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The Kingdom of Speech

Tom Wolfe

3.53 · Rating details · 1,794 ratings · 393 reviews

The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong.

Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity's com ...more

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published August 30th 2016 by Little, Brown and Company (first published 2016)

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Dec 15, 2017 Warwick rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: language

Not having read any Tom Wolfe before, I was riveted by the prose style of this book, with its ellipses, colloquial asides, and multiple exclamation marks. I am sure it is possible to write a great book with this technique and perhaps Tom Wolfe has already done it, but this one is unfortunately a complete mess.

I say ‘unfortunately’ because as a matter of fact I agree with his basic position. What Wolfe is trying to do is summarise the internecine fighting of the linguistics world that followed Da Not having read any Tom Wolfe before, I was riveted by the prose style of this book, with its ellipses, colloquial asides, and multiple exclamation marks. I am sure it is possible to write a great book with this technique and perhaps Tom Wolfe has already done it, but this one is unfortunately a complete mess.

I say ‘unfortunately’ because as a matter of fact I agree with his basic position. What Wolfe is trying to do is summarise the internecine fighting of the linguistics world that followed Daniel Everett's work on the Pirahã language, which attacked Noam Chomsky's idea of a universal grammar. I've written lots about all this in my review of Everett's Language: The Cultural Tool; suffice to say here that UG had become more of an ideology than an academic theory, an aggressively enforced orthodoxy that had never produced any very interesting results, or been proved even slightly to reflect physiological or neurological reality.

Wolfe sees this as a David v. Goliath story, plucky little Dan Everett taking on the mean old dictator Chomsky, and in his telling the characters, and the arguments, are so simplified as to become cartoons. Furthermore, the first half of the book for some reason is about Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, a diversion that is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading; the main effect on me was of exhausting my patience with Wolfe's cavalier approach to historical incident (‘Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie…said Lyell’).

When we finally get on to the main event, Wolfe simply lifts anecdotes wholesale from Everett's Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes and retells them. It's impossible not to feel that you'd rather just be reading Everett first-hand. More dangerously, Wolfe gives the impression that the debate over language origins has now been solved, by Everett, which is very far from the case. Everett's main contribution was to puncture the Chomskyan hegemony; his own explanation, that language didn't evolve but rather was invented, like a bow and arrow, is interesting but a hell of a long way from conclusive.

That matters, because we already get too many writers making assumptions about where language came from, and when it developed, and what it was for, whereas the truth is that no one has the slightest idea – nothing about that has changed, and nor does it seem likely to, not that you'd know it from Wolfe's strange and breathless polemic. ...more

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Sep 03, 2016 Jason Merchant rated it did not like it

If you ever wanted to read a book about a scientific field or two (in Wolfe's trademark flamboyant prose) that was utterly innocent of any understanding of science, here's your chance. This vapid piece of preening ignorance will stand as a pointless landmark (or better yet, sink like a witless stone) to sturm-und-drang self-regard. As an erstwhile colleague of mine put it in his review of the book in the Washington Post (here), the book is "unsullied by research."

You don't have to be an evolutio ...more

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Sep 17, 2016 Douglas Wilson rated it really liked it

Shelves: apologetics-evangelism, philosophy, science

A great entertaining read. Wolfe gets off some magnificent and irreverent lines, aimed at the neo-Darwinian hand-wavers. Moreover, he is largely invulnerable to any counter attack from them because the one place he does his own hand-waving is a place where none of them can go. I hope to write more about this later.

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Sep 16, 2016 Valerie Horner rated it it was amazing

When getting my Master’s degree in English, I discovered the fascinating world of linguistics. With my emphasis in English as a Second Language, I took classes in Psycholinguistics (which is the physical and neurological aspects of language acquisition). I was especially intrigued by how language functions similarly to the genetic code, and I loved Modern Grammar which can be used with any language using the principles of Universal Grammar. Universal Grammar, postulates Noam Chomsky (the founde
When getting my Master’s degree in English, I discovered the fascinating world of linguistics. With my emphasis in English as a Second Language, I took classes in Psycholinguistics (which is the physical and neurological aspects of language acquisition). I was especially intrigued by how language functions similarly to the genetic code, and I loved Modern Grammar which can be used with any language using the principles of Universal Grammar. Universal Grammar, postulates Noam Chomsky (the founder and king of modern linguistic theory), is innate in all human beings - moreover all languages are similarly constructed of verbs, adjectives, and nouns. What I didn’t realize, until I read Tom Wolfe’s superb book, The Kingdom of Speech, was that Chomsky had been toppled from his position of linguistic demi-Godhood by a relative newcomer, Daniel Everett.

