The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

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 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 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%. 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. Very eye opening stuff. Definitely a worth while read.

Mr. Pinker attempts a summary of the intellectual/academic debate over whether the biological organism that is a human being can explain human behavior. Mr. Pinker's view is that human behavior "starts" with the genetic component of humans, culminating in the ultimate derivation of human values. The book is a "slow read." Fortunately, Mr. Pinker is very repetitious, as if he realizes that the concepts he presents will be difficult to swallow for many. 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. The book is erudite in places, down-to-earth in others, and even whimsical at times. I ordered it for a relative - it took me about a year to read the book to understanding. 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.

Sociobiology is a branch of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary biology which became controversial about 35 years ago, when some scientists started applying it to humans. The sociobiologists claimed that war, violence, gender inequality and social hierarchies were "human universals" and therefore "adaptive traits", moulded by our biological evolution. Changing these things was assumed to be difficult, perhaps so difficult that it became positively harmful (especially feminism was seen as dangerous). 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. In times past, religion was used to justify the status quo. Today, science fills the same social function. Or rather pseudoscience, since this kind of sociobiology cannot stand closer scrutiny.

Enter Steven Pinker, stage right. Pinker is apparently a demoralized liberal who attempts to sell sociobiology to other liberals. It's a hard sell indeed. 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. It seems America still has a long way to go towards real enlightenment and civilization!

The ideological function of sociobiology is obvious. After reading a number of these books, I was struck by the following fact: they never defend slavery. Why isn't slavery a "human universal"? Sociobiologists claim that all societies wage war, have hierarchies and are patriarchal. But all such societies also have slavery. By *sociobiological* standards, slavery should be seen as a human universal. Slavery is also common among insects, in particular ants. Yet, we never hear sociobiologists claim that slavery is adaptive, genetic, and so on. Why not? The reason is simple: it's no longer politically feasible to defend slavery, hence you can't say *that's* adaptive. Indeed, some sociobiologists claim that *abolitionism* is genetic! Well, thank you. 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. And, of course, you can still attack feminism! More on that later. In Sweden, one of the most gender-equal societies in the world, even the attacks on feminism would be out of order. "Politics", cry the sociobiologists. Yes, indeed. And so is sociobiology. 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. Are we to believe the author, rapists are always losers and nobodies. They are stupid, too, since they risk being injured by the woman or her relatives, and ostracized by the community at large. Therefore, the author concludes, there is no patriarchy at work in rape cases. He also claims that rape increases only when law and order breaks down (as in war). Pinker admits that rapists often walk, but argues that this has absolutely nothing to do with patriarchy either. Apparently, the Western court system is enlightened and presumes that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. (Please note the disingenous line of argument: apparently, patriarchy is universal...except in cases of rape!) Later, Pinker defends Randy Thornhill's idea that rape is an adaptive trait selected for by evolution. Some insects, after all, rape.

Is it really necessary to point out the utter absurdity of all this? In the real world, rape is often encouraged by the officer corpse during war as a way of terrorizing and humiliating the enemy. Rape is also condoned by many communities as a form of punishment against "loose" women. That raped women are often seen as whores, while rapists get away, is common in all patriarchal societies. So are rapes by upper class and middle class men. The idea that only "losers" and "nobodies" rape, and then mostly behind the back of their superiors during war time, it's patently ridiculous. No, more: it's obnoxious, since Pinker cannot possibly be unaware of the real state of affairs. His defense of the rogue entomologist Thornhill, who really should have stayed with his beloved scorpion flies, says it all. Thornhill explicitly believes that privileged men don't rape. After all, sociobiological theory predicts that they shouldn't! (Based on hypergamy.)

The rest of the book argues the usual sociobiological case on war, gender inequality, genetic determinism, etc. The "usual case" on the latter issue is denial. Pinker points out that no scientist actually believes that gene X absolutely determines behaviour Y. True, but sociobiologists nevertheless believe that genes constrain our behaviour to such a large extent, that the vernacular expression "genetic determinism" is perfectly apt. What else to call it? I guess we could make a trade off and call it "epigenetic constraints". 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). Obviously biased research is used to "prove" that men and women think and act differently due to genetic differences. And so on.

To repeat: sociobiology is simply the latest ideology of status quo domination, a kind of "Social Darwinism lite". If and when American society changes in a more liberal direction, this kind of sociobiology will be cast aside. Nobody will hear from it ever again.

