Discourse Theory - original questions

The Original Questions ?

I wondered how discourse might have begun - I imagine that the earliest humans only had three basic questions in their lives:-

  • What is safe to eat ?
  • How can we get more of it ?
  • How can we store it so we never run out of food and go hungry ?

These questions have now evolved into a massively complex system of ideas (especially more complex since economics began when foodstuffs began to be traded ).
For example, "What is safe to eat" diverges into two directions

What is healthy to eat ? - evolving into medicines and treatments
What tastes good to eat ? - evolving into cookery and 'gourmet' ideas

These seem like the roots of separate discourses, though they are clearly connected (for example, some medicines are healthy, but unsafe in excess, while some food tastes good but is unhealthy - the discourses of health, safety and taste interact in many different ways)



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