A highwayman - by Glen
Campbell (source). Before the rise of the State, and its pacification of social
relations, the top man was the one who dominated the local group through a mixture
of violence, bombast, and charisma.
Before the State came into being, men were organized
into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a
mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma. The more you had of these qualities,
the likelier you would become the leader, "the big man." But such
leadership could easily slip out of your hands. Power was something that all
men held, and it was only through the consensus of the moment that one man held
more of it than the others.
Thus, in pre-State societies, power is not a permanent
structure that transcends the lifetime of any one leader. Power is the
leader. It is highly personal and ephemeral, and these qualities extend to the
tools of power, like speech. When describing Amerindian tribes in Paraguay,
Pierre Clastres (1989 pp. 151-153) says:
To speak is above all to possess the power to speak. [...] the question to ask is not: who is your chief? but rather: who among you is the one who speaks? The master of words is what many groups call their chief.
[...] Indian societies do not recognize the chief's right to speak because he is the chief: they require that the man destined to be chief prove his command over words. Speech is an imperative obligation for the chief. The tribe demands to hear him: a silent chief is no longer chief.
This situation changes with the rise of the State, in particular with its monopoly on the use of violence. Social relations become more pacified, more structured, and less changeable, thus creating a culture of deference to authority. Speech is still manipulative but subtly so, as Rosen (1987) describes in Ethiopia:
For people who grow up speaking Amharic and Tigrinya, the idea of being precise with language is a foreign one. Ethiopians, perhaps Amharas more than Tigreans, are always on guard with others, suspicious about the motives of almost everyone, and on the alert for verbal assaults of one sort or another. The Amhara does not assume good intentions—he expects people to harbor disruptive inclinations. He deals with authority cautiously, always seeking to perfect his verbal means for giving vent to his criticisms and frustrations, but without incurring the wrath of powerful superiors.
[...] One must live a long time in the midst of Ethiopians, speaking with them in Amharic (or Tigrinya), in order to begin to appreciate how much calculation is invested in each phrase, each answer to a question, each overt response to a situation. That he who desires to do harm may always be polite, or that he who wishes to deliver an insult may include it in a finely-wrought compliment, is part of a general understanding of human nature. When a person speaks, he wants to do so subtly, being able to make his point effectively, yet not so directly that he might find himself involved in an altercation or worse with some equally sensitive opponent.
Social relations are still incompletely pacified in Ethiopia. This is partly because of recurring conflicts between central and peripheral sources of authority, but also because many people chose until recent times to be outlaws, i.e., those outside the sphere of State-imposed law:
In Ethiopia, an exceptionally fierce warrior could not always restrict himself to serving the common cause, or to being subservient to a particular chieftain. His alternative was to rebel, flee from the constraints of society and become a shifta. The dictionary defines this term to mean "outlaw, bandit, brigand, rebel". It was applied to anyone who committed a crime and then fled to the wilderness, thereafter living by stealth and cunning, if not, as was more than likely, by killing and highway robbery. As often as not, the shifta was also admired for being guabäz: for his courage and manliness, and, perhaps, most of all, for his daring in flouting the norms of the society. (Rosen, 1987)
Incomplete pacification also appears in the persistence of disruptive forms of speech, "when language is made into a weapon to attack or disrupt others":
One form of this is an Ethiopian penchant for backbiting, known in Amharic as chiqechiq. This appears when personal interests are asserted in the midst of group undertakings, often leading to the downfall of the community plan or project, and the disruption of joint undertakings. Another form is the studied use of hyperbole in order to magnify a case, or to gain attention for one's cause, even if this requires wild exaggeration of the truth. (Rosen, 1987)
Emergence of a free marketplace of ideas
I have argued elsewhere that the State's monopoly on
violence created a new cultural environment that favored the survival of meeker
and more submissive individuals (Frost, 2010). This environment also improved
the prospects for individuals who used speech less aggressively. Because other
individuals no longer posed a threat to life and property, and because trust
had become the rule and not the exception, people were now freer to use speech
simply for communication. It became possible to exchange ideas in good faith
and judge them on their own merits.
