October 31, 2007
Washoe, a Chimp of Many Words, Dies at 42

Memories of Washoe (the chimp who “spoke” sign language) – but more especially about the attempts to explore the relations and differences between chimps and humans. Let’s give a few minutes to mourn her death, and to think about how her presence especially helped to make deaf persons (especially congenitally deaf persons) into fully human beings.

A Confession: I only saw Washoe on film – signing with and to people.

But I was a fairly constant discussant of the issues involved by the chief investigators, Allen and Beatrix (Trixie) Gardner. We had first met at a meeting with William Stokoe, the author of American Sign Language, and Professor at Gallaudet College for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s. We continued discussions for a long time.

Some context: Sign Language was not permitted in any American schools for the deaf, until 1972 – and Bill Stokoe was the person who rounded up a number of allies to make all that happen. Deaf persons using sign language now seems commonplace: interpreters are available in many settings; most deaf kids learn and use sign language; there are courses at most universities. But this all happened because of Stokoe – the work of the Gardners with Washoe – and the accurate shifts in our thinking about the deaf. (see Oliver Sacks, “Seeing Voices” for a review.)

I had been deeply engaged with the critical exploration of language as a presumably “unique” aspect of the human, and what makes humans truly human. My own work shares the approach of Darwin’s last book: “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” and lays out the various subjects to be explored to enter human nature beyond the assumptions of language as defining us. I wrote a book (“After Metaphysics” – republished later as “Language and Human Nature”). I try to take the fact that we are bodies in interaction with others’ bodies, and more fully explore our nature. (Bill Stokoe wrote the Introduction to the second edition.) Read the rest of this entry »

So now we have 6 people going into a zoo in Adelaide, Australia. Going, not to look at (other) animals, but to be looked at – as if they are animals. A form of monkey, perhaps, they are there to be seen in all the places, and at all their places. Alone, sort of, with one or more of the others. Privacy…gone. They are on public display (AP video spot via USA Today). These 6 people are the zoo.

This is not all new. In the 1800’s and extending into much of the early 20th century, most aboriginal peoples were considered to be “primitives” or “savages.” And some of them were “placed on display” – as if they were “animals.” Perhaps this current display is a “return” to the old days, as new brain science seems to be raising the question of human nature as more fixed or pre-determined than we have been considered, especially since the rise of human rights.

Maybe it is a way of seeing ourselves – and gaining some new insights into the human – maybe insights into other animals, to our ways of observing other species – maybe commentary on whether we should capture and display any species in places like zoos.

From my perspective as a continuing student of the human condition and human nature, this event raises all sorts of thoughts about how to see and observe ourselves:

First, there is little that will happen with or to these persons, that we haven’t already witnessed: nakedness, in or on the toilet, eating, peeing. Nothing that we all don’t do. Maybe sex, maybe clothed. Perhaps interacting with one another, in two’s or three’s or as six.

This moves me back to the question of how we observe humans (and oneself) – to Erving Goffman’s “Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.” Lots of what and who we are is kept out of the public domains: how do we observe the human, when so much of our being remains hidden, at least private. Even more complicated: how do others see us; how do we see ourselves’ seeing?

Much of the study of the human has been done quite narrowly in fairly public domains where even the politics of our being are often masked or not obvious.

Politics are always there, and perhaps clearer or more obvious than they are usually – perhaps quite obscure in the contexts of enclosed spaces. Politics may develop or evolve: an alpha male – or female – might emerge: out of ambition, boredom, wishes to control oneself or others.

Confined to particular space – a kind of prison: a kind of deep freedom since the possibilities of movement and surrounds are so completely determined that they are driven into their own “heads” rather than finding much new or risky to explore as in the ordinary world.

It also reminds me of how I/we observe zoo behavior. I love seeing other animals – except I mourn the fact that they are captives, and in a kind of jail. Then – as an anthropologist-of-the ordinary – I begin to note who’s there (and “who isn’t” – pace Goffman). Kids, kids, kids and their parents of most ages. So much fun to watch them, the politics of different families – different ages of kids, interactions, control…

And there, almost always, there are couples (male and female – in my notings, but then, today might be a different day). And these couples seem to be “into” the kids in a very loving and “hot” way, as if love and procreation are most imminent.

And so the idea of a group of humans (all sort of grown-up from reports so far – and not too far in age from one another, or social class, or ethnicity?) – may help cast new insights into the human condition.

For me, this situation raises many questions: a study of the “zoo,” in its own complicated terms; ways to lead us all to ask ourselves harder questions about observing, beginning with ongoing and historical observations of the observer, namely myself; to ask about the nature of the “zoos” in which all of us live. Why is this happening now: what is the nature of the human condition as it changes in a rapidly changing world?

Most important, it pushes us toward the really tough and historical questions: what ideas are already afloat in our thinking which frame or shape our questions and observations? And, the most difficult: what is the human – nature, behavior, language? The central problems of these times!?

The human body is an amazing instrument. Not to be merely or simply compared with the bodies of other species, we live “out of balance,” love the faces by which we note and remember others, and are deeply interactive. We have vastly underestimated the human body (Dewey, Nietzsche), and need to appreciate that human language is about our so-complicated tongues and expressive parts. As violin-teacher Suzuki claimed, anyone who can speak language is a genius – speaking is much more complicated than learning the violin. I think we have underestimated the intelligence of other creatures, and by extrapolation to human uniqueness primarily as language, have depreciated the human.

We “emerge” from a deep “attachment” with our m/others, as the self, the “I” develops. (G.H. Mead) Who we are and how we know are not directly from the world, but from our being as and with our m/others. How this happens: the Question-Response System by which our m/others frame questions (who, what, when, where, etc.) to which we learn responses as “open sets.” How a finite being (you and I), comes to be able to phrase all the ideas and syntax: development, not fixed.

The questions of this moment remain: how do we think and know, what is the human?

With Pinker’s recent claims that the brain is all, then Lakoff that our mind and thought are full of metaphors, most recently Goleman that the brain is “wired” for social intelligence, these questions seem to be taking on a sense of urgency. Left out in all cases is the fact that humans “love faces,” that we are social in actuality from the moment of birth to the “emergence” of the self.

It’s time to rethink Dewey and Mead, and extend their ideas to the pursuit and understanding of doing and experience: we interact with others; not just or merely brains full of “stuff.” Life is more interesting than we have been letting on. Let’s take a look, beginning with ourselves, not just “make it all up!” How to go about this? Next posts.