Human Advancement in Language
"As part of the evolutionary genesis of species, human beings share the physical and even emotional traits of their animal cousins. However, human behavior is in most areas quite different from other primate behavior. It is the uniqueness of human behavior that intrigued and fascinated Ernest Becker. Drawing on a broad range of investigations and writings, Becker pointed toward human language as that which qualitatively sets human thought and behavior apart from other primate behavior.
We do not have concrete knowledge of when language developed among that peculiar ape species from which human beings have descended. Nor are we able to adjudicate decisively between the various theories for how this development took place. But we are sure of the fact that with the development of language, human self consciousness was made possible, replacing instinctual stimulus-response behavior. This is what is, in essence, distinctive about human behavior and human existence.
Becker dwelled at length on this development.(6) He repeatedly suggested, in a way that somewhat reifies the evolutionary process, that this development of individual self consciousness in one species is a great experimental leap forward by the evolutionary process itself. This development of self consciousness in one species Becker presents as the first really great revolution in evolution; that is, where something qualitatively new came into existence.(7)
The history of the human species is a story describing the steady outworking of this great evolutionary experiment in self consciousness, an experiment that gave to human beings the real possibility of rising above the constrictions of nature itself. But the very gift of human subjectivity contained within it its own special constrictions. While the development of language and symbolic expression allowed for conscious cooperative efforts among human beings far beyond that of any other species, this also created in human beings a peculiar kind of socialization into group behavior.
The subjectivity and sense of self which each individual achieved is dictated directly by the cultural symbol system into which that individual is born.(8) Each person gains a sense of well being by automatic and uncritical performance within that cultural symbol system. In short, by our upbringing and entrance into the social environment, we are symbolically "reinstinctivized" within a particular world view.(9) The individual sense of self, of nature, of morality, are all imparted in a reflexive and uncritical manner by the human environment. It is as if the evolutionary process raised the human individual up from the other animals, only to quickly and quietly tuck him right back down again, as solidly and firmly as before."
Understanding this about ourselves safeguards us from the unquestioned mental abductions of childhood thus setting your mind free to work on its own apart from what you've been "converted to" by your environment. This could assure you the ability to really think on your own for the first time. Though it may be seem scary, it remains necessary, in my mind, for full mental potentiation of human thought, thus human living. J.M.
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