This development is analogous to the rise of the
market economy. In a low-trust society, buyers and sellers can securely make their
transactions only in small protected areas that are limited in space and time,
i.e., shops and marketplaces. In a high-trust society, the market mechanism can
spread beyond these isolated points of exchange to encompass the entire
economy. Increased trust emancipated the marketplace of goods and services, and
it had a similar effect on the marketplace of ideas.
Cultural or genetic evolution?
Selection acts on phenotypes, and only indirectly on
genotypes. When speech began to be used in new ways, the old ways became a
handicap for survival and reproduction. There was thus cultural selection for
new speech patterns. But were these new patterns passed on only through
learning? Or was there also selection for certain genetic predispositions?
There are predispositions that selection can act upon.
Loudness of speech seems to have a heritable basis (Carmelli et al., 1988;
Matthews et al., 1984). The same is true for deceitful behavior (Barker et al., 2009). Heritability is particularly high for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD), which is characterized by certain speech differences:
Analysis of speech parameters during conversation, such as voice rhythm (rate and duration of pauses and vocalization, response latency), intensity, and frequency, has revealed marked differences in the timing and modulation of speech between children with ADHD and those with and without specific learning disabilities. They speak louder, fail to modulate their voice volume, speak for much longer at a stretch with many short pause durations during their talk, but take much longer to respond to the conversational partner. (Tannock, 2005)
This is not to say that ADHD became less prevalent with the pacification of social relations, but rather that this new cultural environment selected for certain heritable aspects of speech that are impaired by ADHD. Like many other genetic disorders, ADHD sheds light on the heritable variability that selection can act upon.
In sum, when the State imposed a monopoly on the use
of violence, it set in motion a process of gene-culture co-evolution with many
consequences. Among other things, this process may have favored not only
learned ways of speaking but also unlearned ways as well.
References
Barker, E.D., H. Larson, E. Viding, B. Maughan, F.
Rijsdijk, N. Fontaine, and R. Plomin. (2009). Common genetic but specific
environmental influences for aggressive and deceitful behaviors in
preadolescent males, Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment,
31, 299-308.
http://www.drru-research.org/data/resources/55/Barker-E.-et-al.-2009.PDF
Carmelli, D., R. Rosenman, M. Chesney, R. Fabsitz, M.
Lee, and N. Borhani. (1988). Genetic heritability and shared environmental
influences of type A measures in the NHLBI Twin Study, American Journal of Epidemiology,
127 (5), 1041-1052.
Clastres, P. (1989). Society against the State,
New York: Zone Books.
Frost, P. (2010). The Roman State and genetic
pacification, Evolutionary Psychology, 8(3), 376-389. http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP08376389.pdf
Matthews, K.A., R.H. Rosenman, T.M. Dembroski, E.L.
Harris, and J.M. MacDougall. (1984). Familial resemblance in components of the
type A behavior pattern: a reanalysis of the California type A twin study, Psychosomatic
Medicine, November, 46, 512-22.
Rosen, C. (1987). Core symbols of Ethiopian identity
and their role in understanding the Beta Israel today, in M. Ashkenazi and A.
Weingrod (eds.) Ethiopian Jews and Israel, pp. 55-62, New Brunswick
(U.S.A.): Transaction Books.
Tannock, R. (2005).
Language and mental health disorders: the case of HDHD, in W. Ostreng (ed.) Convergence. Interdisciplinary
Communications 2004/2005, 45-53.
http://www.cas.uio.no/Publications/Seminar/Convergence_Tannock.pdf
24 comments:
''They speak louder, fail to modulate their voice volume, speak for much longer at a stretch with many short pause durations during their talk, but take much longer to respond to the conversational partner''
Hihihihihihi, me... Autistics also have problem with voice volume.
Hmmmm, adhd related to higher rates of non-righthandedness. Non-righthandedness related more to non-conformity, monkeys who are lefthanded are more dominant than others, left handed dogs are more agressives with strangers than right handed dogs (to seems, well, was that i read some months before, i have the links). We have more CEOS who are left and ambidexterous, more president (by today,is possible that many presidents and governments in other times was forced to write with right). Psychosis spectra related also with more non-righthandedness.
