|
The reason the argument is being put forth in the book is because there have been three main alternate hypotheses for what humans are guided by in regard to their minds. The noble savage is the idea that native man without civilization is much more gentle and peaceable than civilized man. It is very long and detailed, and some have complained about the thoroughness of the work, but as such, it reminded me of how it was to read "On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.
The Noble Savage 3. The ghost in the machine is the idea promoted by many religions that there is a spirit or soul which is the being, and so the brain is not really the source of the mind.It appears many of the negative reviews have spouted many of the arguments for one of these ideas, and therefore the reviewers may not have actually read the book, wherein Pinker thoroughly shreds each of these ideas, and the arguments put forth by the reviewers.I will not explain Pinker's view of human nature in detail here, as it is done in great detail in the book, as well as in many of the excellent reviews already present, but I will simply say that the theory he promotes is infinitely more reasonable, being an amalgam of genetics, epigenetics, biological development, and environment, in varying degrees. The Ghost in the MachineThese may be self-explanatory, but the blank slate is the idea that the brain has no built in propensities, and thus may be entirely guided and developed by environment.
First of all, this is one of the best science books I have read. The Blank Slate 2. I leave it to the intelligent reader to come to their own conclusions as to which of these ideas has the most merit, and read the book if you want to read one of the most erudite books of our time, keeping in mind that to explain a thing is not to endorse ugly side effects of that thing.
It is that well argued, with copious references, and places the idea of the human brain as a blank slate in the trash bin where it belongs with flat earth theory and intelligent design.It is difficult to review this book which already has over 200 very detailed reviews, so my focus on this review will be the error of some of the negative reviews.The thesis of this book is simply that there is such a thing as human nature. The three ideas that have been argued in the past have been: 1.
Instead of throwing at us the latest and greatest scientific discovery that supposedly rebuffs one of the Blank Slate tripod legs Pinker prefers to use old-school philosophy, sociology, ethnography or psychology to convince the reader that the fear that gave rise to the tripod leg was unwarranted to start with.The book was one of the two 2003 general nonfiction Pulitzer finalists. The common fears are::1 - The Fear of Inequality - If humans are born with innate differences these differences could grow into inequalities among people; 2 - The Fear of Imperfectability - If we are born already saddled with our sins and flaws any effort to improve society would be a waste of time; 3 - The Fear of Determinism - The fear of legal defences starting with "my genes made me do it" or "biology ate my homework"; 4 - The Fear of Nihilism - The fear that life would lose its meaning if, after all, our motives and values are mere products of the physiology of the brain. It barely stands up since the Ghost in the Machine leg is not very well developed. In my humble opinion it deserved the prize. Richard Dawkins, writer of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, and many other great books would press on but Pinker is more gentle and controversy averse, I suppose. I picked up The Blank Slate as a follow up book after reading the excellent Matt Ridley's The Red Queen - Sex and The Evolution of Human Nature.
The subtitle is the obvious giveaway: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.Pinker's book is a criticism of the tripod that makes up the modern denial of human nature:: 1 - The Blank Slate vision or the belief that humans are "infinitely malleable" as stated by O'Brian, the government agent in Orwell's 1984; 2 - The Noble Savage concept or the idyllic notion that in the natural state humans are selfless, peaceful and untroubled;3 - The Ghost in the Machine doctrine or the idea that mind and body are made up of two different materials that can even exist separately.Pinker's is a somewhat crooked tripod I must say. The Blank Slate strides the divide between social sciences and - for lack of a better word - hard sciences but with a much firmer foot on the social sciences side. Call me stupid but I thought at first The blank Slate to be a counterpoint to The Red Queen. Pinker criticises the Blank Slate tripod by doing a thorough bibliographical review and showing that the common fears that are usually placated by the tripod are undeserved. Leonardo AlvesBelo Horizonte - Brazil - 2010 Despite of the book's title Steven Pinker does not endorse the Blank Slate vision.
My take is that the Ghost in the Machine is where a lot of otherwise rational people succumb to superstition and it is also where a book can start to hurt feelings.
I particularly enjoyed the discussion on the non-genetic explanations of why identical twins (who share all the genes) have personalities that are 50% correlated even when raised together or apart; and that findings have suggested the shared environment of the home does not explain the other 50%. Very eye opening stuff. Steven Pinker, the eminent cognitive scientist formerly of MIT (now at Harvard), has produced an intelligent, eloquent treatise in support of human nature; daring to tread where many others before him have who unfortunately faced the wrath of naive, uninformed, and simply dogmatic intellectuals and the easily duped public at large. The remaining explanation is what Pinker & others term the "unique environment," the particular life experiences that individuals bear witness to coupled with the unexplainable wiring up of the brain of the nascent uterus while in the womb. Definitely a worth while read. The book is structured well, beginning with the definition and a cultural rehashing of the modern notion of the blank slate & its corollary the noble savage and moving on to a clear, evidence-based, factual rebuttal of many of the core tenets of this ideology that had once come to dominate politic ideologies (particularly communism with its denunciation of the individual), social institutions (role of parenting, the feminism movement) and even the arts (with the rise of modern & post-modern art). It is an enjoyable read and very enlightening on many contentious topics; however the content falls mostly in the realm of "soft science" as many other reviewers have noted.