In The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe not only takes down Chomsky in his usual sharp yet languid manner, but Charles Darwin and his “Just-so” stories on the evolution of man also undergo a, much needed, examination. What ties Darwin, Chomsky, Everett, and this book together is the quest to solve mystery of the origin of language. Darwin guessed that language evolved from humans imitating bird speech. Chomsky believed that language ability evolved within (an as yet unknown) brain/nervous system “organ.” However, a relative newcomer in the world of linguistics, Daniel Everett, Moody Bible College graduate and former missionary to a remote Amazonian tribe called the Piraha, throws a monkey wrench into “established” Chomskyan linguistics.
What Everett discovers in this Amazonian tribe is a people who do not have all of the Universal Grammar elements in their language. Furthermore, they have no words for colors or numbers, and they have no language for the past or future as they live in a state of eternal now. Everett says that the uniqueness of the Piraha language - because it does not prescribe to Chomsky’s Universal Grammar - proves that language ability is not innate but actually an artifact created by humans to live in community. In other words, language is a tool, a sophisticated tool, somehow devised by humans over time.
I have a number of problems with Everett’s ideas - which Tom Wolfe, by the way, seems to totally embrace. Everett see the Piraha as an example of the earliest humans. They have embraced very little from other cultures (in the Amazon rainforest) because of their belief that anything outside of their culture is inferior and should be dismissed. The Piraha’s language - although extremely difficult to learn - is a very limited language in complexity, sociological constructs, and vocabulary. This tribe can not even be counted as stone age in their technological development since they don’t have stone tools. Their only tools are very rudimentary bows and arrows. They live in lean to’s that are easily disposed of. Having no concept for the future, limits their desire (or need perhaps) to prepare for it.
Obviously such a people will leave few traces of their existence; however, I see no reason to view them as something from which stone age and present day humans have evolved. Of course, I am not a (macro) evolutionists, and what I am about to say is terribly politically incorrect, but could it not be equally true that this tribe is an example of devolution? Cannot change (change and evolution are synonyms) happen in both directions? For example, present day humans have smaller brains and weaker physiques than Cro Magnon people.
I would be very interested to see a DNA analysis of this 300 or so person tribe. I would not be surprised if they all have a common ancestor that broke off a few hundred or so years ago from another Amazonian tribe. Are they really a separate and distinct people as their language seems to imply.
I could speculate as to why their progenitors were not using a native language. Could they have been feral children who have little experience of human language. What kind of language would such a pair or more of ferals create? And although the extreme conditions of the Amazon rainforest make it seem unlikely for a child to survive without adults, perhaps this is the case for the origins of the Pirahas. Perhaps the progenitors were deaf/mutes? I assume the tribe has no legends of their beginnings since they have little concept of the past, so why or how they came to be will remain a mystery. However, the magnitude of Everett’s claim has not been thoroughly examined, it seems to me.
He is saying the Piraha’s language is akin to a prima lingua. If this is true, it should be easily proven by the Piraha tribe having a separate and distinct DNA lineage because, as we have seen throughout history, when different people groups intermingle, their languages also intermingle. Everett is claiming (by using them as an example of a prima indigenous people) that this tiny tribe has somehow stayed intact, separate, an unchanged - for what? 10,000 - 100,000 - 1 million years? It is hard to say because evolutionists throw out numbers for humanity’s beginnings as easily as strippers throw off clothes. All that is needed is a simple DNA test to prove if the Piraha are truly a separate indigenous people group. In other words, to make a whole new case for the origins of language based on one tiny tribe of people seems ludicrous.
I suppose my true colors as a Chomskyite are being exposed. I do believe in an innate language ability that is wired into our brains/nervous system. I only disagree with the evolutionary (as in macro-evolutionary) origin of speech. I would say that we are endowed by our creator with the ability to use speech and to understand language. In Genesis, the very first task that Adam was given was to name the animals. And in the Gospel of John in the New Testament, it states that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Language is divine.
It was especially interesting to me that Everett the former missionary turned away from Christ to follow the God of Anthropology and Evolution. Interesting but hardly surprising. There is no quicker way to derail and ruin a career in academia than to be a Christian. Any theory (of anything) that is based on Intelligent Design rather than evolution is dismissed out of hand in this very small and narrow world. Unfortunately the evolutionary worldview limits scholars to new hypotheses and possibilities as to the origin and development of language.

