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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (平装)
by Steven Pinker
| Category:
Nonfiction, Social-economic |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
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¥ 158.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Undeniably intelligent and thought-provoking, this book is an insightful exploration of modern biological and philosophical issues on what it means to be human. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 18 items |
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Ben Krokosky (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Nature versus nurture comes down to whether you believe ones personality is built-in "genetically determined", or is determined by ones upbringing "the blank slate". Steven Pinker points out that it is a taboo in many circles to believe in anything other than the blank slate, because of the way this has been used to justify racism, sexism and many other horrors of the 20th century. He attempts in this book to show that either position can be used to support both moral and immoral attitudes, and that current research comes down squarely in the camp of genetically determined.
He further points out that just because we find an idea troubling (we all don't have identical potentials at birth) doesn't make it less true. It is better, he avers, to face facts and set policy based on reality as best it can be determined, rather than the way we would like things to be. This is hard to argue with.
I certainly agree that some families produce athletes, others musicians and others criminals. I believe that no matter what training program my parents put me through, I probably had no chance of going to the NBA or NFL.
Where it seems Pinker has gone too far (although I can't argue with the research, having only this book to go on) is saying that parents have next to impact how their children turn out. It certainly seems to me that my own parents have had a big impact on me, though I guess Pinker would say this is an illusion. |
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Chris Brand (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
This is a remarkable book which makes human sociobiology and a fair chunk of differential psychology accessible - though ignoring race differences. Steven Pinker, who came to hereditarianism from psycholinguistics via hearing how a friend's children differed from each other (since siblings have only 50% of their genetic variations in common), here puts the boot firmly and indeed gleefully into all social environmentalism - whether that of psychology's behaviorists, anthropology's cultural relativists, biology's modern interactionists or philosophy's constructivists. Accepting the twin and adoption studies of the past three decades, Pinker regards genes as of great importance for psychology, along with micro-environmental factors that make siblings different from each other. What now takes an explanatory back seat is the macro-environment, especially such factors beloved of Marxite sociologists as 'social class' and 'deprivation.' Nor is all this fine expository work the sum of Pinker's task. Seeing that such opponents of simple genetic explanations as the late Stephen Jay Gould turned to celebrating complexity (in the case of the arch-materialist Gould, even to saying science posed no challenge to 'free will' and kindred religious thinking), Pinker marches into battle not only against The Blank Slate and The Noble Savage but against The Ghost in the Machine. Finally, wishing to convince leftists that hereditarianism need pose no threat to liberal or even socialist aspirations, Pinker maintains that his hereditarianism is compatible with enlightened optimism about the human condition - by which he does not mean to urge eugenics.
Undoubtedly the first of these three exercises is a brilliant success. Here, as elsewhere, Pinker is splendidly informed and entertaining - the last writer like him was Hans Eysenck (e.g. The Inequality of Man, sadly unmentioned by Pinker). High spots of Pinker's hereditarianism are the complete lack of psychological similarity between unrelated children who grow up together and the staggering rates of male-on-male violence that obtain among the primitive peoples so long held up by risible social anthropologists in attempted reproof of Western civilization. Nor does Pinker spare the corrupt and vicious social scientists and leftists who have moved heaven and earth to suppress talk of genes on campus and even to ensure that hereditarians seldom achieve mainstream publication or academic promotion. The only important weakness here is Pinker's failure to explain how genetic and environmental differences sometimes correlate (covary - e.g. musical children are often born into musical environments) and sometimes multiply (interact) and how these effects can be distinguished. In particular, Pinker's failure to cite such convincing examples of interaction as the strong tendency of criminals to have both bad genes and bad environments means that he does not carry as much conviction as he might when complaining (correctly) that Gould and fellow travelers grossly exaggerated the frequency and importance of naturally occurring G x E interactions. Pinker's Chapter 17, documenting innate human aggression and competitiveness, is perhaps the best in a fine book, even if race can be mentioned only as a "radioactive" topic best left alone (except when mentioning - with placatory intent - his own Jewish origins).
In contrast, Pinker is at his weakest when trying to exorcize the Ghost from the Machine. Clearly, Gould made his own peace with God and the soul so as to have more friends in his self-chosen Stalinist battle with 'genetic determinism', eugenicism and `Nazism.' Yet is it really necessary for Pinker to adopt a pretty thoroughgoing materialism by way of reply, only leaving "neurodevelopmental roulette" as a source of human freedom? Strangely, Pinker is aware that we need to be able to attribute responsibility for actions to people if we are to continue with societies in which praise and punishment are conspicuous features. Yet he doesn't see that human intelligence provides the main basis on which we attribute responsibility - we notoriously refrain from executing or even imprisoning individuals of low mental age. When we find Pinker writing that "thinking is a physical process" (p. 103) we realize that he is not displaying a level of sophistication likely to solve the mind-body problem; and Gould's latter-day sympathy for religion even begins to look comprehensible if it is considered, first, that religion is a great protector of any society's spinal cord, its social hierarchy; and, second, that what our own high culture precisely lacks is a serious commitment to the importance of the levels of intelligence that created it.
What of Pinker's attempt at sustained optimism that nothing much need change in the current liberal-democratic consensus if the champions of social factors give up and buy into hereditarianism? Undoubtedly this is the most ingenious strand in the book. Pinker wants, for example, to continue with 'equity feminism' (granting equal rights and opportunities) while opposing the dogmatisms of 'gender feminism' or 'difference feminism' (the doctrines that women are equal or superior to men). Like many other psychologists, Pinker would like to think we can just deal with people 'as individuals' and be sex-blind (and age-blind, class-blind and color-blind). But the problem is that one *cannot* choose blindness. Frankly, the fact that a child is a girl *is* one reason for not encouraging her to aspire to be a math professor - just as good a reason as some recent mediocre score in a math test for her from her primary school. As the Black Reverend Jesse Jackson admitted, on a Washington street at night, hearing footsteps behind one, it is a relief to look round and find the steps do not belong to a Black. A Black mother who finds her newborn son is half-White should not be quite so enthusiastic to head the boy towards a career in basketball. Facts do have to be mentioned and, once mentioned, are bound to have constraining effects on human ambitions and conduct. Pinker himself believes that "different cultures don't come from different kinds of genes" (p. 60), but this patently unlikely and anyhow unsubstantiated pretence will not stop most of his readers acting on the hereditarianism to which he has inspired them. |
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Eugene, Jewett (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Who can forget Larry Summers' recent dust-up with the feminist professorial elite in the halls of Harvard's increasingly warped castle of academic excellence? In this star chamber of ridiculous accusations against Summer's politically incorrect assessments of the differences between male and female behavior, Steve Pinker was referred to as that guy from M.I.T. with the cute wife; as if he were some doofus with regard to his conclusions in the nature-nurture (N-N) debates. In this book, Pinker proves to be the far better adversary than his shrill feminist opponents who come off as caricatures of every stereotype of them that’s ever been written.
Cultural relativism, a big favorite of the Harvard faculty (and many others) has been pushed upon us since the French Revolution with a powerful assist from Karl Marx in the mid-1800's. But today, we have the decoding of the gene string and its remarkable resolutions. The arguments of those who would suggest that behavior is largely molded after birth, as opposed to being largely the result of genetic inference, seem the arguments of the bull-headed. Any reading of Matt Ridley's work i.e. Geonome or Nature Via Nurture, or of Williams Wright's portrayal of James Bouchard's work with the Twin Studies in Minnesota (see his Born That Way) would disabuse any reasonable person, arch feminist or otherwise, of the error of their intellectual ways. So sad… but this is not to be.
In this tome, Pinker compares the history of human thought by comparing Freudian theories kicked off by Rousseau via his contentions about "the Noble Savage" and "Tabula Rasa", with the thinking of the more realistic amongst us (read The History of Warfare by Keegan.) After a painstaking laying of the groundwork from which he supports his contentions, he examines every aspect of the "N-N" debate. In this endeavor, Pinker shows the absurdity of post-modernist thinking and its absence of critical thinking skills. In a word, Pinker examines human nature as it is and not like those who would seek to demogogue the unwitting, to serve their own political ends, be they from the political right or the left. It's a long book, but certainly worth the time for anyone determined to fully understand this very important debate. Pinker is to be commended for a noble effort. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Pinker is one of my favorite authors. He draws on a lot of empirical studies, is a great writer, and gets to very deep issues that most of us don't ever think about. His other book, How the Mind Works, is really excellent. This book is almost as good, but not quite. It's is one of the better books on this subject; better than most of the books it criticizes, and much better than Matt Ridley's Nature Via Nurture, which is also known as "The Agile Gene." It does an excellent job of showing that minds differ both from what we think of as human nature and also from one another. More importantly, in addition to showing why his thesis is true, he shows why it's good to accept it.
