"This book is just sad."
January 3, 2022 12:18 AM Subscribe
Is the Human Impulse to Tell Stories Dangerous? Evpsych-influenced literature scholar Jonathan Gottschall's latest book did not impress historian Timothy Snyder much. Leading to perhaps the most sustained dressing down of a literary work since Mark Twain bodied James Fenimore Cooper. [Archive link]
It’s a shame to see such a rich and interesting topic made into hash.
Nice roast, though.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:14 AM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Nice roast, though.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:14 AM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'd be perfectly content to read one of these kinds of take downs of "evo-art/psych/whatever" every day it's a field that has no place in academia or any other intellectually serious part of the world.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:28 AM on January 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by gusottertrout at 1:28 AM on January 3, 2022 [18 favorites]
it's a field that has no place in academia or any other intellectually serious part of the world
and yet it seems to have found a niche in which to be reproductively successful.
posted by flabdablet at 3:04 AM on January 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
and yet it seems to have found a niche in which to be reproductively successful.
posted by flabdablet at 3:04 AM on January 3, 2022 [36 favorites]
Again and again he does what he thinks he is criticizingThis is pretty much the defining behavioural characteristic of those chronically inclined to perceive themselves as being under attack from
an enemy tribe of terrifying left-wing academics.The humanities don't discriminate against conservatives because they're ideologically motivated to do so, but because conservatism is intellectually bankrupt and always has been.
posted by flabdablet at 3:12 AM on January 3, 2022 [57 favorites]
Thanks for the post, kmz. Despite knowing very little, even I know that the science of how stories work has been studied for a long time.
This makes me want to read the book to see if/how the book has been misrepresented. Then again, if it ends in saluting libertarianism, never mind. If the author's largest fear involves terrifying left-wing academics, I got no time for that dude.
Lovely takedown. It was a somewhat painful pleasure to read.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:14 AM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
This makes me want to read the book to see if/how the book has been misrepresented. Then again, if it ends in saluting libertarianism, never mind. If the author's largest fear involves terrifying left-wing academics, I got no time for that dude.
Lovely takedown. It was a somewhat painful pleasure to read.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:14 AM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
What an absolute pasting. I enjoyed that perhaps more than I should have, but then I do find a systematic dismantling of a flawed argument particularly satisfying. And while I'd not heard of Gottschall prior I've read enough of Snyder's work to feel justified in giving this one a miss.
posted by myotahapea at 3:20 AM on January 3, 2022
posted by myotahapea at 3:20 AM on January 3, 2022
The book under review looks like a rehash of the themes of Gotschall’s 2012 book “The Storytelling Animal”, which was moderately successful.
However, i think a lot of the negative qualities come from being written during a pandemic. The lazy thinking, lack of awareness of prior history, and general poor standards that the review mentions are going to be a standard across all media for the next few years.
posted by The River Ivel at 4:09 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
However, i think a lot of the negative qualities come from being written during a pandemic. The lazy thinking, lack of awareness of prior history, and general poor standards that the review mentions are going to be a standard across all media for the next few years.
posted by The River Ivel at 4:09 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think a lot of the negative qualities come from being written during a pandemic. The lazy thinking, lack of awareness of prior history, and general poor standards that the review mentions are going to be a standard across all media for the next few years.
I'm not sure why that should be? And why for media specifically?
(I'm assuming the reason is supposed to be stress, and yes, this has been a period of extreme stress for many, but extreme stress is hardly new to many of us -- certainly for a lot of poorly-paid and overworked people in academia, publishing, and journalism. And for some (like, possibly, an upper-middle-class academic who I'm willing to bet can work from home, on his own schedule, with much more comfort than most) it's actually been less stressful in some ways. Also, while stress can affect a lot of things, how would it be responsible for a lack of awareness of prior history from people who, like this writer, should also have possessed that knowledge two years ago?)
I'll posit that lazy thinking, ignorance, and low standards in adults who have completed their formal education and established their careers prior to the pandemic are more likely to reflect their preexisting sense of responsibility and approach to truth as a value.
posted by trig at 4:40 AM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
I'm not sure why that should be? And why for media specifically?
