Tresy Kilbourne wrote:

>> The why of it seems obvious. Language is clearly a great advantage for
>> passing knowledge not only between contemporaries, but from generation
>> to generation. Passing knowledge to the next generation is what we think
>> of as "culture". The better humans are able to do this, the better the
>> survival chances of their next generation.
>
>Well, if the answer is obvious, then Calvin and Bickerton really wasted
>their time, didn't they?

I don't know who they are Tresy. But I'll take your word for it if you say
they missed the obvious.

> I will wait until I have read what they have to say
>first, before responding at any length, but my expectation is that I will
>find something on the order of: it's a bootstrap problem. You assume the
>knowledge to be passed on, but that knowledge is only possible as a result
>of the language that it serves.

Are you harking back to the "how" of language development? I wasn't.

> Apparently no one has a problem explaining
>"proto-language", which is what you are alluding to in your reference to
>other animals, but there's a discontinuity in cortical complexity between
>"mammoth, kill" and "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain." And it's
>that second-order rise in complexity that has stumped everyone (except
>you, apparently) from Chomsky on.

Well, not exactly. I wasn't trying to claim that I understood the "how" of
the evolutionary process that lead to the development of language capacity.
I was merely talking about the "why". It seems to me that the ability to
build knowledge incrementally generation by generation is a fantastic
evolutionary advantage. Sure glad we beat the cockroaches to it anyhow. ;-)

The "how" is something I haven't explored in my mind. I'm more of a "why"
sort of bloke, in fact I have a great deal of trouble comprehending that
anyone would *not* ask "why", as someone  suggested Chomsky did. It seems
to me that if you don't understand why, then you don't understand anything
at all. The "how" is for mere engineers to be curious about.
>
>> If the tribe survived, then the genetic heritage of every individual member
>> of the tribe would survive.
>
>But if the individual can gain an extra advantage by taking advantage of the
>society that shelters him, while refraining from contributing to it, he will
>get the best of both worlds.

So? Evolution doesn't concern itself with morality, an individual may gain
an advantage, but evolution takes a longer view. Does the society as a
whole benefit from the way work is shared *in the long run* is the only
thing that matters. Now clearly the ruling class of recent human society
have gained an extra advantage from freeloading on the society that shelter
them. But as I explained, society as a whole gained more than it cost *in
the long run*.

The likes of Thomas Jefferson was something of a "freeloader", as a
slave-owner he was able to live a life of security and leisure from the
fruits others' labour. But that security and leisure was put to good use,
in developing his intellectual capacity. Maybe it would have been more
noble for him to have spent his days sharing the grinding labour in the
field, instead of reading and writing. But if everyone had done that we
would all of us still be toiling in the fields from sunup to sunset. There
would have been little progress. Social evolution has smiled on the
societies that gave a little leeway to "freeloaders".

> Evolution is blind; it doesn't care about the
>genetic consequences of any but the genes of the person procreating--and to
>a lesser extent those of kith and kin--but that's a consequence of the
>former imperative, not an exception to it. [...] To start invoking the
>"greater
>good of the tribe" is to misunderstand Darwinian first principles.

The good of the individual is also the good of the tribe, not just the
other way around. I don't think you have understood me at all, I wasn't
invoking any noble "greater good" concept.

[...]

>> it was *not* in the interests of an
>> individual to "freeload", in fact this rather peculiar north American
>> obsession ignores the fact that very many of the great social, cultural and
>> scientific advancements of human history have been a result of what the
>> yanks would call "freeloaders".
>
>Oh let's not generate ethnic strife over this, OK? There's enough of that
>already

Well, "freeloader" is a yankee expression.

>. Derek Bickerton is a Brit, and I am quite confident

I'm sure you are. But your confidence is not evidence and being a Brit
doesn't inspire confidence. The concept of the "freeloader" was invented by
them (as the "undeserving poor"), with the Elizabethan Poor Laws back at
the dawn of the capitalist age. The Puritans brought it to America with
them and their culture has managed to survive in that fertile land (despite
their oddities) long after it died out elsewhere. Unfortunately.

>the freeloader
>problem is a concern widely shared by cultural anthropologists and
>evolutionary biologists of all backgrounds.

Of course biologists are no more qualified to speak on the subject than I.
Though I believe the Nazis did have a few who thought they were. I'm afraid
I'm not well read in anthropology, but I doubt the obsession is as
widespread as you believe. But who cares what any such "authorities" think?
It is what *we* think that matters, it is the actual logical arguments that
count, not who can be quoted in support of your argument. Your authorities
impress me not one bit, because I am an ignoramus who has never heard of
aby of them before in my life.
>
>
>But why speculate? Check out Pinker's synopsis of the research in this area.
>You will find that cooperative cultures share some disappointing
>similarities from a libertarian socialist point of view.