I think the book is perhaps a bit too ideological, which is why I didn't give it 5 stars; if there were a "4.5," that's about where I'd put it. I think it's definitely something that people should read, but they should also read some of the critical reviews the book got from people in various fields, if they're really interested in the subject. |
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Jeremy Birn (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
After reading this brilliant book, I see what Pinker meant when he described the intense anti-scientific rebellion that was encountered by people who conduct even the most basic research into the biological and genetic components of human nature, personality, and behavior. His book was full of fascinating insights and prudent, well-documented research. When he described the knee-jerk reaction some intellectuals have to using the words "genetic" and "personality" in the same sentence, I didn't really believe it could be that bad - until I read all of these reviews. There are people reviewing this book with outrageous misstatements such as "he justifies rape" (when all he does is dispute the illogical statement that "rape has nothing to do with sex" with sound arguments about the biological origin of rape, and solid research about which rape-prevention techniques actually help reduce crime vs. which only help rapists get out of jail faster by learning to say the right things!) I'm surprised the people who posted that kind of statement proved Pinker so correct, about the fact that some people are offended by any research into the biological origins of human nature, that they can't even read and understand such clear and persuasive writing. I highly recommend this book to any people who wants to learn more about themselves. |
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F. Sonderkammer (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Pinker succeeds in building a valid, sound, and persuasive argument that our genes determine more of our lives than environment or choice. This has been obvious to thoughtful persons since the dawn of the human race, but was discredited during the Enlightenment. Now that feudalism and its accoutrements (e.g., serfdom, established churches) have been completely abolished, we need not fear publicly acknowledging the obvious: people are born with certain characteristics than can only be changed within certain preset ranges.
I suppose I ought not to fault the book for pursuing its argument in a way amenable to most people. But it wasn't quite amenable to me. I wanted more science and less philosophy, more data and less rhetoric. It really bugs me when famous scientists such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Gould, and now Steven Pinker refer to philosophers they have barely read as if they know what they are talking about. Locke's political theory, despite Pinker's assurance to the contrary, does not have any clear relationship to his epistemology. Pinker's short quotes of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein on the limits language places on our understanding betray his own clipped and hasty appreciation of the subtleties of philosophy of language. Stick to science, Stevie.
I really liked Pinker's bulleted lists of research findings, and I had hoped to find more data. This is not really a fault with the book, but rather indicates that my desires could have been better satisfied by a different volume. I am finding Hamer and Copeland's Living with Our Genes to be much more interesting.
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Saltillo (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
Steven Pinker upsets me tremendously, both for his style and for the implicit presupposition of his over-arching argument.
Pinker's the Blank Slate, like all of his writing, is characterized by an artless simplicity that, to a learned reader, is almost embarrassing. Pinker comes across in this book to the unlearned as a very learned man. He seems to have read everything and thought about every idea. He seems to see how it all hangs together and how the world makes perfect sense when seen in the "big picture". Best of all, Pinker is able to explain it all to his readers using only a modest vocabulary and really simple sentences. The world seems so clear, and ideas previously considered hard seem so easy after reading Pinker.
But that is precisely where Pinker becomes embarrassing, to himself, to those he attempts to vindicate and justify, and to his supporters. My mind is not a particularly widely cast net, but there are a couple of points of knowledge and understanding at which my mind goes deep, much deeper than Pinker's. And it is when I see Pinker talk about topics and ideas which I understand better than he does that I realize what he is up to and the kind of academic charade he is engaged in. In one case in point, on page 291, Pinker puts forward an argument that there is an innate or self-evident connection between, on the one hand, judicial activism and what in the late 20th century/ early 21st century we conceive as liberal social justice and other the other hand between judicial restraint and conservative politics. Well... this happens to be one area where I like to think I know a lot more than Pinker. Pinker is simply wrong, dreadfully wrong. Historically, there is no clear link between alleged political agendas of the Supreme Court justices and ideas about proper judicial behavior. To argue Pinker's position is simply to ignore the whole history of the Supreme Court in this country, the Lochner era, the legacy of O. W. Holmes, not to mention the role of courts in any other country of the world at any other time in history. There are other areas as well where Pinker clearly misunderstands the subject matter which he is discussing. I don't think he understands Durkheim, for example, and he definitely misunderstands Rousseau (I almost wonder if he actually read these authors, or if he just hired some eager-to-please grad student to do the research for him and right a five page summary for him). But, if he has such a poor grasp of the areas of knowledge that I know about and understand, what does that say of his grasp of areas of knowledge that I don't know much about? Can I trust him as a teacher or a guide through the wilderness of knowledge? No, I cannot.