(I'm assuming the reason is supposed to be stress, and yes, this has been a period of extreme stress for many, but extreme stress is hardly new to many of us -- certainly for a lot of poorly-paid and overworked people in academia, publishing, and journalism. And for some (like, possibly, an upper-middle-class academic who I'm willing to bet can work from home, on his own schedule, with much more comfort than most) it's actually been less stressful in some ways. Also, while stress can affect a lot of things, how would it be responsible for a lack of awareness of prior history from people who, like this writer, should also have possessed that knowledge two years ago?)
I'll posit that lazy thinking, ignorance, and low standards in adults who have completed their formal education and established their careers prior to the pandemic are more likely to reflect their preexisting sense of responsibility and approach to truth as a value.
posted by trig at 4:40 AM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
In a world of Logan Pauls and NFTs, maybe this was the best possible review to wake up to?
The linked question made my mind jump to a half-remembered Margaret Atwood interview that was moving into questions around the prescience of her work and she turned it around to ask something like, “perhaps we need to be careful about the stories we tell?”. I remember shuddering slightly.
posted by brachiopod at 5:25 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
The linked question made my mind jump to a half-remembered Margaret Atwood interview that was moving into questions around the prescience of her work and she turned it around to ask something like, “perhaps we need to be careful about the stories we tell?”. I remember shuddering slightly.
posted by brachiopod at 5:25 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure why that should be? And why for media specifically?
Every piece of media you consume is a team effort. For books there are editors and publishing teams, movies and tv require large crews, even artists require assistants and helpers. And for most of 2020 and 2021, those people were distracted and confused. This might go some way as to explain why this particular book didn’t get the strong editing it required, but maybe it was just a stinker.
posted by The River Ivel at 5:42 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Every piece of media you consume is a team effort. For books there are editors and publishing teams, movies and tv require large crews, even artists require assistants and helpers. And for most of 2020 and 2021, those people were distracted and confused. This might go some way as to explain why this particular book didn’t get the strong editing it required, but maybe it was just a stinker.
posted by The River Ivel at 5:42 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is a “considerable bother,” says Jonathan Gottschall, to write a book; he lightens the task by writing about himself and excusing himself from extensive research.
OP, I went :D at this opening sentence. This was a genuine delight to wake up to! Thank you for linking to it!
posted by Ahniya at 5:52 AM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
OP, I went :D at this opening sentence. This was a genuine delight to wake up to! Thank you for linking to it!
posted by Ahniya at 5:52 AM on January 3, 2022 [11 favorites]
The Twain teardown of JFC has always been one of my favorite bits of writing, and is a hilariously scathing textual beatdown for sure.
posted by FatherDagon at 5:57 AM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 5:57 AM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
Every piece of media you consume is a team effort. For books there are editors and publishing teams, movies and tv require large crews, even artists require assistants and helpers. And for most of 2020 and 2021, those people were distracted and confused.
All I can say is I really hope other team efforts like engineering, software development, and basically everything the world runs on don't similarly succumb to distraction. Not sure why media would be more susceptible, or why putting shoddy product out on the market should be more viable than before. (Meanwhile, bad editing for reasons of stinginess, cynicism, and/or ego has been around forever -- so I'll go with the "stinker" explanation.)
posted by trig at 6:14 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
All I can say is I really hope other team efforts like engineering, software development, and basically everything the world runs on don't similarly succumb to distraction. Not sure why media would be more susceptible, or why putting shoddy product out on the market should be more viable than before. (Meanwhile, bad editing for reasons of stinginess, cynicism, and/or ego has been around forever -- so I'll go with the "stinker" explanation.)
posted by trig at 6:14 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
"...bonfire of the humanities..."
* chef's kiss *
posted by Kabanos at 6:37 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
* chef's kiss *
posted by Kabanos at 6:37 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
Well that was glorious.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:44 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:44 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is a “considerable bother,” says Jonathan Gottschall, to write a book; he lightens the task by writing about himself and excusing himself from extensive research.
OP, I went :D at this opening sentence.
Has there ever been a knockout in a boxing match in which the blow landed while the sound of the opening bell was still in the air? Well, there has now.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:48 AM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
OP, I went :D at this opening sentence.
