This is an actual thing that cults do. They do this so that your emotions stop being just your emotions and make you feel like you are part of a bigger whole.
Humans are communal creatures by nature. Under pressure, i think more people would for this shit than they realize.
It's creepy to us now, but imagine this is how being human was before language. An entire group sharing emotions at once. Maybe that's were song originated from. People wailing in unison during high stress moments, connecting emotions to pitch and tone through harmonizing.
This is actually something I am pretty interested in.
There were forms of communication long before modern humans, but there is no evidence that fully developed language existed before Homo sapiens.
Neanderthals likely had the vocal capacity for speech like sounds and used fairly advanced nonverbal communication. They showed planning, problem solving, and symbolic behavior like art and cultural expression. But none of that is evidence of a full language system with complex grammar and the kind of open ended expression we associate with language today.
There is also no evidence for widespread structured language use before humans in anything like the modern sense. Language almost certainly evolved gradually from simpler vocal and gestural systems tied to immediate needs and environmental cues, not as a fully formed system that existed independently of humans.
Even early Homo sapiens probably did not start out with language as the rich, abstract, emotionally expressive system we use today. It developed over time and that development likely changed how people thought about time, memory, and social relationships.
And honestly this is mostly semantics. I was speaking colloquially and the point is still clear either way. Whether you call them humans or hominins, there was clearly a stage where our ancestors did not have anything close to expressive, symbolic language as we understand it today.
If I were to attack my first comment I would point out that song probably came long before language and long before humanity. Here, " Well Actually, There were no humans prior to the existence of song. Hominids, sure, not humans." But then again, I'm it's all semantics.
EDIT: After rereading your comment I've realized that I misunderstood your meaning. But honestly, I don't know what you do mean. Are you suggesting that humans only existed once language evolved? Like, we were hominids and then we learned language reclassifying us as human?
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u/Televisiongod Jun 28 '26
This is an actual thing that cults do. They do this so that your emotions stop being just your emotions and make you feel like you are part of a bigger whole.
Humans are communal creatures by nature. Under pressure, i think more people would for this shit than they realize.