"The Blank Slate" does live up to its name. Zero stars.

Steven Pinker's wide ranging book "The Blank Slate" is a tour-de-force of the rising new disciplines in the academy that are slowly overturning the social constructionist mode of analysis which has dominated intellectual life for most of the past century.

Pinker takes aim at the phenomenon he describes in his title, which he breaks into its composite parts: (1) a "blank slate" view of the mind, whereby the mind has no innate characteristics, and is simply a tabula rasa onto which ideas and experiences are poured, (2) the "noble savage" view of humanity based on Rousseau, whereby the primitive or feral is equated with the "good", and (3) the "ghost in the machine" conception of consciousness based on Descartes, whereby consciousness is seen as being separate from physicality, and standing apart from physical mental processes. Taken together, these three ideologies have led to the dominance of the "social science model" -- a view which sees human behavior as not resting at all on a physical, biological or evolutionary basis, but rather being the product of "socially constructed realities".

Pinker attacks the blank slate on the basis of several relatively new academic disciplines: cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, just to name a few. He documents how the radical politics of academia resisted tooth and nail the findings of these newer disciplines, and their attempt to synthesize what we know about human culture with what we know about human biology. The resistance was, and is, almost entirely political in nature, and is based on a fear of the truth. The fear is that if human behavior is not entirely socially conditioned, but is to some degree innate, this will be used to justify social evils such as racism, sexism, violence, inequality and so on. Pinker spends chapter after chapter examining several of these fears, and deflating them.

Pinker's overarching thesis is that human behavior is definitely conditioned by evolution and genetics, but that this evolution has taken place in the context of human culture. This is not a biological determinst perspective, but instead one which takes into account the biological factors as well as the social ones. Pinker points out that to the extent we tie our political and social values to false ideas about human beings, we actually make adherence to these values more tenuous -- because future scientific findings could undermine them, if we see the values based on science itself (or, rather, a misconceived understanding of science). So Pinker's advice is to separate our values -- political and social -- from science, and thereby strengthen the independent validity of these values, as well as allow science to proceed and not be stifled by politically-based fears.

To take one example, Pinker points out that to accept that men and women have biologically-based differences is not to believe that, because of these differences, men and women are consigned to only certain social roles, or are supposed to be "unequal". The value of gender equality is a political and social value, and it should not depend on actual biological identity between men and women, or an idea that gender differences are social constructs that are not at all based on biology. Instead, our values regarding gender equality should be de-coupled from biology. This allows us to affirm gender equality in its own right as a human social and political value, regardless of what biology teaches us about biological differences between the sexes, while at the same time preventing political fears relating to gender equality from stifling the progress that science is making in further understanding human behavior as it relates to bio-evolutionary differences between female and male humans.

The book is a fantastic read. Pinker is entertaining and witty in making his points. Readers will be rewarded with a sneak peek at what the future holds in terms our academic and intellectual life, and the emerging new consensus about the nature of human beings.

Pinker's book covers a wide (!) range of subjects, but his approach is united by a long overdue task: to revive the idea that humans share a common nature. This idea goes back all the way to Aristotle at least; however, the idea of a common human nature has taken a beating over the years, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Perhaps the mantra of "diversity" has been mindlessly bleated too many times, and academics ceased seeing the shared human nature--based upon genes--that exists despite our many (mostly superficial) differences.

As you'd expect, Pinker's book has been "controversial", but largely among the uninformed...specifically, those who haven't bothered to read any science, even books written by specialists for the layman. Pinker shows, among other things, that the three quasi-official doctrines of contemporary intellectual/academic life (the blank slate, the noble savage, the ghost in the machine) are logically weak and morally suspect--despite their being championed by progressives.

One wonders why the progressives never realized the following: if there is no shared human nature, we can throw out the idea of a human rights violation. The terrible consequences of such a position are--or should be--obvious to all, yet they remain in place too often.

Pinker's academic specialty is linguistics, specifically language acquisition in children, and therefore his book is especially good in addressing linguistics, language, cognitive sciences, etc. But he's a genuine polymath, and part of this book's charm is that Pinker, while obviously extremely learned, wears that learning lightly. You'll learn a great deal from this book, and have fun along the way. He writes with clarity and verve.