On Evolution, Media, and the Sociocultural Narrative.

...So people such as Jordan Peterson -from this blog´s last entry- believe that one per cent of the population (human or animal) will inevitably control eighty per cent of the resources within any given situation - be it money, power, opportunities, or simply resources per se. 

This is, in his view, the ratio and dynamic which will be generated within any societal structure, and it cannot be helped - nor can any specific structure of societal organisation be blamed for this ´natural tendency´.

 One word: evolution. If evolution is, at all, the great driving force we have been told about, then it must account for the changes we thrive towards, changes which are observable and whithout which, in fact, 21st century society cannot be understood.

 It´s interesting how nature and ´natural tendencies´ are brought into the discussion of society´s organisational patterns, while the evolutionary aspects of our human predicament and condition are ignored: for starters, humans only became so while evolving out of a previously monkey-primate status. 

When the modern car was invented by Henry Ford, wealthy industrialists sentenced: "It will never catch on! horses can run on either uneven ground or tarmac, and horses do not require those ´roads´ which cars do!"

 ...Right?

Take the recent phenomena that is texting, for instance. It has been around for the last 17 years - as experts arbitrarily count from the year 2000 onwards, when researching the texting phenomena. Texting has greatly affected our view of language, communication, the frequency of this very  communication, the quantity of things that we now more or less collectively consider worthy of sharing, etc etc etc.

Professor David Crystal, a life-long linguist, honorary linguistics lecturer at two prominent british universities and patron of the International Teachers Association of English as a Foreign Language, has this to say on the matter of texting and the evolution of the English language:

 Professor David Crystal during his BBC "It´s Only A Theory" appearance. 

It´s Only A Theory is a primetime BBC program where experts are given the opportunity to defend "a theory of theirs" within their field of expertise, which they may not have a chance to delve into, during their regular professional lives. Professor Crystal argued the validity of "texting language", and its evolutionary significance.

The current narrative which underpins occidental society argues that tough characters thrive, "everything has been invented", and that human evolution finished with the acquisition of a thumb.

This is not the case. 

Evolution is an ongoing process, by its very definition.

We may not personally like the direction in which a society may be going, or the fact that it is at all in motion - just as we may not personally be able to appreciate this planet´s perpetual and orbital motion. It would, however, appear that neither of these two are about to be stopped due to personal discomforts and dislikes.
Why? Quite simply, "...because you can´t hold the tide with a broom".

"We´re all just looking out for something real" ...Ryan Gosling´s police boss tells him, during a private chat, in Denis Villeneuve´s Blade Runner 2049. 

 ...Well, forget science fiction. 

Our current world is striving to identify the 'real' out of the immigration phenomena, cultural meltdown and dissolution, the proliferation of new, uncontrolled emergence of technologies, the loss of ´traditional values´, cultural amalgamation, ecological fragility, ideological pendulums... However much all of these things may really be currently happening, we seem to be on the lookout for something real which may suit our idea of the real.

Apparently, convenience defines our concept of the authentic, to a much greater degree than we had realised.
...Not a very authentic attitude, in and of itself.

 ...We seem to be currently enduring a kind of evolution - which some of us seem to be resisting with all of their might. 

We can stay monkeys, stuck on meaningless traditions, whilst human rights are swept away, or we can better ourselves, improving what we deem worth shedding, observing, analyzing, feeling just what it is that makes us feel good, and what it is that we could do without... Because, indeed, plenty of the evolutionary aspects of existence are epigenetic, beyond the biochemical diktats of our genes and/or past-acquired behaviours.

On another episode of BBC´s It´s Only A Theory, ex-BBC programme coordinator and internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen tries to argue that social media is harming "proper and adequate audio-visual media" narratives - as he deems teenage (in any case, amateur) provided youtube content to be of a lesser quality than approved, traditional, filtered, supervised, edited, censored, audiovisual "entertainment".

See below.

 ...And how about this verbal jewel of a reply to Mr Keen´s argument, above, concluding the programme, from american panelist, comedian and social commentator Reginald D. Hunter (thumbnailed above), on "traditional media", economics, and old models of social cohesion, as the very conclusion to this blog entry - which you can see here, at 27 mins, 07 seconds.

Hats off to you, Reginald.



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David Crystal, OBE, FBA, FLSW, FCIL (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist, academic and author. Crystal studied English at University College London between 1959 and 1962, and was a researcher under Randolph Quirk between 1962 and 1963, working on the Survey of English Usage. Since then he has lectured at Bangor University and the University of Reading and is an honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor. Retired from full-time academia, he works as a writer, editor and consultant, and contributes to television and radio broadcasts. His association with the BBC ranges from, formerly, a BBC Radio 4 series on language issues to, more recently, podcasts on the BBC World Service website for people learning English.
Crystal was awarded the OBE in 1995 and became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000. He is also a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. His many academic interests include English language learning and teaching, clinical linguistics, forensic linguistics, language death, "ludic linguistics" (Crystal's neologism for the study of language play), style, English genre, Shakespeare, indexing, and lexicography. He is the Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL, honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), and Patron of the UK National Literacy Association. He is a consultant for Babel - The Language Magazine, for which he has also written articles.

Reginald Darnell Hunter (born 26 March 1969) is an American stand-up comedian based in the United Kingdom. Having initially travelled to the UK at the age of 27 as a theatre student training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hunter became a comedian after performing his first comedy set as a dare. Realizing that he enjoyed performing comedy, and that it might be remunerative, Hunter turned his attention from acting to stand-up. 
Hunter was nominated for the Perrier Award in the 2002, 2003 and 2004 Edinburgh Festivals. He won the Writers' Guild Award for Comedy in 2006 for his show Pride & Prejudice... & Niggas

It's Only a Theory is a British television panel game show, first aired on BBC Four in 2009. It was conceived by and starred Andy Hamilton and featured Reginald D. Hunter as a regular panelist. Announced by the BBC in April 2009, the eight episode series was produced by Hat Trick Productions. The panelists discuss theories "about life, the universe and everything" submitted by professionals and experts. The panel debates each theory and decides whether it is worth keeping.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees.