Worst development in history?

I think in the past I've identified the advent of conceptual thought as the worst development in history, but even before doing that I had decided that it was really the invention of writing (obviously I forgot about that decision in the interim and now, actually, I'm not sure how I was reminded of it).  I'm sure some Romantic or other has written about this, possibly with a different valence.  But I got it from thinking on Nelson Goodman, if you can believe that.

Particular instances of sugar highs are also bad developments, but probably of less world-historical significance.

Comments

[Jacob Haller]

"Particular instances of sugar highs are also bad developments, but probably of less world-historical significance." You know what's telling you that? Conceptual thought.

[Matt's mom]

I've had a similar thought (although, technically, it would be prehistory, and there wouldn't be any history without conceptual thought). Abstraction kills. I believe Socrates warned about the dangers of writing. More exactly, since of course he didn't write it down, Plato said he did.

[ben wolfson]

Wow, Matt's mom.

My real quarrel with writing isn't so much the abstraction as it is the externalization/objectification thing. (But then I start worrying that I'll end up being like the crank who wrote The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.)