Has there ever been a knockout in a boxing match in which the blow landed while the sound of the opening bell was still in the air? Well, there has now.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:48 AM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
Further:
In “The Story Paradox,” he explains that stories filter what we should hear into what we want to hear. [emphasis mine]
Oh, dear. Gottschall is one of those.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:50 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
In “The Story Paradox,” he explains that stories filter what we should hear into what we want to hear. [emphasis mine]
Oh, dear. Gottschall is one of those.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:50 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Please allow me to one-up Gotschall: The human impulse to tell stories is dangerous and has done immeasurable harm, and it all stems from the invention of the protagonist. We are all exposed from birth to narratives about unique individuals who overcome obstacles and accomplish tasks, and this model leads us to perceive ourselves in the same light. This produces an epidemic of individualism, culminating in the "great man" theory of history, which attributes value to persons with perceived accomplishments (military, industrial, financial, etc.) and portrays them as transcendent, super-powered beings rather than as the fungible instances of the human species they truly are, possessing no more or less value than any other instance.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:58 AM on January 3, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:58 AM on January 3, 2022 [27 favorites]
Not to Gotschall your theory, Faint of Butt, but I suspect those are exactly the parts of stories that Gotschall actually likes!
(* To Gotschall = to comment on something without having read relevant background [in this case, I haven’t read Gotschall’s paper itself] and to blithely overlay one’s own biases on one’s interpretation [I have a low opinion of Libertarianism])
posted by eviemath at 7:48 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
(* To Gotschall = to comment on something without having read relevant background [in this case, I haven’t read Gotschall’s paper itself] and to blithely overlay one’s own biases on one’s interpretation [I have a low opinion of Libertarianism])
posted by eviemath at 7:48 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm not enough of a historian to know whether or not it's the case that conservatism has always been intellectually vacuous. I do think that when you construct an entire propaganda network encompassing television, radio, the internet, and no small number of newspapers, and ensure that about 50% of its content amounts to an attack on the concept of expertise as such, you shouldn't be surprised to see the leadership getting more infuriatingly, proudly ignorant with every passing generation.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:53 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:53 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
Lithub's Bookmarks collects scathing reviews, in case this is your thing.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:55 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:55 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
That's a good roundup at Lithub, though reading through them the other day made me face some uncomfortable truths about myself—for instance, the review of Sally Rooney's new book exactly reflected my opinion of Rooney's work.
Which I have not read.
I shouldn't, by rights, have an opinion of Rooney's work, beyond, "hmm, doesn't seem like my kind of thing," when browsing at the bookstore. And yet my opinion of her work is both strong and negative.
Perhaps I will eventually improve this character flaw, though I'm not doing Rooney any harm. I don't normally share my opinion of her with people, or discourage anyone from reading her work. I just have my own petty feelings and am gratified to have then confirmed in such an illustrious place as the London Review of Books.
posted by Well I never at 8:26 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Which I have not read.
I shouldn't, by rights, have an opinion of Rooney's work, beyond, "hmm, doesn't seem like my kind of thing," when browsing at the bookstore. And yet my opinion of her work is both strong and negative.
Perhaps I will eventually improve this character flaw, though I'm not doing Rooney any harm. I don't normally share my opinion of her with people, or discourage anyone from reading her work. I just have my own petty feelings and am gratified to have then confirmed in such an illustrious place as the London Review of Books.
posted by Well I never at 8:26 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'd be perfectly content to read one of these kinds of take downs of "evo-art/psych/whatever" every day it's a field that has no place in academia or any other intellectually serious part of the world.
Minor derail, but maybe there needs to be different branding for legit study of the influence of our evolutionary history on psychology? Not girls-are-like-this-boys-are-like-that crap, but things like "there are unexpected links between the visual cortex and the amygdala that make it really easy for humans to learn to be afraid of snakes and spiders" etc.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:27 AM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
Minor derail, but maybe there needs to be different branding for legit study of the influence of our evolutionary history on psychology? Not girls-are-like-this-boys-are-like-that crap, but things like "there are unexpected links between the visual cortex and the amygdala that make it really easy for humans to learn to be afraid of snakes and spiders" etc.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:27 AM on January 3, 2022 [7 favorites]
Gottschall isn't saying anything dangerous but the reviewer reacted as though it signifies a threat to their childhood belief system.
posted by Brian B. at 8:36 AM on January 3, 2022
posted by Brian B. at 8:36 AM on January 3, 2022
Timothy Snyder is brilliant; I wish I could bring myself to read his most important books (about the horrors perpetuated by the Nazi and Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe). But since I can't right now, I'll continue to enjoy his commentary on other things (he's also very insightful on authoritarianism).