This would be bad enough, but what disturbs me most about Pinker is not his shallow analysis and constant name dropping. It is the implicit moral, ethical, and political argument that motivates and permeates his entire book (and other books). If you tease out what his ideas and arguments mean for us, as people and citizens, it becomes apparent how radically conservative, even reactionary, Pinker's agenda is, in defense of the status quo of contemporary society. Pinker's argument is a strong defense of the world as it is, because, in the end, the world is as it is because human beings are as they are, and any effort to change the world is doomed to fail unless it takes account of and accommodates the fact that there are some things in human beings that cannot be changed because they are the product of 1 million years of hard-wiring in our genes. I find such a message quite unattractive. If it were not so obvious what the logical error of such a project is, I might even be inclined to choose ignorance over knowledge, if knowing how the world is meant accepting Pinker's ideas. Fortunately, I don't have to make that decision. It is obvious to me, and hope it becomes obvious to others when they read Pinker, that the entire project of cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology is a circular pseudoscience that presupposes certain ideas that themselves are only true if the conclusions of cognitive psychology and evolutionary psychology are true.
In his life, academia has been good to Pinker. Pinker has come as close as an academic can come to being a rock star and stay in academia. For humanity's sake, I hope posterity has a very different plan for Pinker.
(A negative review. MSL remarks.)
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Stephen Johnson (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-29 00:00>
If our minds are not exclusively malleable by the "right" ideas about race, sex, religion, child-raising, art, and morality, will we ever come around to the "right" way of thinking? And if our behaviors are to a more-than-zero extent predetermined by our genes and our evolutionary heritage, do we thereby lose our soul, our free will, our very individuality?
Heady questions for a popular science book by a Harvard psychology professor. But Steven Pinker is out to change minds, and he most definitely doesn't assume ours is just an eager vessel waiting for his wisdom. His dense, chaotic, but still very readable 'The Blank Slate' takes few prisoners, attacking not only the primacy of environmental malleability, but also its corollaries the 'noble savage' ("we're all born pure and good") and the 'ghost in the machine' (or, roughly, the equivalent to the religious soul) for good measure. I'd hesitate to say he runs the table, but if you come away from this reading still convinced of a biological tabula rasa, you certainly have some strong arguments to counter.
Pinker is most effective skewering the roots of popular social science, which demonstrably believes in "all nurture" for a variety of largely political reasons. How can we change society, after all, if our brains aren't utterly receptive sponges for expensive, expert-driven, and oh-so-compassionate social policy? (Never mind that the impulse to create a "new man" has strengthened the hand of some less-than-savory social engineers.) Some icons come in for harsh treatment: among many others Emile Durkheim, Margaret Mead and even the late Stephen Jay Gould take it on the chin for their slavish adherence to - or in some cases, creation of - modern doctrines.
Stylistically the author reasons best within - rather than across - chapters, first laying out the culprits and the political climate, anticipating the various fears supposedly engendered by his thesis, and finally tackling "hot button" areas such as politics, violence, gender, etc. where blank slate myths have taken the strongest root. His organization appears a bit chaotic - and occasionally, if understandably, defensive - but he's admirably thorough. The only content quibble I'd raise is the conspicuous lack of "race" among his contentious issues - though, to be fair, he bravely tackles discussions of racially-based biological differences judiciously throughout the book.
My other criticisms are equally minor compared to Pinker's strength of ideas and style: an occasionally-strained attempt to lay blame on both the political left and right (where his clearest beef is with the left), and some truly painful pop culture references. Nothing against Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes, but are, say, lyrics from The Who appropriate in a serious science book?
Overall, Pinker has made a strong case that practically begs for a response, especially from sociology scholars and scientists who've become a little too cozy with political institutions. If any aspect of the "nature vs. nurture" debates sparks your interest, by all means read this book. The Blank Slate clearly shows Pinker's scientific optimism, remains nearly jargon-free, and only betrays some minor rough edges where a better editor would have been welcome. |
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1 2 Total 2 pages 18 items |
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