By Failing To Read Or Listen To Poets, Society Dooms Itself To Inferior Modes Of Articulation, Those Of The Politician, The Salesman, Or The Charlatan. In Other Words, It Forfeits Its Own Evolutionary Potential. For What Distinguishes Us From The Rest Of The Animal Kingdom Is Precisely The Gift Of Speech. Poetry Is Not A Form Of Entertainment And In A Certain Sense Not Even A Form Of Art, But It Is Our Anthropological, Genetic Goal. Our Evolutionary, Linguistic Beacon.

-Joseph Brodsky

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By Failing To Read Or Listen To

Joseph Brodsky

By Failing To Read Or Listen To Poets, Society Dooms Itself To Inferior Modes Of Articulation, Those Of The Politician, The Salesman, Or The Charlatan. In Other Words, It Forfeits Its Own Evolutionary Potential. For What Distinguishes Us From The Rest Of The Animal Kingdom Is Precisely The Gift Of Speech. Poetry Is Not A Form Of Entertainment And In A Certain Sense Not Even A Form Of Art, But It Is Our Anthropological, Genetic Goal. Our Evolutionary, Linguistic Beacon.

Topic

Art

Animal

Goal

What Concerns Me Is That Man, Unable To Articulate, To Express Himself Adequately, Reverts To Action. Since The Vocabulary Of Action Is Limited, As It Were, To His Body, He Is Bound To Act Violently, Extending His Vocabulary With A Weapon Where There Should Have Been An Adjective.

Men

Vocabulary

Should Have