I don't think it is fair to judge early human societies from a libertarian
socialist point of view.
>
>First, they are all cultures of scarcity. That is, the environment is such
>that the individual cannot be assured of a regular source of food and
>shelter on his or her own. It's feast or (more often famine). Consequently
>these cultures rely on a Three Musketeers value system as a way of bridging
>the gap between rainy days. You feed me today, I feed you tomrrow, and he
>feeds both of us the day after.

You make an interesting point. Of course the material conditions faced by
all ancient societies were scarcity to some degree or another. That is why
we can't judge them from the perspective of libertarian socialism, which is
predicated on the material possible existing to end scarcity.
>
>The reason this is disappointing is that it suggests that a culture of
>plenty undermines values of solidarity.

I'm afraid I don't follow your train of logic. Are you implying that modern
capitalist society is a "culture of plenty"? Poverty, insecurity and want
is the culture of modern capitalism. Certainly there is now the material
*possibility* to end that state of affairs, but that can never happen under
a capitalist system, capitalism depends on scarcity to grease the wheels of
the "free market", so scarcity has to be artificially maintained (at
terrible social cost) to protect the economic system.

For you to suggest that the artificially imposed scarcity of the modern
capitalist economy is a "culture of plenty" leaves me (almost) speechless.
To then use this absurd assumption as the basis for  concluding that the
lack of solidarity in said capitalist society proves that a culture of
plently undermines solidarity, is absolutely breath-taking!

> You can go ahead and beat up on the
>US as a case in point; I would agree.

I'm afraid the US does not come to mind as an example of a "culture of
plenty". The thought would not have occurred to me. Scenes of people
begging in the street is what visitors to your country that I have talked
to most often remark on.
>
>Second, the more "cooperative" the society, the more elaborate the cultural
>precautions against freeloading.

I think you might be getting your concepts mixed up again. Do you actually
mean that the more *competitive* the society, the more elaborate the
precautions against freeloading. Modern capitalism, the US in particular,
is the most competitive society to ever exist, I believe the precautions
against the "undeserving poor" being allowed to escape from artificial
scarcity are particularly elaborate in the US.
There are good reasons for this of course, capitalism depends on
competition between the working class to ensure that the labour "market"
can be exploited efficiently. Obviously if people (like those pesky
"freeloaders") just plain refuse to compete, the whole thing crumbles.

But if you are implying that lashing them into servitude with the threat of
starvation confers any advantage on the majority, you are a few sandwiches
short of a picnic. If it was not materially possible to supply everyone's
needs, then that would be so.  But the hunger of the "freeloader" no longer
means more bread for the rest, because there is plenty for all.  Such
material conditions are a thing of the past, scarcity is no longer
inevitable, so competition for the necessities of life is no longer
necessary, except to maintain a redundant economic system.

We *could* all eat our fill, except for the awkward fact that this would
topple capitalism, which depends on scarcity to fire the flames of
competition. So millions of "freeloaders" throughout the world must starve
to protect the system.

> There are extremely subtle, but nonetheless
>strictly enforced rules built into these systems to allow the "cooperation"
>to maintain the tribe without allowing the system to collapse into
>freeloaderism. I would go pick up my copy of "The Way the Mind Works" and
>give you a flavor of the way what I would call The Wimpy Syndrome ("For a
>burger today, I will glady pay you Tuesday") lurks just outside the potlatch
>door, but then you'd be freeloading. :)

I'm afraid I have now idea what you are talking about here, not having ever
heard of these books. I have heard of "Wimpy" hamburgers though, I
eventually got that one. Took awhile though. ;-)

Anyhow, I am now certain you are using terms like "co-operation" and
"scarcity" in a way which implies the opposite of their actual definitions.
This is making discussion rather difficult, so please refrain. I know I
said that co-operation is what all human societies are about, but I meant
it in the broad sense. I didn't mean it in the Orwellian sense of
"competition is co-operation".
>
>The combined impression one gets (or, at least I get) from reading Pinker's
>accounts of these cultures is actually quite depressing. These are not
>cultures that freely choose the way of life they live, but who have it
>thrust upon them, and who make the best of it they can.

Sure. They make the best of the prevailing material possibilities. Nothing
noble about being a savage. I do think it is somewhat telling that they
manage to appear quite a bit more noble than we do though, despite the
material possibilities being far more favourable for us.

Who's Pinker anyhow?

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell tas

"A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is
to be the law of the future as it has been of the past."
LEWIS HENRY MORGAN (19th century American anthropologist)