If you are interested in language or in understanding the philosophical trendsetters in the last 150 years, I highly recommend The Kingdom of Speech. Wolfe makes the journey in this 185 page book not only educational but enjoyable.
...more

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May 26, 2018 L.A. Starks rated it really liked it

After Wolfe's death I looked for books he authored that I hadn't read. This is one.

The Kingdom of Speech is short (170 pages) and leans more on research than reporting. However, like all Tom Wolfe books it is a fun read, extremely clear, and non-obvious as he dissects the way in which human language has been treated in evolutionary theory--by, among others, Darwin, Chomsky, and Everett. Wolfe's discussion of Everett's field work with the Piraha is not to be missed.

While The Kingdom of Speech is ...more

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Jul 17, 2016 Bob Kohn rated it it was amazing

Tom Wolfe one day stumbled across a 2014 essay by eight "heavyweight Evolutionists," the famed-linguist Noam Chomsky being notability among them, and was startled by their conclusion that, after 150 years of scientific research and academic speculation, what we know about speech and language remains "as mysterious as ever." A "poverty of evidence," they wrote, leaves us with "no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved."

Wolfe looked askance at this concl Tom Wolfe one day stumbled across a 2014 essay by eight "heavyweight Evolutionists," the famed-linguist Noam Chomsky being notability among them, and was startled by their conclusion that, after 150 years of scientific research and academic speculation, what we know about speech and language remains "as mysterious as ever." A "poverty of evidence," they wrote, leaves us with "no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved."

Wolfe looked askance at this conclusion, noting first how odd it was for a group of experts to announce "what abject failures they were," but then, wisely, proceeded to question the essay's underlying assumption. According to Chomsky et al, the notion that language has "evolved," just like any other trait of living organisms, was "uncontroversial." In the story which he presents, Wolfe, in his inimitable style as a reporter and storyteller, challenges that assumption: Why must language have evolved?

The story of evolution begins, of course, with Charles Darwin--or, as Wolfe reminds us, with Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913), who virtually beat Darwin to the punch on biological evolution, but ultimately questioned Darwin's conclusion on the evolution of language. The Darwin/Wallace rivalry, told entertainingly by Wolfe, is juxtaposed with the author's account of a more modern rivalry concerning the origin of language, one which pitted Chomsky's supposition of an inborn "universal grammar" against that theory's challenger, Daniel L. Everett ("Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes"). Everett concluded, after closely studying a tribe indigenous to a remote part of the Amazon, that language did not evolve; rather, he posits, it is an “artifact” created by mankind.

The story ends with Wolfe choosing sides. His solution to the mystery will, no doubt, be quickly added to the long list of unsubstantiated theories he cites. Words "create meaning," Wolfe suggests. Yet others, beginning long before him, have contended (far more convincingly) just the opposite: we create words to designate meaning, while meaning is, simply, apprehended. In short, the origin of language has an essential side to it which, to the reader's misfortune, Wolfe never explored. It is a view that has been with us since Aristotle walked the streets of Athens, one which does not pre-suppose a divinity, but which, consistent with Everett, insists that language could not have evolved biologically.

Thus, in this significant way, Wolfe's tour of the origin of language is incomplete. Nevertheless, his challenge to scientific authority has merit. The eight evolutionists deserve credit for admitting what they do not know, but to suggest their quest for an evolutionary basis of language is "uncontroversial," opened them up to the very entertaining smack down Wolfe has thoughtfully delivered in his "The Kingdom of Speech." ...more

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Sep 07, 2016 Maxwell Hansen rated it did not like it

Maybe Tom Wolfe should be commended for diving headfirst into a complicated, even esoteric, debate raging inside linguistics and exposing it to a far larger audience than ever before. But praise for this book should really end there.

As someone with some formal training in linguistics and more extensive exploration of the field as a hobby, I read Wolfe's prose in the voice of a supremely confident, almost entirely uninformed brat. In dealing with the fraught, hotly debated question of the origin Maybe Tom Wolfe should be commended for diving headfirst into a complicated, even esoteric, debate raging inside linguistics and exposing it to a far larger audience than ever before. But praise for this book should really end there.

As someone with some formal training in linguistics and more extensive exploration of the field as a hobby, I read Wolfe's prose in the voice of a supremely confident, almost entirely uninformed brat. In dealing with the fraught, hotly debated question of the origin of language, Wolfe cannot resist engaging in gross simplifications and exaggerations, which turned me off entirely and really limited his credibility as a narrator. As an example, he repeatedly boils long-winded, highly technical series of academic "comments" (i.e. criticisms) and their subsequent rebuttals into Facebook-style clickbait headlines: "Everett et al DEMOLISH Chomsky and His Ilk". Not once does he actually engage with the academic materials he references, likely because he does not know how.

