Friday, 22 September 2017 — I wrote an essay regarding the importance of words for us human beings on the general sense of things. The writing is part of my essays in Quora, and here is the copy of the answer with some personal note at the end of the article.
One thing to note, upon reading this answer, do keep in mind that I’m nowhere a graduated scientist, biologist, psychologist or anything with an official credential to go with, so this answer is not to be taken as a replacement for a more valid scientific explanations. I wrote this solely from my own personal analysis of my sporadic reading on behavioral psychology and evolutionary biology. Still, I’m hoping that what I write here might provide some insights or new perspective on the subject.
Q: Why do words affect humans?
Short answer — Mostly, because being a species evolved through the use of language, words are something we use not only to make noise and meaningless bleating — it is what makes us human.
Now, before I’m getting to the core answer, I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from. Please bear with me for a while here.
Long answer — Human beings could go this far, mostly, due to the use of language — I remember reading an article that mentioned that we are the only species capable of inheriting not only our genes, but also our life experiences to the next generation through the use of language. This is very important to understand.
In a sense of evolutionary biology perspective, I’d argue that we are basically cheating the process of natural selection, giving way to more genes to continue their way regardless of whether the genes that were passed down were, in one sense, “worthy” of being passed down in the first place. So, how exactly did we cheat?
It’s through the use of language.
Now, I’m not trying to do some eugenics rant here, but if you study some fundamentals on evolutionary biology, the rule of thumb is that, the genes that got passed down, were passed down, mainly because a single specimen carrying a specific code was able to survive successfully through adulthood to the point it could pro-create, found a mate who survived as well and then produced off-springs that carry the combination of both male and female parents’ genes. This way, only the member of a species with genes that produced certain pattern of instinctual tendencies better fit to survival, would in the end, the ones qualify to pass their genes down to the generation line.
However, once human beings were able to communicate through simple words and languages, I’d argue that those basic survival rules I mentioned no longer apply to us humans.
What I meant is that — in other species, the surviving individual in a species would have to go on surviving purely by instinct, which means they’re doing things mostly by trial and error — if they succeed passing the trials, they live and reproduce, and if they fail, they die.
Now, human beings in this case, through the use of language, were able to cheat the process by means of storytelling, of other people’s past lives and experiences, and come up with a general rule of thumb (survival rules) for the next generation to follow. I believe, an umbrella term for this would be history.
This way, human beings, I argue, have practically cheated natural selection process — whereby other species could rely solely on instinct alone on how to survive, human beings would be able to teach other human beings on the “right kind of instinct” to have in order to survive, through communication, without the need of members of the species having to do the trial and error themselves.
For example, instead of each and every one of us had to watch another human ate BLUE colored berry and then died, just to learn that BLUE berries mean death, you would only need to watch it once, and you tell every other people that BLUE berries are bad, and you don’t eat them or you’ll die. Or, instead of having to demonstrate repeatedly to many people that touching a colorful frog would burn your skin, you would only need to burn yourself by touching the frog, and then tell others that they shouldn’t touch the colorful frog because it burns. Those are just over-simplifications, but I think you get the idea. As far as I know, no other species are able to do that sort of stuff.
That “cheating” in natural selection have allowed us to grow our numbers in an unimaginable rate, regardless of whatever gene or code each of us are carrying, simply because the people that were better equipped with survival instincts had taken it upon themselves to make sure the “lesser” members would survive alongside with them. Because, at the end of the day, the purpose of our endeavors is about the survival of the species, not just our own individual selves.
So now, being said all that, why do words affect us?
In the sense of the way I understand about this, I’d argue that words do affect us, mainly because all this while human beings had put a lot of importance in expressed ideas from another human beings, and that sense of importance had “instilled” on us as a sort of biological instinct to listen to what others are saying — who knows, if I listen to what people say, it might give me a better chance in surviving in life!
That tendency, I argue, is especially manifested in form of appeal to authority — a tendency of people to listen more to people of higher social status more so than people of similar status.
However, despite the fact that in today’s era where information is easily available on the internet and you don’t exactly need to listen to “other people” all the time (although you still do in some sense, as everything on the internet was also written by people), the remnants of that instinct to listen to people might still lingered on us, as it had been hard-wired into our minds for such a long period of time and there’s no way to just “snap out of it” as if words of others don’t mean a single thing to you.
Add the fact that psychologically, humans are social species with complex structure as well, words were also used to define the structures of our social hierarchy. And the way we interact with each other in this regard, would surely affect the cohesion of a group of people, which would benefit the group if everyone could communicate their ideas and come out with a practical, agreeable conclusion. Remember, better community cohesion, means better survival for that group. Even in the age where humans were still tribalistic, it’s imaginable that groups that couldn’t communicate well to each other would surely be stamped out by others that has better communication skills.
So to sum up everything — I do believe words affect us in ways we couldn’t always fathom, partly because it is something that had been hard-wired to us during our more vulnerable times of our survival as a species. And now, regardless of whether words are that important anymore since it’s no longer a matter of life and death, and you don’t always have to get along with everybody to survive in modern era — the fact that it’s already a kind of instinct for us to put emphasize on words people say might just still be around.
It’s a well-known fact in evolution that if a species had been pretty successful in surviving for generations because of a particular thing they do or agree on doing, they will get better at doing that more and more generations pass, and it would — eventually — become an instinct within the species. Hence, it is something that might be too deep ingrained within our subconscious minds to comprehend completely — possibly as confusing as our deep desire for finding a love partner and have sex, which was, in its very essence, a mean to procreate and pass down our genes to the next generation.
Thank you for the request. I hope that answers your question.
Personal Note on the Answer
Now, while I understand that there are plenty other, less-scientifically inclined reasoning behind the power of words, I decided to dive into a more biological history reasoning of this matter to see if it could be convincing or making any sense. We all know words do have many usages in our daily lives as a social creature, and I believe most people might not be inclined to admit how much effect words of others might have on their psyche.
This is of course, a pretty normal thing, in my opinion. During our lifetime, we ought to face few unpleasant things said by others — regardless of its truthfulness or validity — and it could be especially hurtful having to hear those things, even to the best of us, to be called unpleasant names, or being thought negatively in one way or another.
I always find that the way people treat words of others that actually hurt them could be a little dishonest, by saying things along the line of “I don’t care what people say”. And regardless of the fact that I believe it is a reasonable thing to do, that each and every one of us would like to protect ourselves from others in our own ways, at the end of the day I still believe that an honest, open discussion on the matter would be more beneficial in the long run, rather than keep avoiding to look at reality all the time.
To sum up, much of the reason I decided to tackle the issue in this way was because I felt that reasoning that came from purely personal perspective on this issue, could be far from being satisfying. But maybe, you disagree with that.
What do you think of my essay? Do you agree or disagree on my take on the issue? If you find my content interesting, or you want to say something, feel free to comment below. You could also follow me on Medium if you’d like to be updated on future contents as well.
See you around.
