The Primal Horde

Posted on July 8, 2007
Filed Under Language, Philosophy |

Reading this account of Williams syndrome (a genetic disability) in the NY Times & the light it sheds on the details of primate social evolution, especially language, I was struck by the fact that it does not differ all that much from Freud’s account of the dynamics of the “primal horde” at the beginning of Civilization & its Discontents.

“The conventional view,” Dunbar notes in his book “Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language,” “is that language evolved to enable males to do things like coordinate hunts more effectively. . . . I am suggesting that language evolved to allow us to gossip.”

Comments

One Response to “The Primal Horde”

  1. Robert on July 14th, 2007 1:54 pm

    Blogging, therefore, being the next logical evolutionary course for language as opposed, say, to VCR manuals.