Left handedness, autism, dyslexia and other neuro-minority groups are atavic groups or phenotypes, before the selection process. This could explain less incidence of left handedness in modern societies, like Western and Eastern (specially) than aboriginals and amerindians (amerindians have more adhd and yanomamis, example, have more than 20% of non-righthandedness.)
The selection priorise some traits and des-selected the most part of neurodiverse (and very specific) traits in your full-expression because in a complex societies is important to have a multifunctional individuals and adhd, autistic and others are very intelectually specifics.
The ''normal'' peoples today made by the balanced selection of this extrem traits manifested in some subgroups, all of this normals have all of the atavic traits but without the extreme or derivative manifestations.
Right handed people tend to be more multifunctional and left handed tend to be more specialized. The ''poor'' development of left side of the brain to most of the left and ambidexterous in true is a demographically or numerically manifestation of early non-selected traits of the human beings and the multifunctional cognitive phenotypes is like as accumulation of ''time-selection processes'', like blue eyes, you turn off the genes that are responsible by express the ''melanine eyes'. (to each less melanine, less brown eyes, this could mean ''disconnection of the genes, slowly)
Left handedness and ambidexterity COULD be a non-recessive trait, because is a trait that are very des-selected specially in modern societies but continue to exist.
But i can be very wrong about that, but we have thinking there some types of recessivity, the contextual and the genetic. Blue eyes is recessive around the world, but not in northern europe.
If left handedness is posterior to right handedness majority, so there a possibility the difference in recessivity and genetic dominance among this traits is not so ''dualistic'' black and white like we believe.
Peter, your idea that a state monopoly on violence pacifies a population implies that the Nordic nations would be among the least pacified. Now they are widely observed to be the most pacified of all Europeans.
It is more likely that populations with pre-existing high intelligence were better able to civilize, and to behave in a more civil fashion within the context of a civilized society. Such an explanation takes into account well known and well measured quantities - that is, intelligence - and does not return any obviously inconsistent results.
Interesting thoughts - seems plausible, selection on martial ability -> selection on verbal ability (one way or another).
sorry to be semi o/t but
"become a shifta. The dictionary defines this term to mean "outlaw, bandit, brigand, rebel". It was applied to anyone who committed a crime and then fled to the wilderness, thereafter living by stealth and cunning,"
made me wonder about the origin of "shifty" which according to
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shifty
has a first recorded use of 1884 which would be circa 20-30 years after the British campaign in Ethiopia.
"Peter, your idea that a state monopoly on violence pacifies a population implies that the Nordic nations would be among the least pacified."
They were until quite late.
"It is more likely that populations with pre-existing high intelligence were better able to civilize"
Maybe higher IQ populations pacify faster when they get around to it - maybe partly because they are more efficient at it e.g. produce enough surplus to afford lots of prison places.
You write: "Social relations are still incompletely pacified in Ethiopia. This is partly because of recurring conflicts between central and peripheral sources of authority, but also because many people chose until recent times to be outlaws, i.e., those outside the sphere of State-imposed law:"
This reminds me of things that used to go on in China, where organized banditry was a recurrent feature of society. We don't usually think of Ethopia and China being in the same boat. (But then I guess you could say the same thing about the Wild West.)
Peter, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081237 - a new interesting study involving Kleisner.
They found that
- real intelligence did no covary with face shape differences in their sample,
- perceived intelligence did covary with face shape differences in their sample
- perceived intelligence did covary with real intelligence, but only for the males
The low perceived intelligence faces in both male and female samples have small, robust, masculine features (high midfacial width to height ratio, larger jaw), compared to the average and high perceived intelligence face.
Their take home from this is that
"This means that our raters accurately assessed intelligence from faces of men based on visual cues that simply are not explicable from shape variability in men's faces. It is important to recall that our subjects were prompted to assume a neutral expression while their photo was taken and only photos of subjects with a neutral expression were included in the study.
We can speculate about attributions of intelligence based on particular configurations of eyes or gaze, colour of eyes, hair and skin, or skin texture. These hypotheses should be tested in future studies."
