Interesting, things keep popping up on PBS (wish I could remember the titles). One of the last ones was that, rather than cooperation with hunting, language arose with cooperation among women with child rearing and daily activities. It involved biological evidence which I don’t remember (of course) but it makes sense. Male chimps hunt cooperatively. If you think about it, success in a hunt rather relies on not running your mouth…

Another program suggested something along the lines of group singing.

Personally, it seems to me that we don’t really know if some animals have a kind of protolanguage.

Anyway, I’m finding it difficult to type with my flippers today, so I’m outta here, you animals! As we say in the bay, So long and thanks for all the fish!

While I’m on the subject of language and evolution, I’d like to throw out the name of Derek Bickerton. His theses was that language evolved due to pressures for cooperation in group hunting. Adam’s Tongue is the book that sets it forth.

http://chris-winter.com/Erudition/Reviews/Anthropo/Bickerton_D/Adam's_Tongue.html

Thoughts?

I’ve not read Wolfe’s evolution/Chomsky book, but it seems like it was the very superficial “get off my lawn” ranting of an old man.

Some have taken that book as evidence that his prior work must be bad as well. That idea, held by some otherwise respectable people, is of course bullshit.

He was a brilliant observer of modern American culture. I say this with a certain expertise as a trained anthropologist. He apparently went off the rails in his later life, or perhaps he simply never should have engaged in fields that far outside his own.

Having said that, don’t worship Chomsky. Certain aspects of his work are very worthy of criticism. But, it may be that if Wolfe got some of that right, he may have done so as a proverbial stopped clock.

I agree; that’s a very convincing takedown of Wolfe’s book.

Nice:::::trying to use a Wolfe technique here, but I forgot it’s purpose.

As noted, I thought “Man in Full” was not his best work, but it did keep me reading to the end. I just couldn’t get interested in either of the two main characters.

He did have an amazing way with words though. I find it interesting that Wolfe was a supporter of the second President Bush, and that Bush was a big fan of his, claiming to have read all of Wolfe’s books (a claim I have no reason to doubt).

I’ve also read A Man in Full. It’s a long book, but I enjoyed it — especially the part about the stoic in prison. I think the parts about the rich real-estate guy must have resembled elements of Bonfire, and that character probably was patterned on someone we know too well today.