Engels: Much more important is the direct, demonstrable influence of the development of the hand on the rest of the organism. It has already been noted that our simian ancestors were gregarious; it is obviously impossible to seek the derivation of man, the most social of all animals, from non-gregarious immediate ancestors. Mastery over nature began with the development of the hand, with labour,
(((((((( CB: Engels seems to be defining labour as only that done with hands. A hunter tracks his prey for long distances. The legs play a big part in this labour. Humans can trot long distances and wear out their prey. This comes with upright posture too. But the main problem is that , as Marx notes, what is distinct in human labor is imagining and planning. This comes with language and culture, symbolic thinking. ^^^^^ and widened man’s horizon at every new advance. He was continually discovering new, hitherto unknown properties in natural objects. ^^^^^ CB: Here Engels has a little piece of Levi-Strauss' _The Savage Mind_. This discovery was , of course, done mainly with the brain, not the hand. The ability to classify and remember large amounts of information which language gives is critical in _retaining_ these discoveries over many generations. ^^^^^ On the other hand (Pun intended -CB) , the development of labour necessarily helped to bring the members of society closer together by increasing cases of mutual support and joint activity, and by making clear the advantage of this joint activity to each individual. ^^^^^ CB: Well , lets get dialectical and talk of reciprocal causation. The development of labor in the transition from ape to man _was_ its becoming highly social labor. How did laboring with hands more make people come together more, make it more social ? There is no evident reason that laboring with hands more causes it to be more social. No. The increased sociality of labor comes from the inherent sociality in language-culture-tradition-symboling mediating labor, not from using hands more. Recall that _language_ is not just speech. It is ,as CJ points ( gestures) out, gesturing ( I would say with more body parts than the hands , upper body); it is use of stones , sticks, object trouve-found objects of all types, both movable (animals; totemism; clans were named for animal species) and stationary ( sun, moon, stars, mountains, bolders. special trees like in "Avatar" ) , every_thing_ in the landas concrete lexical items in a language of the concrete. ^^^^^^^ In short, men in the making arrived at the point where they had something to say to each other. ^^^^^ CB: Coming to "say" something to each other , to symbolize to each other in many media not just talking, _was_ the essence of men in the making. ^^^^^^^ Necessity created the organ; the undeveloped larynx of the ape was slowly but surely transformed by modulation to produce constantly more developed modulation, and the organs of the mouth gradually learned to pronounce one articulate sound after another. ^^^^ CB: Articulate speech is not the beginning of language and symboling. ^^^^^ Comparison with animals proves that this explanation of the origin of language from and in the process of labour is the only correct one. The little that even the most highly-developed animals need to communicate to each other does not require articulate speech. ^^^^^ CB: _Human_ labor becomes human labor , becomes distinguished from the labor of bees and spiders, in that it is organized by language. It inherently includes knowledge of the labors of dead generations of humans. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