Wolfe is very obviously invested in a simple David and Goliath narrative, one in which a humble, soft-spoken newcomer (Dr. Daniel Everett) takes on the academic establishment and wins in resounding fashion. In fact, the matter in question is far, far from settled, and the thuggish, intimidating Goliath (in this case Noam Chomsky) is mostly conjured out of thin air. Perhaps most irritatingly, Wolfe is not at all interested in grappling with the actual content of the academic debate - he simply declares a winner and revels in the drama of his unlikely victory.

When Wolfe does get around to positing where he thinks language came from, or rather, what he thinks Dr. Everett thinks, his summation is laughably simple, even crude. After repeatedly mocking some of the great minds of all time (e.g. Darwin, Chomsky) for failing to construct an effective explanation for language's origins, he puts forth an unbelievable, almost comical, theory that he spends all of two pages expounding. Charles Darwin, it turns out, is no match for Tom Wolfe.

The whole thing is smug, pretentious and, frankly, insulting. Maybe worst of all, Tom Wolfe abuses ellipses. No, seriously, you will not believe the number of pointless ellipses he uses. ...more

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Sep 03, 2016 Mark rated it did not like it

I normally enjoy Tom Wolfe, but this takedown of modern linguistics is simply a rant. His "new journalism" style was completely unsuited to persuading me of the validity of some of his rather specious scientific arguments. Despite the fairly copious footnotes, there was little evidence that Wolfe's understanding of either evolution or linguistics had any depth. ...more

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Sep 02, 2016 Lukas Evan rated it did not like it

Shelves: american-contemporary, social-political

Tom Wolfe tries to take down Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky with baffling (and terrible) results. Alternate title: "The Wrong Stuff." ...more

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Sep 05, 2016 William rated it liked it

This book forms a loose trilogy with "The Painted Word," Wolfe's dissection of art and art criticism, and "From Bauhaus to Our House," his similar evisceration of architectural theory. This book is different in that Wolfe has ventured into scientific theory - or actually, holy writ, i.e. Darwinian evolutionary theory. Those two books also dealt with a smaller topic - the conflict between American independent thought and the tendency of American intellectuals to follow European "isms," one of Wol This book forms a loose trilogy with "The Painted Word," Wolfe's dissection of art and art criticism, and "From Bauhaus to Our House," his similar evisceration of architectural theory. This book is different in that Wolfe has ventured into scientific theory - or actually, holy writ, i.e. Darwinian evolutionary theory. Those two books also dealt with a smaller topic - the conflict between American independent thought and the tendency of American intellectuals to follow European "isms," one of Wolfe's particular bugaboos.

But even though this book deals with science, you see the same themes as Wolfe's earlier works - the importance of cultural and class distinctions in how thoughts gain social currency; the need for human beings to group themselves off into hostile tribes, even within "civilization"; the capacity of intellectuals to accept large concepts for largely non-intellectual reasons, and the importance of personality in shaping what are supposed to be impersonal concepts that shape how we live our lives. Wolfe likes to toss these occasional grenades into the ether and watch people shrink in horror when they see their various sacred cows in art, science or politics threatened.

Like those earlier works, Wolfe does some reporting but largely relies on previously published work, into which he injects his own distinctive style. One need only look at the reviews to see some of his suspicions confirmed -How dare this mere journalist question the accepted logic of scientists?! What could he possibly know of science?! All sounding, strangely enough, like offended clergymen confronted with 'The Origin of the Species.'

There are various stories within the story - and Wolfe enjoys showing Darwin as not so much a big brain but as a man with maladies and pride and vanity, much in the same vein as Noam Chomsky and others. This drives home his point that our intellectual heroes are not always so much concerned with truth as their own jealously-guarded reputations.

Keeping in mind this is a 169-page book with footnotes, Wolfe isn't interested in a big takedown of evolutionary theory as much as a window on how human beings digest thought. One gets a sense of the vast acreage of how much we don't really know about areas we pretend we completely understand, and how much of what we think is unshakeable scientific fact may be resting on foundations of educated guesses, making us no different than the ancestors we look down upon. The effect perhaps isn't so much that we should mistrust what we know as we should never be afraid to question any part of it.
...more

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Jul 11, 2017 Mikey B. rated it liked it

Shelves: contemporary-society, journalism

I generally enjoy Tom Wolfe, but this is an exception.

This is a diatribe, a rant.

He goes after two, I feel, very, unrelated individuals – Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky.

Wolfe’s main theme is language – the premise being that this distinguishes us(humans) from all others on the planet. I have no argument with this.

