Having culture means we are the only animal that acquires the rules of its daily living from the accumulated knowledge of our ancestors, rather than from the genes they pass to us. Mark Pagel More Quotes by Mark Pagel More Quotes From Mark Pagel We willingly accept and even embrace this mind control, and probably without even knowing it. Mark Pagel embrace knowing mind Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait that natural selection has ever devised. It's a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people's minds. I'm talking about your language. Mark Pagel technology powerful talking It might be inevitable that we have to confront the idea that our destiny is to be one world with one language. Mark Pagel destiny motivation inspiration Language allows you to implant a thought from your mind directly into someone else's mind, and they can attempt to do the same to you, without either of you having to perform surgery. Mark Pagel language mind brain It is an emotion that makes us act as if for the good of the group; an emotion that brings pleasure, pride, or even thrills from coordinated group activity. Mark Pagel groups emotion pride No wonder the creationists don't believe the darwinian account. Mark Pagel dont-believe wonder believe I think the driving force for cultural evolution is this desire for groups to be splitting off and separating and forming subgroups insofar as the environment will allow it. We see great cultural diversity and large numbers of cultures per unit area in regions of the world in which the environment is really rich. Mark Pagel great rich diversity world Human cultural diversity is vast; the range of cultural practices, beliefs, and languages that we speak is vast. Mark Pagel beliefs human diversity speak Culture has worked by coming to exercise a form of mind control over us. We willingly accept and even embrace this mind control, and probably without even knowing it. Mark Pagel control mind exercise culture Natural selection has duped us with an emotion that encourages group thinking. It is an emotion that makes us act as if for the good of the group; an emotion that brings pleasure, pride, or even thrills from coordinated group activity. Mark Pagel good group pride thinking You and I probably wouldn't be here if our ancestors hadn't been greedy savages. Mark Pagel ancestors here you greedy Nothing in our evolutionary history specifically prepared us to live in large societies. Almost everything about the way culture works does. Mark Pagel live culture history way We owe our big brains less to inventiveness than to conflicts of interest among social minds engaged in an arms race to be the best at manipulating others. Mark Pagel others big best race Humans like to think of themselves as unusual. We've got big brains that make it possible for us to think, and we think that we have free will and that our behavior can't be described by some mechanistic set of theorems or ideas. But even in terms of much of our behavior, we really aren't very different from other animals. Mark Pagel free think behavior ideas What drives the separation of groups of people into subgroups is the desire to control resources. We begin with a single culture, and over time the number of individuals within that culture expands. Mark Pagel control time culture people