I ordered it for a relative - it took me about a year to read the book to understanding. The book is erudite in places, down-to-earth in others, and even whimsical at times. He debunks the "Blank Slate," the "Noble Savage," and the "Ghost in the Machine" beliefs of those who are convinced that human behavior and values are learned after one is born; the same believe that to deny this proposition is to support determinism and eugenics, as well as various rationales for the more powerful to oppress and subject those who are identified as "lesser beings," so to speak.
Pinker attempts a summary of the intellectual/academic debate over whether the biological organism that is a human being can explain human behavior. The book is a "slow read." Fortunately, Mr. Mr.
Pinker is very repetitious, as if he realizes that the concepts he presents will be difficult to swallow for many. Copiously footnoted and referenced, it should lead the inquisitive reader to a library of source material for further thought and discussion of this relatively recent (90s and new milennium) debate. Mr.
Pinker's view is that human behavior "starts" with the genetic component of humans, culminating in the ultimate derivation of human values.
"The Blank Slate" does live up to its name. What else to call it. Therefore, the author concludes, there is no patriarchy at work in rape cases. However, you can still trivialize racism, something Pinker does when defending a coded racist statement made by Richard Herrnstein in 1973, and again when defending the decidedly less coded racist work "The Bell Curve", incidentally co-authored by the very same Herrnstein. Indeed, some sociobiologists claim that *abolitionism* is genetic. Some insects, after all, rape. And so on.To repeat: sociobiology is simply the latest ideology of status quo domination, a kind of "Social Darwinism lite".
Today, science fills the same social function. In Sweden, one of the most gender-equal societies in the world, even the attacks on feminism would be out of order. Rape is also condoned by many communities as a form of punishment against "loose" women. "Politics", cry the sociobiologists. Zero stars.
The "usual case" on the latter issue is denial. So are rapes by upper class and middle class men. Why isn't slavery a "human universal". Slavery is also common among insects, in particular ants. Pinker points out that no scientist actually believes that gene X absolutely determines behaviour Y. That raped women are often seen as whores, while rapists get away, is common in all patriarchal societies. Why not. Yes, indeed.
Yet, we never hear sociobiologists claim that slavery is adaptive, genetic, and so on. The reason is simple: it's no longer politically feasible to defend slavery, hence you can't say *that's* adaptive. Pinker is apparently a demoralized liberal who attempts to sell sociobiology to other liberals. In other words, sociobiology when applied to humans was simply a new version of the claim that the status quo is genetically predetermined and hence natural.
And, of course, you can still attack feminism. The ideological function of sociobiology is obvious. True, but sociobiologists nevertheless believe that genes constrain our behaviour to such a large extent, that the vernacular expression "genetic determinism" is perfectly apt. It seems America still has a long way to go towards real enlightenment and civilization.
If and when American society changes in a more liberal direction, this kind of sociobiology will be cast aside. Sociobiology is a branch of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology which became controversial about 35 years ago, when some scientists started applying it to humans. Is it really necessary to point out the utter absurdity of all this. (Based on hypergamy). The rest of the book argues the usual sociobiological case on war, gender inequality, genetic determinism, etc.
Pinker admits that rapists often walk, but argues that this has absolutely nothing to do with patriarchy either. The idea that only "losers" and "nobodies" rape, and then mostly behind the back of their superiors during war time, it's patently ridiculous. They are stupid, too, since they risk being injured by the woman or her relatives, and ostracized by the community at large. Are we to believe the author, rapists are always losers and nobodies.
By *sociobiological* standards, slavery should be seen as a human universal. The sociobiologists claimed that war, violence, gender inequality and social hierarchies were "human universals" and therefore "adaptive traits", moulded by our biological evolution. Nobody will hear from it ever again. Thornhill explicitly believes that privileged men don't rape.
Or rather pseudoscience, since this kind of sociobiology cannot stand closer scrutiny.Enter Steven Pinker, stage right. Well, thank you. Changing these things was assumed to be difficult, perhaps so difficult that it became positively harmful (especially feminism was seen as dangerous). In the real world, rape is often encouraged by the officer corpse during war as a way of terrorizing and humiliating the enemy. After reading a number of these books, I was struck by the following fact: they never defend slavery. Sociobiologists claim that all societies wage war, have hierarchies and are patriarchal. (Please note the disingenous line of argument: apparently, patriarchy is universal.except in cases of rape).
Apparently, the Western court system is enlightened and presumes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. In times past, religion was used to justify the status quo. The usual attacks on Margaret Mead are included, ignoring anthropological and archaeological evidence for the existence of egalitarian, peaceful and matrifocal societies (covered in some of my other reviews). Later, Pinker defends Randy Thornhill's idea that rape is an adaptive trait selected for by evolution. After all, sociobiological theory predicts that they shouldn't. His defense of the rogue entomologist Thornhill, who really should have stayed with his beloved scorpion flies, says it all. I guess we could make a trade off and call it "epigenetic constraints". He also claims that rape increases only when law and order breaks down (as in war).
Frankly, the book is interesting only in the sense that it might tell us something about the political climate in certain elite circles in contemporary America. And so is sociobiology. Obviously biased research is used to "prove" that men and women think and act differently due to genetic differences. It's a hard sell indeed. No, more: it's obnoxious, since Pinker cannot possibly be unaware of the real state of affairs. Who knows, maybe in 35 years, they will at least stop trivializing Herrnstein.The most despicable part of Pinker's book is his view of rape. But all such societies also have slavery. More on that later.
|