He blasts Darwin for not acknowledging this. But Darwin was a naturalist. He was not a speech linguistic researcher. Was Wolfe trying to discredit evolution? This seems a tall order.

Th ...more

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Apr 23, 2018 Jake McAtee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

4.5. Wolfe demonstrates how Speech is the silver bullet for Darwinism. He shows that Chuck D himself felt it then, and how Chomsky grants it today. The disrespect is delicious.

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Dec 24, 2016 Rex Fuller rated it it was amazing

Surprisingly, for me at least, Wolfe careens between wildly engaging works, think Bonfire of the Vanities, to the near tears boredom inducing, A Man in Full. This one you figure, try it, maybe? Well...!

He first takes on no less than the god Darwin. He makes two basic points. One, Darwin may have stolen his theory of evolution (Alfred Russell Wallace beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection and sent his paper to Darwin for review). And two, speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity's ...more

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Apr 06, 2017 Corey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2017

I'd forgotten what a rambunctious, eloquent, mentally-arresting writer Tom Wolfe is. And here he's thumbing his nose at one of modernity's most sacred Golden Cows: the Theory of Everything. Of all the nerve.

Well worth reading, if only for the part where Darwin's work is praised as more imaginative than Kipling's. I was almost in tears. ...more

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Nov 22, 2016 Don rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science

I normally would give this a 4 star rating, but I noticed there are a lot of pained 1 star reviews, so I upped my rating to a 5 to bring back some balance to the total average.

Wolfe is generally in good standing with the liberal defenders of evolution who are for the most part all for his criticism of investment bankers (The Bonfire of the Vanities) or big business (A Man in Full). When he decided to tear down liberal icons Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky, the reaction has been less than kind.

Wh ...more

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Sep 16, 2016 MundiNova rated it did not like it

Shelves: nonfiction-science

Imagine you're at a party and off in the corner is an enigmatic man dressed in white talking to a large group. He has them eating out of his hand as he loudly, and drunkenly, has a one sided debate about language, Darwinism, and his own wit.

From your view across the room, you're uncertain about this man. But as you get closer - out of curiosity, of course - you listen in and can't help but find him mildly entertaining. Maybe you'll listen a little more. His story takes form as David vs. Goliath ...more

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Sep 01, 2016 Larry rated it really liked it

Wonderful to have Tom Wolfe back and setting fire to sacred cows. This is a bit like his classic attacks on pretentious flim flammery From Bauhaus to Our House and The Painted Word but it also shares a lot of characteristics with snappy popular history like The Right Stuff or even popular science histories like Longitude. The language is crackling and playful throughout, even more so than his usual in order to make a "the medium is the message" point about the subject of the book. Thoroughly ...more

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Sep 08, 2016 Brendan rated it did not like it

This book is, simply put, the heresy of an uneducated washed-up author. Wolfe's logic is completely lacking and shows how not arrive at a theory through proper scientific method. He makes several claims in the book that show how uneducated he is. This is not because he disagrees with the standard theory, but because his arguments consist of claiming there is no proof. A senior highschool student could come up with stronger arguments FOR his claims. This is the type of rhetoric that damages the p ...more

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May 28, 2017 Nathan rated it it was amazing

This book is a Chestertonian take-down of Darwin and Chomsky. Excellent. Very fun.

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Dec 07, 2016 Valerie Kyriosity rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

I was scrolling through thousands of my library's digital offerings when I saw this and thought, "Hmmm...I've never read any Tom Wolfe; maybe I should give him a try." I now want to read everything he's written. He's got a remarkable gift with words, so it is not remarkable that he would turn is attention in this book to the subject of how we got them. First, he rounds up the usual emperors in their usual new clothes, parades them before us, and pokes them with sticks that wouldn't hurt so bad i ...more

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Aug 30, 2016 Jeremy marked it as to-read

Shelves: non-fiction, dictionary-language, science

Humorous NYT review here: "[T]his book is a rebuke of the work of the linguist Noam Chomsky, whom Mr. Wolfe refers to as 'Noam Charisma.' Rebuke is actually too frivolous a word for the contumely Mr. Wolfe looses in his direction. More precisely, he tars and feathers Mr. Chomsky before sticking a clown nose on his face and rolling him in a baby stroller off a cliff."

See here for comments on the kudzu of "settled science," and see here for Cheaney's article on how "Darwinism hasn't been able to e ...more

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Sep 27, 2016 Rock rated it it was ok

Depending on how much Wolfe's writing style irritates you, most of this book is a readable but disjointed and superficial narrative trying but mostly failing to connect two largely separate fields. Combining the vagueness of informal language with the pomposity of formal language, Wolfe's style is grating and awkward for non-fiction writing, but this book is short enough that it didn't accumulate into intolerable for me. The text, while clearly under-researched, still touches on enough important ...more

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Jul 15, 2020 Marcus Speh rated it it was amazing

Outstanding. Enjoyed this enormously, especially the intelligent polemics. Slaughters holy scientific cows left, right and center. The style sticks to the middle ground between journalism and the best, most entertaining fiction. Superficially, this book is about linguistics but not really. It is written at breathtaking speed, motivated by the power of language, with some great protagonists and antagonists, showing that science is also, but not only, a social affair. I used it as additional ammun ...more

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Oct 07, 2016 Ashley rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Tom Wolfe wrote a book on a subject where he has no knowledge. He also appears unable to meaningfully back/cite/logically argue any of his lofty claims. This is one of the worst books I've ever read. I hated his writing style which came across as pompous, over confident, and rude. He also used way too many ellipses and said "solar plexus" an unreasonable number of times in such a short book. This book is poorly argued, makes no sense, and is generally extremely annoying. Another key shortfall: s ...more

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Jan 09, 2018 Asher Littlefield rated it did not like it

It had its funny parts and interesting moments, but it barely seemed to touch the topic of speech, spending the first half on evolution’s history, the second on the wars over language, and the last chapter focused on speech. Most troublesome of all, Wolfe acted like an annoyed child each time he had to “correct” himself with the “new politically correct” terms for indigenous people, making it partway through the word “native” EVERY TIME. It was obnoxious.

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Sep 01, 2016 Donal rated it really liked it

If you have always been suspicious of the Chomsky hagiography gang, you will enjoy this book. If you are or were part of the gang, you should probably read it.

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Jun 06, 2020 Paul rated it liked it

Shelves: completed-2020, cpl, non-art-photo, reviewed, literature, lit-nonfiction

Ehhhh I dunno, 4 stars for the prose and maybe like 2.5 for the content; still good, but certainly not Wolfe at his best. With that said, I was happy to find that I had not yet read all of Wolfe's non-fiction (thanks to VOL), which, taken as a whole, is a national treasure.

Wolfe is quite right that Darwinist theory is not and should not be treated as a 'theory of everything', insofar as it cannot explain intentionality or language, despite the claims of those who take Darwinism to be a metaphysi Ehhhh I dunno, 4 stars for the prose and maybe like 2.5 for the content; still good, but certainly not Wolfe at his best. With that said, I was happy to find that I had not yet read all of Wolfe's non-fiction (thanks to VOL), which, taken as a whole, is a national treasure.

Wolfe is quite right that Darwinist theory is not and should not be treated as a 'theory of everything', insofar as it cannot explain intentionality or language, despite the claims of those who take Darwinism to be a metaphysical/cosmogonical account of reality. It is a simple and understandable category mistake made by scientists and philosophers of science who don't grasp the distinctions involved (and this includes Dennett et al., who have the barest grasp of metaphysics) -- a biological account of adaptation/evolution literally cannot explain consciousness/qualia and therefore cannot be a complete account of human beings. I was actually quite surprised to see Tom Wolfe, of all people, making an argument that I've usually found in the pages of relatively obscure books by Alva Noë, D. B. Hart, et al.

But Wolfe goes too far, essentially claiming that Darwinism is a primitive creation myth that explains nothing and has not led to any new scientific discoveries (?!), which is demonstrably false. He also tries to argue that Darwinism 'stole' genetics to add some gravitas to its incoherent cosmogonical theories . . . Tom, how exactly would Darwin's idea of natural selection have possibly worked without the transmission of DNA? It was already included in the theory.

Within proper limits, Darwinist evolutionary theory is a genius-level scientific insight and has incredible explanatory power; I don't see how the broad-strokes version will possibly be superceded, even if it can't fully explain certain features of a single species (i.e., us) out of the millions on Earth. Wolfe complains that Darwinism isn't falsifiable and therefore isn't science, but this is just idiocy -- standards of 'proof' or 'evidence' vary by field. While physicists can find the Higgs Boson at 125.18 GeV and call a day, evolutionary biologists don't have that luxury. Also, if Wolfe had a better explanation than natural selection to account for the diversity of life on earth, he probably would have let us know.

Wolfe's connection of Darwinism with Chomsky-ite debates about the origins of language is tenuous at best (apparently he wrote two related essays and just jammed them together?), and contains even more facepalm-inducing errors than the first half of the book. Among other issues, Everett did not in fact demolish Chomsky's basic point -- also made by many, many other academics in a variety of fields (see Bickerton's Language and Species, Sokolowski's Phenomenology of the Human Person, various books by Paul Bloom etc.) -- that recursion/'nesting' grammar are the hallmarks of all human language and are correlated with intentionality.

(To give the simplest possible explanation of what this means -- both Koko the gorilla and my two-year-old son can string together various nouns and verbs to create simple sentences but cannot 'nest' grammar in a higher-order way that incorporates other perspectives, from tense to mood to aspect, e.g., "I want you to know that I was happy earlier when you saw that I had played with the red ball." This seems like a small difference, but it is not.)

Anyway, per Everett's claims, there are roughly a thousand reasonable explanations for why a single tribe in the Amazon would apparently not use such grammar. Wolfe concludes that language is a human artifact, rather than something that blindly evolved and is innate in all humans, but this is a distinction without a difference -- the ability to use and create and develop that artifact still could have blindly evolved (according to this theory, at least).

In short, the prose is quite good and the storytelling is entertaining, but this is one of those cases where Wolfe is clearly out of his depth; he makes some valid points (Darwin's Descent of Man does indeed consist entirely of just-so stories, Chomsky's LAD construct is overly simplistic, etc.) but the errors ultimately become a bit too distracting. ...more

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Oct 09, 2017 Joshua rated it liked it

Shelves: cultural-studies

Five stars for making fun of Darwin (for the despicable way he double-crossed Alfred Wallace) and Chompsky (for being an armchair intellectual nincompoop). (I mean, these gods are worshipped so devotedly so as to make you ill). Hearing Darwin's little tree of life sketch being described as 'abortive' makes me laugh even now, because my lecturers were so sanctimonious about it in class... I laughed so much that I don't think I'll ever be able to read anything by those two too seriously (actually, ...more

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Sep 15, 2016 Mark Taylor rated it really liked it

Yes! Tom Wolfe is back!!! The sharply-dressed wordsmith returns with The Kingdom of Speech, his first non-fiction work since his 2000 collection of essays, Hooking Up. But you have to go back to 1981 and From Bauhaus to Our House to find Wolfe’s last extended, book-length piece of non-fiction. That seems fitting, because The Kingdom of Speech fits in well with From Bauhaus to Our House, Wolfe’s scathing critique of modern architecture, and The Painted Word, his 1975 lambasting of the modern art Yes! Tom Wolfe is back!!! The sharply-dressed wordsmith returns with The Kingdom of Speech, his first non-fiction work since his 2000 collection of essays, Hooking Up. But you have to go back to 1981 and From Bauhaus to Our House to find Wolfe’s last extended, book-length piece of non-fiction. That seems fitting, because The Kingdom of Speech fits in well with From Bauhaus to Our House, Wolfe’s scathing critique of modern architecture, and The Painted Word, his 1975 lambasting of the modern art scene.

Wolfe is an enemy of conformity, and while some interpret his critiques of art and architecture and conclude that he’s really a conservative figure, I would argue that what he’s really saying is to question orthodoxy and authority. Wolfe might actually be more radical than people think. Wolfe has often come under fire from liberals because he attacks liberal orthodoxies, and as a liberal, I think I can say that liberals generally don’t like it when their reality gets questioned. As William F. Buckley once said, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” We tend to see things in black and white, as a dichotomy. If you’re against modern architecture, then, ipso facto, you must be a conservative! If you’re against modern art, then you’re not part of the vanguard! You’re not on the cutting edge! Wolfe is always interested in how certain ideas or theories become entrenched-the way styles of art and architecture became entrenched, and how once they become the orthodoxy, how anyone who questions them is quickly branded a heretic.

In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe sets his sights on Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. Specifically, Wolfe is interested in how speech evolved in human beings. According to Wolfe, no one has been able to truly explain this-which as Wolfe says, is what really made man able to dominate all of the other species on the planet. Wolfe goes back to Charles Darwin as he traces Darwin’s writing of On the Origin of Species, which was partially published to beat Alfred Russel Wallace into print, as Wallace had independently developed the same theory. Wolfe then examines Darwin’s theories about how language developed…which leads into Wolfe taking on Chomsky, who has long been the reigning linguistic theorist. Wolfe sums up some of the research of Daniel Everett, who found a lost tribe in the Amazon whose language seems to contradict some of Chomsky’s key theories.

