Steven Pinker -- The blank slate: the modern denial of human nature ===================================================================== Pinker set out to defeat three theories: - The blank slate -- the idea that all humans are the same at birth and that whatever each develops into is the result of education, experience, etc, and furthermore, we can control what each individual develops into by changing their upbringing, education, etc. - The noble savage -- The idea that people are basically good, but that society and civilization turn them into something bad. Or, as Andy Rooney said: Democrats believe that people are basically good, but that they need government to keep them from doing bad; Republicans believe that people are basically bad, but they will do good if government leaves them alone. - The separation of mind and body -- The mind and body are two separate things and two different kinds of things. One, the body, is physical, has extension, has physical properties like smoothness, weight, etc; the other, the mind, is not physical, does not occupy space, is pure thought, etc. Somehow these two influence each other, e.g. injuries to my body causes pain in my mind and thoughts or feelings in my mind can cause my body to move. And, why is Pinker interested in arguing against the above three theories? Mostly because of the fallacies he thinks they lead us into. For example: - The idea that men and women are basically the same, and that they will develop into individuals with the same abilities and wants if we could only raise and educate them in the same way and if cultural influences did not twist them into different kinds of people. - The idea that all races are basically the same, have the same levels of intelligence, the same average levels of abilities, the same inclination to be good or bad, non-violent or violent, moral or immoral, etc. Pinker and "The blank slate" is all about busting myths. He wants to expose the comfortable (or in some cases, the agenda driven) stories we tell about ourselves. He believes that these myths do harm; that they inform and contort governmental and public policy for the worse; that they distort the ways in which we raise and educate our children; that they cause us to have unreasonable expectations and to interact with others in misguided ways. The promise of this book (and perhaps other books on biological evolution, too) is that it will give us an alternative view of human development, both (1) in terms of how humans of different races and ethnic groups, different cultures, different genders, etc came to be; and (2) in the sense of how we each, as individuals develop and come to be. Understanding the first helps us progress toward a more enlightened view of how to relate to those outside of our small circle of family and friend; understanding the second helps us toward more thoughtful ways of relating to our family and friends. And, even after you accept that what we are and what we become has both a biological and genetic component as well as an environment and learning component, there are still questions to be answered. For example: (1) Does learning influence the physical structure of the brain? (2) Do biological/genetic differences across individuals influence the ways in which they are influenced and changed by experience and learning? Pinker is thoroughly convinced that recent research has debunked the myth of the noble and peaceful savage. Once you begin to look closely at the behavior of "pre-state societies" (primitive tribes?), you find rates of violence and killing far higher that modern developed societies such as Europe and the U.S, even including two world wars. Pinker wants to show that humans are biologically/genetically equipped with a basic set of capabilities and needs that make the development of culture and the ability of individual in that culture to learn it and navigate within it. Culture is not something painted by experience and learning onto a blank canvas. Human beings have inborn abilities to acquire and use knowledge, to cooperate with other members of their society as well as to seek their own betterment and their own improvement. Understanding those principles provides a platform on which to explain how culture can develop and be learned by the individuals in it. Education does not just "paint" information on an undifferentiated brain; it must, in some cases correct capabilities that are already there. Behind much of Pinker's analysis is the assumption that these phenomena must be explained by descriptions at several levels. For example, that we must describe both the cultural and the biological levels and show the relationships between them. Neither of those levels of explanation can be reduced to or eliminated in favor of the other. In a chapter critiquing various more recent arguments for a blank slate view of human nature, Pinker also gives his alternative to the blank slate view: (1) The brain has innate mechanisms for learning. (2) The brain has evolved, for example, our desires for fatty foods likely evolved during ancient times when our bodies evolved to protect us against starvation. (3) Some distinct modes of interpreting external reality develop early in life, probably under the influence of genes. (4) Some basic psychological traits develop early in life and are not subject to change or learning. Pinker's criticisms of the political, social, and moral arguments against research that rejects the blank state are valuable in the details and also interesting in its general thrust. The details describe the political, social, and morally "correct" reactions as emotional and unsupported by research. And, his main approach here is to argue that my political rights and my right to moral treatment really have nothing to do with detailed differences between genders, ethnic groups, etc. Regardless of those differences, we all have the right to expect equal treatment in a court of law, the right to an education, the opportunity to engage in our political processes, etc. 11/10/2014 .. vim:ft=rst:fo+=a: