Non-fiction 28 Nov 2004 02:20 pm
The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate
Steven Pinker
A little surprisingly, the title of the book actually describes what it stands against, mostly. The goal of this book is to fight against decades of pseudo-science and politically-based theories on human behaviour, and their effect on social (and other) policies affecting the lives of people.
The “blank slate” theory claims that human brains are infinitely maleable and that people are born “empty” (blank); therefore, any behaviour, ideas and thoughts people have depend entirely on things learned from the environment. A common companion to this, the “noble savage” theory, claims that people in their “natural” state (that is, living in primitive societies) are innately peaceful and averse to violence; therefore, all violence in our society derives from the environment in which people are raised.
The basic idea of the book is that people are born with universal features, common to all of us, that make up human nature and that explain why we behave the way we do. It doesn’t claim that all details of our behaviour are innate or inherited, but it does show that our genes have a much larger influence than is generally acknowledged.
To most people slightly familiar with evolutionary psychology (even of only from popular science articles) and even with Pinker’s previous books, all the facts he presents will be familiar; what will be surprising, then, is the resistance by other “scientists” to these ideas, presented (and smashed) by the author as a way to expose their hidden agendas. Most of it seem to come from fallacies associated with the two failed theories listed above, the blank slate and the noble savage, which lead people to identify “natural” with “good” and to be afraid that, if something comes from the genes and is, thus, natural, it will then necessarily be good. In this world view, even things like rape and racism would have to be viewed as good because they have genetic and evolutionary influences; because of this, accepting (and even researching) these influences becomes a taboo. A large part of the book is devoted to defusing this connection.
This is a very good book, and it should be required reading for any “humanities” students. It is very good to see unscientific and politically-motivated ideas being exposed for what they are; I only wish this would get more exposure in the popular media.