posted by jb at 8:38 AM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by jb at 8:38 AM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Gottschall chooses quantity over quality, tabulating surveys about novels rather than reading them himself.Fun review. I suspect I agree with the author of this piece about many things and would hate the book. But, this particular bit sure sounds like an endorsement, assuming the surveys are well designed. I wish more literary criticism that made bold claims about human civilization wasn't based on the perspective of one individual person who had feelings about a book.
posted by eotvos at 8:40 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think a lot of the negative qualities come from being written during a pandemic. The lazy thinking, lack of awareness of prior history, and general poor standards that the review mentions are going to be a standard across all media for the next few years.
One problem is that this book isn't media - it's supposed to be scholarship. And Snyder points out over and over again the problem with the scholarship.
this particular bit sure sounds like an endorsement, assuming the surveys are well designed.
Your assumption is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'd like to think the surveys were, but I work for a psychologist who is an expert in survey design. Very, very few surveys are well designed.
posted by jb at 8:46 AM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
One problem is that this book isn't media - it's supposed to be scholarship. And Snyder points out over and over again the problem with the scholarship.
this particular bit sure sounds like an endorsement, assuming the surveys are well designed.
Your assumption is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'd like to think the surveys were, but I work for a psychologist who is an expert in survey design. Very, very few surveys are well designed.
posted by jb at 8:46 AM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
His portrayal of Jesus and Socrates as tellers of stories is exactly wrong. They spoke in questions, riddles and parables, meant to refresh minds and souls. That spirit of inquiry is absent here.Conservatives have decided that there is no future in seeking support for their doctrines in religion and philosophy, and so their end game is to use science. This is the apotheosis of the materialist mindset. It remains to be seen whether anti-conservatives will continue along this same materialist trajectory, or if they will re-engage with the radical core of religion and philosophy and thereby rescue science.posted by No Robots at 8:48 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Brutal. A nonstop takedown.
I haven't read Gottschall yet, but now I kinda want to. It's like watching an MST:3K episode and you get the sickening desire to check out the source material.
posted by doctornemo at 10:08 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I haven't read Gottschall yet, but now I kinda want to. It's like watching an MST:3K episode and you get the sickening desire to check out the source material.
posted by doctornemo at 10:08 AM on January 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
This was a lot of fun. I also enjoyed the parenthetical attack on Pinker.
Gottschall’s view about our nonfictional world is that “almost everything is getting better and few things are getting worse.” It is hard to see how he can judge the past against the present, given his dismissal of both history and journalism. He relies upon Steven Pinker’s “data” on the issue of violence, though there is no such thing. Pinker cited others; his peculiar choices are usefully examined in “The Darker Angels of Our Nature.” In the fields I know something about, Pinker cherry-picked with red-fingered fervor; his best numbers on modern death tolls come from a source so obviously ideological that I was ashamed to cite it in high school debate. Like Gottschall, Pinker is a friend of contradiction. He supported his story of progress in part by pointing to rising I.Q.s at a time when I.Q.s were in fact in decline. He began his book by noting that the modern welfare states are the most peaceful polities in history, and concluded it by embracing a libertarianism that would lead to their dissolution. Pinker was telling us a story; it is a story Gottschall likes, and thus it is ennobled as “data.”posted by grobstein at 10:28 AM on January 3, 2022 [10 favorites]
I had students read an older essay of Gottschall's in my first-year comp classes last semester. The title? "Why Fiction is Good for You." His answer? It makes you feel empathy for people who are different from you.
Sounds like the dude has gone a full 180.
if it ends in saluting libertarianism,
I believe Snyder was referring to Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now with that comment.
Also, thanks to OHenryPacey's link, I just learned that Steven Pinker helped Jeffrey Epstein's legal team in 2007 and associated with him several times, including flying on the "Lolita Express."
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:38 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
Sounds like the dude has gone a full 180.
if it ends in saluting libertarianism,
I believe Snyder was referring to Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now with that comment.
Also, thanks to OHenryPacey's link, I just learned that Steven Pinker helped Jeffrey Epstein's legal team in 2007 and associated with him several times, including flying on the "Lolita Express."
