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News & ArtsWednesday, February 3, 2010
Science Grooming and the Human House of Language
Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 12:45 PM
When I came across this image...
Apes and monkeys, humanity's closest kin, differ from other animals in the intensity of these relationships. All their grooming is not so much about hygiene as it is about cementing bonds, making friends, and influencing fellow primates. But for early humans, grooming as a way to social success posed a problem: given their large social groups of 150 or so, our earliest ancestors would have had to spend almost half their time grooming one another—an impossible burden. What Dunbar suggests—and his research, whether in the realm of primatology or in that of gossip, confirms—is that humans developed language to serve the same purpose, but far more efficiently.Let's turn our attention to the famous hate Heidegger had for chatter. He thought it was so pointless, such a solid waste of time, soul-crushing, and inauthentic. For the peasant of the Black Forest, a state of authenticity could only be achieved with the kind of heavy talk that confronts important truths and serious spiritual matters. But now we are beginning to see this other truth, this strong possibility: chatter is not just about chatter but also about grooming--"cementing social bonds."
[L]anguage in fact evolved in response to our need to keep up to date with friends and family. We needed conversation to stay in touch, and we still need it in ways that will not be satisfied by teleconferencing, email, or any other communication technology.Heidegger is famous for his turn from ontology to language. The peasant of the Black Forest even claimed that "language is the house being." If only he lived long enough to see that the foundation of his mystical house might very well be this grooming business beloved by baboons.
Image by Sookie.
1
Plus he was a dirty bugger who could think you under the table. While Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.
2
I've always hated the notion that "Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people." I speculate that a great deal -- maybe most -- of human discourse is about other humans.
3
When I came across this image, I thought "Look at the titties on the girl in the brown shirt!" Then I realized she had her arms tucked in there and died a little on the inside.
5
Oh, but Heidegger gives me such a headache. I mean, I'm an introvert and all, but I'll take chatter any day over this:
Or:
What is spoken purely is that in which the completion of the speaking that is proper to what is spoken is, in its turn, an original.
Or:
This gathering, assembling, letting-stay is the thinging of things. The unitary fourfold of sky and earth, mortals and divinities, which is stayed in the thinging of things, we call--the world. In the naming, the things named are called into their thinging. Thinging, they unfold world, in which things abide and so are the abiding ones. By thinging, things carry out world.
6
I've always felt that fleas, lice, bedbugs, etc. should be viewed not as disgusting pests, but as opportunities to cement social bonds.
7
Maybe language started out as a grooming substitute and a means to convey "look out, a leopard is coming!" and then evolved into something more.
8
OMG did you read that? 'Chatting helps bonding' !!!
Duh. I don't think there was need to cite Heidegger for that.
Duh. I don't think there was need to cite Heidegger for that.
9
And grooming can so break down foregrounding itself like a broken hammer. One need only visit a mall to see how pervasive this failure of grooming actually is.
I wonder how man people have set off on the forrest path towards a more authentic way fo being becuase of a bad haircut.
I wonder how man people have set off on the forrest path towards a more authentic way fo being becuase of a bad haircut.
10
This might be nerd of me but I get really annoyed when people characterize evolution like this:
"humans developed language to serve the same purpose"
"humans developed language to serve the same purpose"
12
@5 - I've read that first snippet ten times now, and I have no idea what is being said. Only original speech in a given context is pure? I don't think that covers the "in its turn" clause.
This guy may be a great thinker, but he's a horrible writer.
This guy may be a great thinker, but he's a horrible writer.
13
Yup -- he's talking about poetry, so you've basically grasped his meaning, but what a nightmare of a sentence he uses to convey it. It's a shame, too, because the ideas in the essay that's from, "Language," are brilliant, but it's almost too painful to read.
15
Yes, he was a member of the Nazi Party, but that shouldn't keep people from reading his work. There's still debate about whether his politics were reflected in his philosophy. There is no debate that he was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century.
The primary ideology expressed in "Language" is Christianity, not National Socialism.
The primary ideology expressed in "Language" is Christianity, not National Socialism.
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