2 Culture

Human culture is tripartite: a level of instrumental culture (which we share with apes and many other animals) in the form of material culture, subsistence techniques and other practically oriented instrumentalities of life at the bottom; then ritual culture of which there is little among apes (but for which good examples can be found among birds and whales), and finally language, unique to us in all of nature. The distinction between instrumental and ritual culture makes all the difference in the world. It allows us to trace the natural origins of human uniqueness, and provides the background to the emergence of human language, since we had ritual culture long before we had language.