The Blank Slate - The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Steven Pinker, 2002)

(453 pages)

Book club selection (via Lon; session held 1 April 2018).

Pinker currently in the news in relation to a new book on the Enlightenment (which I've not read).  As one might expect, reactions seem to track political leanings.

I found this earlier book quite useful, quite interesting.  Author describes three beliefs that have taken root - the Blank Slate; the Noble Savage; the Ghost in the Machine.  Goes through the background of each, and how each has been adapted for various ends. I do catch myself relying, explicitly or implicitly, on all or elements of these three beliefs - perhaps the highest value of this kind of book is that it occasionally helps the reader to "catch" oneself when this happening.

Much of it is the "nature vs. nurture" discussion - for various reasons a large number of academics and politicians downplay the "nature" part - genes, heredity, whatever - he theorizes as to why so many cling so fiercely to viewpoints that defy common sense and what I think we can say is human experience.  All is not subjectivity!

I continue to believe that the notion of "original sin" seems basically correct.  Civilization is fragile.  Humans have overcome bad tendencies but those tendencies remain inside everyone, in varying mixtures.  (By "bad" I probably should say "techniques we evolved to deal with then-circumstances.")  It's a short step to regression.  The good news:  on the whole, progress has been impressively positive.

Something that strikes me:  it's very hard to definitively "know" anything (specifics of nature/nurture being one of many examples). We need to be super careful about how much we know or ever can know.  Much "science" is just surveys and group testing, ugh.  Replication failures abound.

We live in a strange era - where influence of genes, gender, etc. is aggressively denied - yet everyone knows it's there.  Denying or hiding data will backfire (may help explain 2016 election, for example) - yet "no-platforming" is spreading.  Oddly, the "party of science" halts discussion of race, gender, climate, etc.

Sometimes I think the oddly excessive feelings on these topics, the no-platforming, the public shaming of heretics, is new.  But then I think of Galileo; reading a Prussian history where 19th century students are behaving similarly; all the religious fighting over the centuries; live-and-let-live seems inexplicably difficult!

Something that is new: surfeit of what one commentator calls "Intellectuals Yet Idiots" - highly educated but nonproductive types - throughout history, societies weren't wealthy enough to maintain all that many IYIs - exceptions would be royal siblings, folks in monasteries - and it was hard for them to reach an audience in any event.  Now IYIs are everywhere; two main effects that will sustain the madness:

1. Colleges, and now governments and corporations - filled with Diversity Coordinators, and Rape Counselors, and Whatevers - their jobs depend upon emphasizing group differences and injustices.  (Of course there are plenty of historical and current injustices, but there also is an increasing cure-is-worse-than-the-disease problem.)

2. Folks needing to write a "new" thesis for PhD or whatever - a broken system, too many of them, often trying to stand out, no one ever has or will read these papers - but they are embedded in the academy.

Be gentle and of good cheer and keep conversing!