One interpretation here which I am not sure but may fit might be that relatively low intelligence males tend to exaggerate the masculinity and "toughness" of their faces even when prompted to hold a fairly inexpressive and neutral facial expression (machismo and stupidity are correlated, real masculinity and stupidity aren't). They tend to pull the lips in, narrow the eyes, set their jaws. While real facial physical masculinity has a connection with low perceived intelligence but not low real intelligence.
This study is on very high performing biology students (mean IQs far beyond the average), so may not generalize to normal populations.
Btw, re: the main thread, I could imagine "genetic pacification" spreading speech signals that signal pacification, while not actually enhancing real communication ability.
E.g. they enhance soft speech that allows the speaker to avoid the attentions of pacifiers.
This may not actually make communication better - an very indirect communicator with a talent for disguising his intentions would be less of a "big man", but I can't see that this would help them actually discuss.
This could even be a sort of "deceptive" soft speech - walk softly and carry a big stick.
We might see examples of this in Orientals - not actually selected for particularly low violence, but selected well not to be the nail that sticks out, lest it get hammered down.
"They speak louder, fail to modulate their voice volume, speak for much longer at a stretch with many short pause durations during their talk, but take much longer to respond to the conversational partner. (Tannock, 2005) "
I think making others listen while one speaks would be a side effect of being aggressive, and often a rather counterproductive one. A non-hereditary leader can't take loyalty for granted, and paying attention to others is very hard work. Conversations that do not give the opportunity for tit for tat social grooming, get terminated. The internet is not popular because it is a source of information, but because it lets people give their opinion.
Off topic, but in case you haven't seen it: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26691884
Before the State came into being, men were organized into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma.
And cunning:
A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains. ... Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At about twenty-six years of age he killed a man in a quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph, Missouri, he joined one of the early California-bound emigrant trains, and was given the post of train-master. One day on the plains he had an angry dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew their revolvers. But the driver was the quicker artist, and had his weapon cocked first. So Slade said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter, and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his pistol -- whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity, and shot him dead! — Mark Twain, Roughing It, ch. ix and ch. x
Be they thug or nerd, few men are naturally good listeners. In Pride and Prejudice the first time Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennett, he delivers a strange monologue. Intellectual problem solving in civil society does not necessarily select for conversational skills. Both a thug and a nerd have have their repective attributes. Nerds' are more specialised, but their's is still a masculine mentality.
There are some societies where infantcide is very common. I don't know if a man who loves and leaves could have much success there. Thug genes in a mother would be likely to result in high mortality in her children. Nerd genes in a female may not be so great for reproductive fitness either.
It seems to me that when men were often thugs, genes that let women elicit care would be strongly selected for. Roxolana was supposed to be playful and irresistibly charming. Not much like Elizabeth Bennet then.
"men were organized into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma"
Charisma deployed by grand speaking (ie everyone else listening) would enable a big man to go beyond a faction to take over the community without having to fight everyone. So the the power to speak convincingly was probably being selected for.
And that way of speaking is still quite important in a free market in ideas. Quite often it is the singer not the song.
Gottlieb,
Are you saying that autism, dyslexia and adhd are less "derived"? In other words, were they more common in the past and became less common?
Anon,
State formation began in southern Europe, but there was a long period of several centuries (the Dark Ages) when the power of the State to maintain order was limited and often only theoretical. It is only since the 11th century, beginning in Western Europe and then spreading outward, that there has been sustained, uninterrupted pacification of social relations. In many ways, this "second wave" was much more ruthless than what happened in Greco-Roman times, particularly between 1500 and 1750 when the State condemned to death between 0.5 and 1.0% of all men of each generation, with perhaps an equal number dying in prison while awaiting trial.
Anon,
"shifty" - 1560s, "able to manage for oneself, fertile in expedients," from shift (n.1) in secondary sense of "dodge, trick, artifice"
Luke,
Yes, social relations are less high-trust in China than in Japan, for instance. For this reason, I don't see China developing into a liberal democratic society, at least not to the same extent as Japan.
M,
Interesting. I wonder whether the visual cue is skin tone, i.e., facial ruddiness or darkness.
