Spanish Pa
Mon, Jan-15-07, 06:16
"Every educated person since Darwin has labelled himself an
'evolutionist'. But a real evolutionist must apply the idea of
evolution to his own forms of thinking. Elementary logic,
founded in the period when the idea of evolution did not yet
exist, is evidently insufficient for the analysis of
evolutionary processes. Hegel's logic is the logic of
evolution. Only one must not forget that the concept of
'evolution' itself has been completely corrupted and
emasculated by university professors and liberal writers to
mean peaceful 'progress'. Whoever has come to understand that
evolution proceeds through the struggle of antagonistic
forces; that a slow accumulation of changes at a certain
moment explodes the old shell and brings about a catastrophe,
revolution; whoever has learned finally to apply the general
laws of evolution to thinking itself, he is a dialectician, as
distinguished from vulgar evolutionists" Leon Trotsky, In
Defence of Marxism
Until the 1980s, ideas about human origins were for the most
part gradualist. It was believed that a recognisably human
lifestyle began emerging some two to three million years ago,
in a drawn-out evolutionary process linked with the
establishment of bipedalism and tool-making. According to this
way of thinking, speech co-evolved with the making of simple
stone tools, becoming increasingly complex as technology
evolved. Art, ritual, the organisation of kinship and other
aspects of culture became more complex in the same
gradualistic, piecemeal way.
Such gradualism, although still defended, has recently become
a minority position. It is nowadays widely acknowledged that
those archaeologists who excavated early hominid sites in
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and saw the beginnings of "home
bases", "language" and "a sexual division of labour" among
these bipedal toolmakers were projecting assumptions and
stereotypes derived from modern culture onto the distant past.
Over the past two decades, there has been a revolution in
archaeology and palaeontology, leading to the view that the
earliest tool-makers, while more intelligent than apes, were
involved in essentially primate-style social and reproductive
relationships. Admittedly, humans were co-operatively hunting
large game animals by at least 500,000 years ago. But
archaeologists have found no evidence for art, ritual or
other "symbolic" behaviour at such early dates. Most
archaeologists are now agreed that even large-brained humans
such as the Neanderthals were not leading a recognisably
human or "hunter-gatherer" lifestyle. The dominant view is
that anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa around
130,000 years ago and then, some 60,000 years later, rather
suddenly spread across the world in an explosive process
known as the "human revolution". It was during the earliest
stages of this revolutionary process that symbolic art,
ritual and language emerged.
by Chris Knight
http://dreamflesh.com/essays/societyorigins/
'evolutionist'. But a real evolutionist must apply the idea of
evolution to his own forms of thinking. Elementary logic,
founded in the period when the idea of evolution did not yet
exist, is evidently insufficient for the analysis of
evolutionary processes. Hegel's logic is the logic of
evolution. Only one must not forget that the concept of
'evolution' itself has been completely corrupted and
emasculated by university professors and liberal writers to
mean peaceful 'progress'. Whoever has come to understand that
evolution proceeds through the struggle of antagonistic
forces; that a slow accumulation of changes at a certain
moment explodes the old shell and brings about a catastrophe,
revolution; whoever has learned finally to apply the general
laws of evolution to thinking itself, he is a dialectician, as
distinguished from vulgar evolutionists" Leon Trotsky, In
Defence of Marxism
Until the 1980s, ideas about human origins were for the most
part gradualist. It was believed that a recognisably human
lifestyle began emerging some two to three million years ago,
in a drawn-out evolutionary process linked with the
establishment of bipedalism and tool-making. According to this
way of thinking, speech co-evolved with the making of simple
stone tools, becoming increasingly complex as technology
evolved. Art, ritual, the organisation of kinship and other
aspects of culture became more complex in the same
gradualistic, piecemeal way.
Such gradualism, although still defended, has recently become
a minority position. It is nowadays widely acknowledged that
those archaeologists who excavated early hominid sites in
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and saw the beginnings of "home
bases", "language" and "a sexual division of labour" among
these bipedal toolmakers were projecting assumptions and
stereotypes derived from modern culture onto the distant past.
Over the past two decades, there has been a revolution in
archaeology and palaeontology, leading to the view that the
earliest tool-makers, while more intelligent than apes, were
involved in essentially primate-style social and reproductive
relationships. Admittedly, humans were co-operatively hunting
large game animals by at least 500,000 years ago. But
archaeologists have found no evidence for art, ritual or
other "symbolic" behaviour at such early dates. Most
archaeologists are now agreed that even large-brained humans
such as the Neanderthals were not leading a recognisably
human or "hunter-gatherer" lifestyle. The dominant view is
that anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa around
130,000 years ago and then, some 60,000 years later, rather
suddenly spread across the world in an explosive process
known as the "human revolution". It was during the earliest
stages of this revolutionary process that symbolic art,
ritual and language emerged.
by Chris Knight
http://dreamflesh.com/essays/societyorigins/