I am not enough of an expert on language or linguistic theory to definitively say that Wolfe is right or wrong, but The Kingdom of Speech is an entertaining read. Wolfe’s style is his usual, love it or hate it, stream of consciousness ramble. I’ve seen some reviewers who have mocked Wolfe’s flights of fancy, asking “How does he go from this to that?” but in asking that question it seems clear that they don’t understand how stream of consciousness works. Unlike some other Wolfe books, the first exclamation point doesn’t appear until the bottom of the second page! But have no fear; Wolfe’s trademark wit and sarcasm are still fully intact. Oh, and this time, unlike The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House, there are footnotes!

As with Wolfe’s other books, The Kingdom of Speech has been controversial, and debates have raged over how accurately Wolfe has summarized the thoughts and ideas of Chomsky and Everett. I am sure that delights Wolfe, who has never shied away from criticism or controversy during his long career. The criticism over the book follows exactly the pattern that Wolfe describes when he writes about people protecting their orthodoxies-the outsider is invariably attacked for not being “one of us.” The experts shriek and howl: But he’s not a linguist! He hasn’t studied linguistics and evolution for thirty years! How many books about language has he read? He doesn’t know the territory! Well, sometimes an outsider can provide a fresh perspective. I don’t think Wolfe is saying that his book will be the final word on this subject. What Wolfe is really doing is popularizing the ideas and theories he presents in The Kingdom of Speech. Because he’s a famous writer, they will invariably get more attention. It’s fitting that Wolfe would choose to write a book about language, since he is such a terrific writer. Wolfe has always held a high place in the kingdom of speech. ...more

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Oct 07, 2016 LAPL Reads rated it really liked it

Satirist Tom Wolfe is back with another contrarian broadside against sacred cows. In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe takes on two scientific icons, Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. In this slim, provocative volume, Wolfe risks the scorn of the scientific establishment by criticizing the self-importance of these legendary figures.

Wolfe contrasts the patrician Darwin, whose theories were always backed up by other English gentleman scientists, such as Charles Lyell, with the “flycatcher,” Alfred Russe Satirist Tom Wolfe is back with another contrarian broadside against sacred cows. In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe takes on two scientific icons, Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. In this slim, provocative volume, Wolfe risks the scorn of the scientific establishment by criticizing the self-importance of these legendary figures.

Wolfe contrasts the patrician Darwin, whose theories were always backed up by other English gentleman scientists, such as Charles Lyell, with the “flycatcher,” Alfred Russell Wallace, a working class naturalist who had difficulty finding support in the British scientific establishment. Both men are credited with the theory of evolution, but Darwin spent far more time on his estate than out in the field. While Darwin’s ideas about natural selection have been proven correct by subsequent scientific findings, Wolfe claims that he did not have credible notions of man’s acquisition of language and abstract thought.

Until the Cold War, linguistics was heavily influenced by anthropology. In order to keep up with other fields that were becoming increasingly scientific in the late 1940s, mathematical formulas were developed to explain the evolution of language The Neo-Darwinian Noam Chomsky, whom Wolfe calls “Noam Charisma,” came up with his universal theory of language acquisition in graduate school. Chomsky posited that every child is capable of understanding the universal rules of grammar because of a “language organ” which processes deep syntactic structures. Chomsky later refined his theory to include the principle of “recursion,” that all humans could express multiple thoughts in the same sentence.

As Chomsky’s scientific stature grew, he became the foremost linguistics professor in the world. Chomsky used his newfound gravitas to protest the Vietnam War, and his political activism merged socialism and libertarianism. From his perch at MIT, Chomsky became one of America’s most famous public intellectuals.

Let’s fast forward a few decades. Chomsky’s theories about human language acquisition are now under considerable scrutiny. Daniel L. Everett, a linguistics professor and former missionary, has lived with a tribe deep in the Brazilian rainforest, the Pirahã people, who do not observe any of the rules of universal grammar. They have no words for the past or future, make no tools, have no colors or numbers, and do not practice recursion. There is a heated debate in the field of linguistics about whether Chomsky’s language theories can be applied on a universal basis. As for Tom Wolfe, he suggests that speech is just another artifact of humanity; that the acquisition of language and abstract thought is a learned behavior, and not an evolutionary imperative.

Reviewed by David B., Librarian, InfoNow ...more

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About Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe

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Wolfe was educated at Washington and Lee Universities and also at Yale, where he received a PhD in American studies.

Tom Wolfe spent his early days as a Washington Post beat reporter, where his free-association, onomatopoetic style would later become the trademark of New Journalism. In books such as The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe delves into ...more

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“To say that animals evolved into man is like saying that Carrara marble evolved into Michelangelo's David. Speech is what man pays homage to in every moment he can imagine.” — 3 likes

“We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.” — 3 likes

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