Anon,
To the degree that social pacification removes aggressive and/or disruptive speech, communication becomes more open and honest. Of course, there is still the possibility of manipulative forms of speech that stop short of threats or intimidation.
Sean,
In a small group, it doesn't take long to figure out what the others are thinking. So the emphasis is more on maintaining order. In a pre-State society, each adult male has that function.
Magistra Mundi,
When a civilized man meets a barbarian, he shouldn't assume that the other man will play fair. There's a good reason why we had a double standard.
Sean,
When thugs run the show, women tend to select mates on the basis of their position in the pecking order, and not on their willingness to invest in their own children. It's a different set of criteria.
Wouldn't the lawbreakers removed from the gene pool between "1500 and 1750" have almost entirely been from the lower orders of society. I'm not clear how this affected the style of speaking among the educated, if the gene flow was from upper to lower class, as Gregory Clark says. Upper class mens' genetic propensity for violence must have declined quite drastically. Some families moving up in social class could explain it I suppose.
Japan isn't really a liberal democratic society. It's only nominally and officially a liberal democracy as an American vassal. Remember that Japan's liberal democratic constitution was written and imposed by the US after the war with Japan under military occupation. In reality, Japan is more of a national socialist society, something like what Nazi Germany might have been like had it won the war:
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue23/Locke23.htm
"One way to describe the Japanese achievement is to say that they have achieved what the Nazis wanted to achieve but didn’t, largely of course because they were mad serial killers obsessed with a lot of things other than economics. Ironically, Asiatic Japan comes closer than any nation on earth to what Hitler wanted. It is a socially conservative, hierarchical, technocratic, orderly, pagan, sexist, nationalist, racially pure, anti-communist, non-capitalist and anti-Semitic society."
I would add that the Japanese were able to achieve not only what the Nazis were unable to but what European nationalists were unable to after the war due to American domination of the Continent.
China is national socialist and quite similar to Japan.
Sean,
Clark has shown some upward mobility of English surnames, although not as much as the downward mobility.
We are looking at two parallel trends: 1) greater reproductive success of the middle class with a resulting demographic overflow into the lower class.
2) selection against personal violence, partly through judicial executions and partly through various forms of extrajudicial execution (deaths in prison while awaiting trial, deaths of suspects at the scene of the crime, and increased risk of mortality and reduced reproductive success of people who show signs of "thuggish" behavior.
Anon,
Perhaps. My impression is that both Japan and China are trending towards individualism and globalism, although national identity remains much stronger than is the case in Western societies. On the other hand, both countries have strong globalist factions, particularly within the business community.
Before the State came into being, men were organized into small, loosely defined groups where authority was wielded through a mixture of violence, bombast, and charisma.
I've read quite a bit about the South African Bushmen, and apparently they were almost obsessively self-effacing and considerate of each others feelings. Being a disliked bully in a small group where all the men carry spears and poison arrows is exceedingly dangerous!
I think most very small human groups follow this pattern. It was not until more recently when you started to have larger communities of farmers or pastoralists or whatnot that the benefits of violence, bombast, and charisma began to outweigh the risks.
Anon, black men are very visible in Japanese advertising and you see a surprising number of them in Japanese cities I'm told. I suppose it may be policy to deflect accusations of racism. Japan is run by clever people, they seem to worked out as long as inflation isn't a real problem, you can print money, buy back the debt and cancel it.
Turchin says the successful middle class became nobles if they could, and the poor nobles killed each other off in periodic instability. I suppose the two processes meant the nobles may have became less warlike over time, even if they didn't get hanged very often.
In late 14th early 15th century France, 40-30% of noble daughters went to nunneries. I think what women were doing and the skewed sex ratio as a result of men getting killed may be quite significant.
Anon,
Yes, I was talking about the conditions that preceded state formation, i.e., agricultural or pastoral societies.
I'm not so sure about the Bushmen being self-effacing and considerate of other peoples' feelilngs. Henry Harpending said that conversation among them was typically one long passive-aggressive whine: "You should have done that for me! You owe this to me! You were supposed to..!
