Most humans alive today live in a society shaped by reading and writing.
Writing has only been invented a handful of times, and spread by diffusion from there.
Are the small minority of humans alive today whose lives are wholly unaffected by reading and writing irrelevant, when the question being asked is whether writing is a fundamental element of human behavior?*
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*No, because the spread of writing is a recent phenomenon compared to the time there’ve been humans, and most human societies didn’t come up with it, meaning the current distribution of writing across human societies is the tip of the proverbial iceberg—more obvious, but less important to understanding the actual thing in its entirety.
Most humans alive today live in a society shaped by reading and writing.
Writing has only been invented a handful of times, and spread by diffusion from there.
Are the small minority of humans alive today whose lives are wholly unaffected by reading and writing irrelevant, when the question being asked is whether writing is a fundamental element of human behavior?*
--
*No, because the spread of writing is a recent phenomenon compared to the time there’ve been humans, and most human societies didn’t come up with it, meaning the current distribution of writing across human societies is the tip of the proverbial iceberg—more obvious, but less important to understanding the actual thing in its entirety.