The world, survival, and writing

I’ve been thinking about a question Prof. Wolff asked today:  Why is it that reading and writing is so prevalent, and increasingly so, in our society.

I think it has to do with our very survival as a species.  The thing that makes us human is the ability to communicate in the way we do.  Think back to cro-magnon man and our ancestors;  they needed to communicate skills to one another in order to survive.  The best way to make a fire is not known from birth, it must be taught.  Knowledge kept us alive as a species, more specifically, the ability to communicate ideas.  Later, even before the written language, stories were used to pass information from tribe to tribe, clan to clan.  Even in the modern world, with all our advances in science, mathematics, and the arts, a baby is born helpless, and ignorant.  We must keep pedaling the bike! These ideas we have amassed throughout so many centuries do not come “installed” in us.  I mean without communication of ideas, we are nothing.  So can’t we say that we as a species ARE ideas?  That’s why we read and write so much, thats why we have made such an effort to connect the globe through writing, symbols, communicating instantly, 24 hours a day; we have to keep teaching and learning.  We can never stop.  It’s our SURVIVAL INSTINCT, and there’s nothing stronger.  We need this to survive.

Does that make sense?