There is a series of commercials running recently for a telecom company called Softbank featuring a talking dog and a black man, but in general they're not "very visible" in Japanese advertising, certainly in comparison to American and Western media where they're massively overrepresented. And there aren't many of them in Japanese cities.
I'm not so sure about the Bushmen being self-effacing and considerate of other peoples' feelilngs. Henry Harpending said that conversation among them was typically one long passive-aggressive whine: "You should have done that for me! You owe this to me! You were supposed to..!
Yes, my sources mention that also. It's kind of weird. Bushmen were very careful to avoid standing out, or grabbing credit, or giving the impression that they were any better than anyone else (even if they were!). And they did share everything. But they also seemed to live in a state of constant emotional insecurity that could rise to the surface at any time.
Hey, I didn't say they were noble savages! :-)
''Are you saying that autism, dyslexia and adhd are less "derived"? In other words, were they more common in the past and became less common?''
Peter Fros,
i don't understand your question. I think the majority of minority neuroconditions are des-selected in human societies, at least their Full-phenotype expressions like bipolar disorder (or reorder) or autism and their ''directly derivative neuroconditions'' like cyclothimie and asperger syndrome.
I understand that the ''genes of adhd'' are more common in the past. Minority neuroconditions (aka, mental illness) are related one which other, is very common commorbidities. Where have the adhd genes, have the autism genes, the schizophrenia genes, because, they are come from the same ''fountain'', the ''genetic of human diversity''.
I think, if today and during greater time of human history, since the early days of civilization, the neuroconditions are strongly des-selected because their higher custs, so, other mechanisms beyond selection, have maintened him, example, the schizophrenia.
My theory, adaptative modern human is the combination and decantation of this full-phenotypes and derivations of the neuroconditions
and this process of combination between the father and mother genes is equally so important than selection, when spermatozoids ''marry'' with ovaries. So, more than one combination can happen and depend of gene pool of couple, you can have the combination that result in autism. Is not, autistic people marry and pass their genes, but some phenotype combinations in ''genetically predisposed people'' (and the neurotypicals) can be result in expression of autism spectrum.
Schizophrenics have very low fertility, so, genetic combination maintened the full-phenotypes like autism, schizophrenia and adhd spectra.
Is not like as ''selection or not selection'', but, the gene pool and their possible genetic combinations during the process of conception (sexual relations).
About the, adhd genes in the past was majority, i get it of the work about the '' human colonization of entire habitable continents and adhd genes function'' (Harpending and Cochran).
My other theory is about the cognitive differences between the adaptative neurotypicals and neurodiverses. Neurodiverses is like a strong-specialized people, so neurotypicals are multifunctional. In the past, probably, this full phenotypes and more derivatives (very well more adaptative) live in more numbers than today and the selection to multifunctionalism, create a mix for example, between a schizotypal individual male with a broader autistic female, and generation by generation, the specialization of this atavic conditions was seeing replaced by multifunctional people.
Like puzzles.
I believe there ancestral traits of the species, like pragmatic mind in asians or ideacional mind (ideological) in europeans. This are traits, so common within the populations that probably was the first traits in the first communities of these collectivities, like ''fingerprint of the race''. So, is not imperative selected this traits because they are present in all individuals or in majority (at least 60%) of individuals of the group. In all mates, this traits are be combined and expressed.
In the case of neuro-minority conditions to seems that this is little more complex because it are phenotypes and not only ''a trait'' but a combination of many traits, but the mechanisms is the same.
If, there 30% of population in control groups who have more ''autistic traits'' so, is very probable that greater majority of population have at least one autistic trait, and if ''traits=genes'', some traits of autism that are very advantageous was strong selected in a pre historic past.
"I think most very small human groups follow this pattern. It was not until more recently when you started to have larger communities of farmers or pastoralists or whatnot that the benefits of violence, bombast, and charisma began to outweigh the risks."
I think the **relative** benefit of violence in different pre-state societies would vary also according to the required paternal investment in their region.
In an environment where the women could feed the kids themselves then men could take more risks to get the benefit of two or more sets of kids.
In a harsher environment where large paternal investment is needed and especially one where a man could only feed one set of kids there's less benefit to violence.
Post a Comment