Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
You sure about this? I mean, presumable the Dobe have language?!
Pretentious Crap
- Thread starter josef k.
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You sure about this? I mean, presumable the Dobe have language?!
indeed. and a super cool sounding one it is
-- one a them click languages. (i want a name like that) but not sure about the written for the Dobe.the Dobe's lifestyle largely resembles the way humans have lived for the majority of our time on earth, but remember it is still a remnant of the "original affluence" in the modern age, and i'm sure a lot of changes have occured with them, albeit much less than with us, in the past 10 thousand years.
i don't pretend to be an expert, but the following is how i see it:
as is with pretty much everything in this field, what is important is the bigger, often fuzzy, picture: when people say language is power, naming is control, knowledge is domination, and when it is postulated that the rise of hierarchy and centralized government had a lot to do with the advent of language, it should be taken as a rough thesis, and not black or white. keep in mind these changes in social organization occurred during the course of thousands of years, and not everywhere at the same time or in the same way. thus probably in some ethnic groups and geographic regions, language was indeed a completely new technology that came with the rise of the shaman; and in others, had already existed in some form or other, and only developed a certain way with agriculture and division of labor, or simply began to be used in new, unprecedented ways.
and Tea, this should sit well with your anti-religion sentiments: according to this view, religion as institutionalized spirituality from the beginning was a form of social control...
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
'Civilisation' came about once (or soon as) people were able to establish managed foraging systems ie. once they had the brain power to plan ahead.
Surely full-blown language isn't needed to create hierarchical social structures - just take a peek at our boilable little cousins, the ants.
Surely full-blown language isn't needed to create hierarchical social structures - just take a peek at our boilable little cousins, the ants.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
OK, I see what you're saying - but I think most evolutionary linguists and neurologists these days would probably agree that language is inherent to all human groups and all kinds of society, possibly because it predates even the appearance of anatomically modern humans (can anyone on here back this up? I admit it's kind of a hunch..). I'm not an expert either, of course, but I wouldn't mind betting there are whole areas of the human brain pretty much dedicated to language, which aren't found (or are much smaller and more primitive) in the other surviving great apes. And while brains don't last very long after death, skulls do, and the comparable cranial capacity of Neanderthals (who these days are thought not to have contributed to the modern human genome) and Cro-Magnons (who, on the other hand, are thought to have formed much of the ancestry of modern Europeans) suggests they probably had language too. In fact Cro-Mag skulls are slightly bigger than most modern human skulls. Also I think read somewhere about discoveries at Neanderthal grave sites that show a quite sophisticated funerary culture, something it's difficult to imagine developing without language.
This links to my second point, which is that while everyone's ancestors lived in Africa if you back far enough, people have lived outside of Africa for a very long time too. Not everywhere on Earth has a warm climate, and there have been ice ages and dry periods and various kinds of climatic upsets that probably put it on shaky ground, to say the least, to just blithely say "The Dobe live like our ancestors have always lived". They might live like how their own ancestors lived, but life in Europe 10,000 years ago may have been a lot less forgiving than life in the Dobe's homeland 10,000 years ago, or in that area today. For example there are many finds in Europe that show evidence not just for violence but for cannibalism, as long ago as the upper palaeolithic (which presumably predates even the emergence of tribal societies in Fischer's scheme).
Basically, I think there's no more reason to assume that any two 'primitive' or 'ancient' cultures are necessarily very similar than there is to assume that the cultures of (say) the US, Japan, Greece and Norway are necessarily similar because they're all 'developed countries'. So on the one hand, there were tribes encountered by the first English explorers in what's now Virginia in the 16th century, who were so peaceful and cooperative the explorers thought they'd landed in a modern-day Eden: on the other hand, dudes in Borneo who eat each other.
This links to my second point, which is that while everyone's ancestors lived in Africa if you back far enough, people have lived outside of Africa for a very long time too. Not everywhere on Earth has a warm climate, and there have been ice ages and dry periods and various kinds of climatic upsets that probably put it on shaky ground, to say the least, to just blithely say "The Dobe live like our ancestors have always lived". They might live like how their own ancestors lived, but life in Europe 10,000 years ago may have been a lot less forgiving than life in the Dobe's homeland 10,000 years ago, or in that area today. For example there are many finds in Europe that show evidence not just for violence but for cannibalism, as long ago as the upper palaeolithic (which presumably predates even the emergence of tribal societies in Fischer's scheme).
