[lbo-talk] Caroline Fourest: In Praise of Consent

[c b]

In her wonderful book, Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine reports
studies showing that from the moment sex is determined, mothers begin
speaking differently of their experience of the fetus. More aggressive
words are used to describe the kicks of boy babies than girl. Since
babies recognize their native language at birth, having heard it in
the womb, the embeddedness in social relations doesn't even have to
wait until a day after birth.

Doug

^^^^^^^^

CB; Communication of language to the fetus is quintessentially ( as in
"essentialist)  human natural. Nothing unnatural about fetus hearing
the mother and others.  What is ur aversion to referring to this
relationship , and group of social relations between the fetus and
others  as "natural" ?   What is human nature ?  It is especially the
fetus' proto-language experience. This is precisely the unity of the
human and the natural, human natural relations.   Language is a
uniquely human"natural" or human mammalian (mama) capacity most fully
at the level of the fetus, in part because there is no way for the
mother or others to convey the _historical_ content of the sounds the
fetus hears. The fetus experiences them as an abstract pattern which
its brain is _naturally_ especially capable of affinity for because it
is a human fetus.  It is the abstract phonology system of
relationships between signs/symbols, the structure , in the sense of
structural linguistics, not meaning or semantics that the fetus takes
in. This abstract logical structure is the most natural, least
specifically historical aspect of language.  Only after birth does
this being learn the semantical and historical content  of "boy and
girl."

Humans are naturally highly social. We are the social animals. So
"social embeddedness" for humans is a critical part of our nature.

Be happy with the word "natural".