aL xin's corner
Curriculum VitaeThis paper was written for GENED 1093: Evolving Morality.
Writing has been pivotal not because it is an open means of communication, but because it is exclusionary. Though Wright describes the inevitability of vertical dissemination of writing within a polity, the barriers to horizontal spread of language between groups are less easily broken. These limits, though, allow writing to drive group success.
A written language system holds key advantages over spoken word. It is concrete, allowing for information to be stored and accurately archived. It replicates quickly, especially as printing and transportation becomes available. It is a pre-requisite to advanced technology, allowing for new discoveries to build on previous work. Additionally, it enforces societal norms. Thus, successful, large-scale societies invariably develop writing and writing invariably spreads.
If writing is universally useful, why do we not have a universal system? More generally, why has humanity never standardized a language? This barrier between different groups creates a ceiling for humanity’s maximum potential to use information technology, despite Wright arguing for a trend toward more effective data flow.
This inconsistency is a trade-off to enhance group selection. Being unable to communicate with another group stabilizes internal connections. A group language incomprehensible to outsiders allows for covert strategy and hoarding of unique advantages. Solidifying spoken word into written word multiplies these effects. Print is even more exclusionary than spoken language because it requires more effort. While humans have evolved to specialize in complex speech, writing and reading is recent technology, not an instinct. Literacy requires a larger resource investment and active participation in an educational system. As such, it is a stronger representation of an insider’s involvement in society and excludes easy access from outsiders. Therefore, it is advantageous, especially when groups becomes large, to maintain a unique language.
Even though Wright argues that barriers to information access hinder progress, divisions in language serve humanity overall. Separate languages prevent establishment of monolithic cultures, which even Wright acknowledges cause stagnation. Differences like unusual grammar rules and wordplay trickle-up to different approaches to problem-solving and innovation. Furthermore, the view of language as a method of dividing groups is not completely incompatible with Wright’s predictions of rising information access. There have always been options to bridge the language barrier, from the Ancient Greeks to the Enlightenment to the Internet. But humans have consistently resorted to translation, not adoption, and the world becomes multilingual rather than monolingual. If the sole goal of language was communication, then mastery of more than one language would be redundant. But instead, it is important that communication delineates group boundaries and we may justify the effort of multiple language systems.
(Jan 2022). The writing quality is worse than I expected.