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Articles

Encouraging Communication Through Imagination

Shudong Chen communicates about the importance of communication.

Our need for communication coincides with our very existence. Along with our first kicks of legs and throws of arms, our first cries as newborn infants are before we can even open our eyes to figure out the world.

Rousseau emphasizes the unique function of communication in his Discourse on the Origin of Human Inequality (1754). In this essay, both human civilization and inequality begin when someone is shrewd enough to pick up a rock, use it to mark a place on the ground, and declare “This is mine!” and then find someone foolish enough to believe him. Civilization therefore starts with communication.

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