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:38 AM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]
Judging from this alone, I don't think Pinker is a libertarian of any stripe. He made 5 billion enemies with his anti-blank-slate book, explaining to the mainstream why it is dead, and that has brought so many critics out with knives, and maybe they mislabel him as best as they understand things. (It's also unclear to me who Snyder is talking about).
posted by Brian B. at 11:25 AM on January 3, 2022
posted by Brian B. at 11:25 AM on January 3, 2022
I am one of many people Pinker has blocked on twitter because he was chastising someone else for something rather minor and I posted a picture of him with Epstein. He really doesn't like it when people post those pictures on social media.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:53 PM on January 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 12:53 PM on January 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
My favorite part of this is the repeated "which Gottschall ignores." Because whether or not you think his core argument is compelling, the way he apparently fails to consider and discuss it adequately means you're not even getting a complete book. Every aspect the reviewer mentions seems obviously connected, yet unaddressed by the author. That's the most damning aspect of the whole thing.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:15 PM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:15 PM on January 3, 2022 [6 favorites]
Evoked the poem "Mac Flecknoe'' where John Dryden totally demolished a rival writer.
Take that!
posted by Narrative_Historian at 2:49 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Take that!
posted by Narrative_Historian at 2:49 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
🎼 Linking to American Thinker, to defend Stevie Pinker, might not be a convincing strategyyyyyy 🎷
posted by aspersioncast at 5:03 PM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 5:03 PM on January 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
The Twain teardown of JFC has always been one of my favorite bits of writing
I haven't read that piece in a while, and I'd forgotten how good some of Twain's one-liners were:
> Bless your heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse; and I don't mean a high-class horse, either; I mean a clothes-horse.
> Cooper seldom saw anything correctly. He saw nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly.
> There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now—all dead but Lounsbury.
> Cooper is not a close observer, but he is interesting. He is certainly always that, no matter what happens. And he is more interesting when he is not noticing what he is about than when he is. This is a considerable merit.
> A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are—oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language. Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
It is a pity that Twain lived just a bit too early for Twitter; I think he'd have been awfully good at it.
posted by Kadin2048 at 5:13 PM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
I haven't read that piece in a while, and I'd forgotten how good some of Twain's one-liners were:
> Bless your heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse; and I don't mean a high-class horse, either; I mean a clothes-horse.
> Cooper seldom saw anything correctly. He saw nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly.
> There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now—all dead but Lounsbury.
> Cooper is not a close observer, but he is interesting. He is certainly always that, no matter what happens. And he is more interesting when he is not noticing what he is about than when he is. This is a considerable merit.
> A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are—oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language. Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
It is a pity that Twain lived just a bit too early for Twitter; I think he'd have been awfully good at it.
posted by Kadin2048 at 5:13 PM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Evo psych is increasingly like astrology for bitter men. How does any adult take this claptrap seriously? I mean say what you will about Joseph Campbell but at least his silly just-so stories were *entertaining.*
posted by aspersioncast at 5:17 PM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 5:17 PM on January 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
Evo psych is increasingly like astrology for bitter men. How does any adult take this claptrap seriously?
Lots of young men get into it as a Big Idea in college, and it's intoxicating like their first beer--probably cheap and shitty, and consumed injudiciously. Unfortunately, some guys never lose their taste for it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:11 PM on January 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
Lots of young men get into it as a Big Idea in college, and it's intoxicating like their first beer--probably cheap and shitty, and consumed injudiciously. Unfortunately, some guys never lose their taste for it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:11 PM on January 3, 2022 [8 favorites]
Minor derail, but maybe there needs to be different branding for legit study of the influence of our evolutionary history on psychology? Not girls-are-like-this-boys-are-like-that crap, but things like "there are unexpected links between the visual cortex and the amygdala that make it really easy for humans to learn to be afraid of snakes and spiders" etc.
Ahahaha if there's anything that the joint study of behavior and genetics/evolution do not need, it's yet another rebranding. There's been at least six disciplinary names I can think of for the general concept (behavioral ecology, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, behavior genetics, ethology, arguably primatology as a whole...) and I'm sure there will be another along in a minute.