Basically, I think there's no more reason to assume that any two 'primitive' or 'ancient' cultures are necessarily very similar than there is to assume that the cultures of (say) the US, Japan, Greece and Norway are necessarily similar because they're all 'developed countries'. So on the one hand, there were tribes encountered by the first English explorers in what's now Virginia in the 16th century, who were so peaceful and cooperative the explorers thought they'd landed in a modern-day Eden: on the other hand, dudes in Borneo who eat each other.
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there exists evidence which point to the contrary, some of which touched on by Tea above: that our brain power existed for a very, very long period (500,000 to 4 million years), prior to the advent of "civilization".
comparing primate behaviro to insects is far fetched. they're not really our "cousins" are they? the idea that centralized government, or any government at all, is somehow "natural" because it exists in ant society is absurd -- there are also many characteristics of ant society which do not exist in ours, what about those?
the thing is, how ever counter intuitive it might SEEM to us who know no other life style other than "civilization", is that hierarchy as we know it most likely did not exist for the majority of human history.
but it's stupid to keep repeating these points. Mixed, can you please listen to the lecture and then respond to that, so we are on the same page and i don't have to play the broken record? thanks.
good stuff Tea. indeed, the brain capacity of "early man", we are discovering with each archaelogical expidition it seems, is bigger than previously thought.
the relationship between language and civilization, its initial functions and evolution, the role that language plays in the organization of life through out pre-history and history -- needless to say is a topic which scholars devote entire lifetimes to............
different climates and different ways of life in different geographic regions is also a very good point: surely there existed much more diversity than uniformity.
just one thing though: we are not talking about 10,000 years ago, but a period starting from 500,000 or 4 million years ago, and ending with the rise of "civilization"/10,000 years ago. so while keeping in mind the diversity that must have thrived, it is also plausible that conditions all over the earth prior to the last "little ice age" was much better than they are today.
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This article seems pertinent:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=404341&c=1
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=404341&c=1
interesting article, although totally biased toward the evolutionary side.
i agree with the suggestions for social anthropologists mentioned such as:
"they must accept that biological differences have an impact on the development of society" and "stop caricaturing evolutionary anthropology; and break down those misperceptions that everything evolutionary implies genetic determinism."
but at the same time, i would say to the evolutionary side whose view seems rigid and myopic, not to underestimate, for instance, the extent to which the culture we live in can shape our thoughts and influence the way we look and study.
i would say to the evolutionary side that the "scientific objectivity" that they prize so much is not so objective or neutral upon closer inspection, and that it is tainted by the world which they live in.
D
droid
Guest
I heard a lecture from an evolutionary biologist recently who stated that the human throat only gained the capability to articulate about 90,000 years ago.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Hmm, a quick Wiki would seem to suggest that there's good evidence for Neanderthals being able to talk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Language
Neanderthals only died out about 30,000 years ago but it looks like their line diverged from that of modern humans something like half a million years ago. It also seems there's still some controversy over whether neanderthals and H. sapiens interbred, with some researchers saying they didn't so much die out as reach extinction through absorption (as is happening to dingos in Australia, through interbreeding with other dogs).
Anyway, I've hit the grand milestone of 6,000 posts so I'm going be offline for a bit while I look for a job. See you guys in a few months, I hope.
Edit (so as not to ruin the nice round 6,000): cheers swears, you're right, it's hardly ideal but we'll see. Ta-ta for now.
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swears
preppy-kei
Good luck, Tea. Unfortunately not the best time to be looking for a job, is it? See ya around.
gotta make like salmon and fight those currents to make your way upstream... just watch out for the bears!
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
What the fuck are you talking about?
Question your own sanity. You don't have a clue what you're talking about, and this post, like so many of yours, attests to this.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
indeed. and a super cool sounding one it is
the Dobe's lifestyle largely resembles the way humans have lived for the majority of our time on earth, but remember it is still a remnant of the "original affluence" in the modern age, and i'm sure a lot of changes have occured with them, albeit much less than with us, in the past 10 thousand years.
i don't pretend to be an expert, but the following is how i see it:
as is with pretty much everything in this field, what is important is the bigger, often fuzzy, picture: when people say language is power, naming is control, knowledge is domination, and when it is postulated that the rise of hierarchy and centralized government had a lot to do with the advent of language, it should be taken as a rough thesis, and not black or white. keep in mind these changes in social organization occurred during the course of thousands of years, and not everywhere at the same time or in the same way. thus probably in some ethnic groups and geographic regions, language was indeed a completely new technology that came with the rise of the shaman; and in others, had already existed in some form or other, and only developed a certain way with agriculture and division of labor, or simply began to be used in new, unprecedented ways.
and Tea, this should sit well with your anti-religion sentiments: according to this view, religion as institutionalized spirituality from the beginning was a form of social control...
