self and having it's most personal fluids restored by other selves. Whatever their contribution my personality is still intact and in charge. My soured self still there dragging all its clanging tin cups along with it. I still want to read Tom Wolf's book. His essay is very good.
Who needs evolution? If you are not already perfect, you can see how to get there on YouTube.
If anything evolution is speeding up as the superbrights sort themselves out from the herd (that would be me) by exclusive mating (those stuck-up bastards) and siring bulbous brained offspring, the proverbial highbrows.
It's probably true that in the graduate school Wolfe attended the obsession with status was acute. Which skewed his view of the general run of humanity. Most ordinary people know they're average, at least after a short period of youthful illusion, and are not maddened by that knowledge, quite the contrary. They find their station and are relatively comfortable in it. The rage at the unfairness of it all is confined to those moths to the flame who yearn to be consumed but lack the correct fat content. In other words they aren't a juicy enough sacrifice!
I've read that someone is alive now that will live to be 200 years old. That's 135 years on social security and 112 in a diaper.
@ricpic:
"If anything evolution is speeding up as the superbrights sort themselves out from the herd...by exclusive mating..." --This certainly impacts social structure, but would only affect evolution if the superbrights are thereby enabled to have more offspring than the rest of the herd. From what I read, they're having fewer.
"It's probably true that in the graduate school Wolfe attended the obsession with status was acute. Which skewed his view of the general run of humanity." --Yeah, he really, really wants to believe modern Americans are as obsessed with status and status markers as are the characters in his beloved 19th-century novels. But we're not.
Interesting idea that speech would halt or arrest evolution.
Maybe they were on to something declaring lying a mayor deadly sin.
In my mind, the idea goes also furthers the proposition why Scalia's way with words was considered such a formidable threat to his detractors.
An arresting constitutional-evolution decision writer. bit of a mothmouth i just did there.
The idea may also explain why a good talking to, by an authority figure, has replaced corporal punishment as a way to encourage preferable character traits in early childhood.
Or, Am I stretching that too far?
You know what?
Instead of speculating so much, I should read the article linked to first.
Can you believe this?
I'm getting carded by the blog...
"Identify the images with street signs"
check on spammers i believe.
I agree about status. The USA has never been so socially equal because money and technology has made us more individualistic and cut off from each other than ever before.
Who do you look up to on the social scale? No one cares what Lord so-and-so says. No one has any respect for the elites - as elites.
I've heard that this wisdom tooth thing comes from the fact that the size of the jaw comes from one set of genes and the size of the teeth from another. In a heterogenous population such as ours, there are more impacted wisdom teeth than among people who marry their first cousins.........I think an IQ of eighty or ninety is all you really need to manage the ordinary problems of life. I wish the human race had evolved to be good looking or good natured rather than smart. Too many smart asses and not enough saints and supermodels.
@ Mumpsimus, rc: I think there aren't many 'regular' people who aspire to be among the crème de la crème, but among the 'regulars' there is much envy, jealousy, and hatred for what the other has. Be it cars, houses, children's attributes, etc., it's prevalent and strong.
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