I have rarely in my life met someone who is so lacking in information yet so certain of their own status as "enlightened"...
It's half amusing.
"It should be taken as a rough thesis"...huh?
Anthropology is a science. It does not work according to rough theses. You cannot make statements because you like how they sound, then point to ONE culture like the Dobe, and expect them to be "proof" of an entire ideologically-driven postulate regarding the origin of hierarchy in language.
This is just plain stupid. There's nothing scientific about anything you're saying. Nothing.
And you still haven't posted that pdf, presumably because Fischer didn't write it at all. I can't find it anywhere online. I can't find any references to it.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Excellent post. Good luck with the job hunting... find a head-hunter if you can, they make it easy...
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Geneticists are well-aware that environment plays a huge role in the expression of phenotypes.
Again, you are talking out of your ass.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
You keep going back to the lecture as if it somehow proves everything you're saying, but it doesn't even touch on language and its role in "hierarchies", it doesn't even mention language. Frankly, it's obvious and rather insulting to Fischer's work that you're adding dimensions to what Fischer says in the lecture that have little to nothing to do with what is being presented as factual.
Perhaps he makes different claims elsewhere, but to act as if simply listening to a lecture about bands that is based on a (widely criticised, as Fischer admits) four-pronged typological model of human civilization is going to make Mixed_Biscuits suddenly think that you're making sense when you say these things about violence, hierarchy, and language--it's absurd.
nomad, calm down. breathe: in.... out....
that language stuff is my own. i never said it came from fischer.
well it's not exactly my own, "knowledge is power, language is control" is indeed a rough abreviation of a rough thesis many through out history have postulated, among them are Michel Foucault, the Christian Bible, Leonard Shlain, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
and where i said about social anthropologists:
"they must accept that biological differences ...."
i was certainly not talking out of my ass. you know how i can be certain? because that's not even me talking. if you were breathing when you read my post, instead of turning blue and shaking with rage at some perceived cut to your huge yet super fragile ego, you would have realized that it was a direct quote from that article Josef linked to.
Nomad, your repeated condescension and dismissal of my position as "made up by new age morons" have indeed been proven, by Fischer, to be unfounded. not because what he says is necessarily true, but that he is a reputable anthropologist, and affirms most if not all of what i have been saying. (and here is that PDF of the entire course outline. it's all pretty interesting.)
so the fact that i do not demand an apology from you, stubborn little girl, is because i am not petty like that, and have bigger things to think about than a snot nosed toddler running around throwing tantrums. hope you grow up some day.
that language stuff is my own. i never said it came from fischer.
well it's not exactly my own, "knowledge is power, language is control" is indeed a rough abreviation of a rough thesis many through out history have postulated, among them are Michel Foucault, the Christian Bible, Leonard Shlain, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
and where i said about social anthropologists:
"they must accept that biological differences ...."
i was certainly not talking out of my ass. you know how i can be certain? because that's not even me talking. if you were breathing when you read my post, instead of turning blue and shaking with rage at some perceived cut to your huge yet super fragile ego, you would have realized that it was a direct quote from that article Josef linked to.
Nomad, your repeated condescension and dismissal of my position as "made up by new age morons" have indeed been proven, by Fischer, to be unfounded. not because what he says is necessarily true, but that he is a reputable anthropologist, and affirms most if not all of what i have been saying. (and here is that PDF of the entire course outline. it's all pretty interesting.)
so the fact that i do not demand an apology from you, stubborn little girl, is because i am not petty like that, and have bigger things to think about than a snot nosed toddler running around throwing tantrums. hope you grow up some day.
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Oh dear. We have returned to the madness.
The only thing I'd like to add is that: the claims of science need to be questioned. Not from any kind of mad, fundamentalist faith perspective, but rather from the point of view that the kind of theoretical knowledge which (techno-)science offers is in many ways incomplete, and in certain ways quite superficial. The definition of anthropology as a science is problematic, despite what Levi-Strauss thought he could do with the logic of communication.
The only thing I'd like to add is that: the claims of science need to be questioned. Not from any kind of mad, fundamentalist faith perspective, but rather from the point of view that the kind of theoretical knowledge which (techno-)science offers is in many ways incomplete, and in certain ways quite superficial. The definition of anthropology as a science is problematic, despite what Levi-Strauss thought he could do with the logic of communication.