One of the things I really like about this particular intersection is that close attention to the history of these fields really underscores the way that a scholarly discipline is less of a descriptive term and more of a term to reference ongoing threads of conversation, methodological debate, and collaboration among scholars. Evolutionary psychology is the name given for a particular kind of facile circle jerk; you can tell by digging into other research on the evolution, genetics, and plasticity of behavior and noting how infrequently recent work notes evolutionary psychology, nor how infrequently evolutionary psychology references any field of research that complicates their tidy views of undergraduate surveys.
posted by sciatrix at 8:25 PM on January 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
Ahahaha if there's anything that the joint study of behavior and genetics/evolution do not need, it's yet another rebranding. There's been at least six disciplinary names I can think of for the general concept (behavioral ecology, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, behavior genetics, ethology, arguably primatology as a whole...) and I'm sure there will be another along in a minute.
One of the things I really like about this particular intersection is that close attention to the history of these fields really underscores the way that a scholarly discipline is less of a descriptive term and more of a term to reference ongoing threads of conversation, methodological debate, and collaboration among scholars. Evolutionary psychology is the name given for a particular kind of facile circle jerk; you can tell by digging into other research on the evolution, genetics, and plasticity of behavior and noting how infrequently recent work notes evolutionary psychology, nor how infrequently evolutionary psychology references any field of research that complicates their tidy views of undergraduate surveys.
posted by sciatrix at 8:25 PM on January 3, 2022 [12 favorites]
My favorite thing about evo psych is that, apparently, the US in the second half of the 20th century exactly mirrors the Pleistocene evolutionary environment. You study American college students, and what you get is human adaptation to the Pleistocene savanna environment! What happened to all other cultures and societies throughout history and today that they all veered away from it remains a mystery.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 7:28 AM on January 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 7:28 AM on January 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
In the fields I know something about, Pinker cherry-picked with red-fingered fervor; his best numbers on modern death tolls come from a source so obviously ideological that I was ashamed to cite it in high school debate.
I was confused by this at first, but did some searching. Pinker got Snyder's goat over low-balling Stalin's reign of terror to support his progress and enlightenment theory of humanity. Snyder is famous for retelling the starvation policies of communism, backed up by research from reading the source material in local languages, this includes 4 million victims in Ukraine alone in a short span. Snyder is also famous for having fascism and communism as both sides of a totalitarian coin, which can be manifest in one place within a short frame, such as Russia today versus Russia a generation ago, without them even knowing it. They do agree on things however, such as a dislike for Trump. Pinker's progress theory book which Snyder hates openly bashes Trump and gets all of its one-star reviews from self-identified Trumpers. It's more clear to me why some people dislike Pinker, because his theories put blame on unchecked cultural influences, and not raw human tendencies, which is a reversal of traditional influences.
posted by Brian B. at 8:57 AM on January 4, 2022
I was confused by this at first, but did some searching. Pinker got Snyder's goat over low-balling Stalin's reign of terror to support his progress and enlightenment theory of humanity. Snyder is famous for retelling the starvation policies of communism, backed up by research from reading the source material in local languages, this includes 4 million victims in Ukraine alone in a short span. Snyder is also famous for having fascism and communism as both sides of a totalitarian coin, which can be manifest in one place within a short frame, such as Russia today versus Russia a generation ago, without them even knowing it. They do agree on things however, such as a dislike for Trump. Pinker's progress theory book which Snyder hates openly bashes Trump and gets all of its one-star reviews from self-identified Trumpers. It's more clear to me why some people dislike Pinker, because his theories put blame on unchecked cultural influences, and not raw human tendencies, which is a reversal of traditional influences.
posted by Brian B. at 8:57 AM on January 4, 2022
They do agree on things however, such as a dislike for Trump. Pinker's progress theory book which Snyder hates openly bashes Trump and gets all of its one-star reviews from self-identified Trumpers.
Why is this relevant? While a lot of people divide the world into teams, and have a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality that lets them ignore all sorts of problematic things about such "friends" because team identity is what they find most important, there are still also a lot of people who practice a more careful type of thinking that, among other things, isn't actually based on dividing the world into two camps. I don't know much about Snyder, but it seems like his primary beef with Pinker is not Pinker's politics but Pinker's shoddy scholarship, because Snyder believes that careful, honest scholarship is important. (To some of us, dishonest scholarship feels like heresy might to a religious person. It is an actual sin before the search for truth, regardless of your feelings about the arguments it pretends to support.)
It's more clear to me why some people dislike Pinker, because his theories put blame on unchecked cultural influences, and not raw human tendencies, which is a reversal of traditional influences.
Again, some people might dislike him (or, you know, his work) because they don't like his conclusions. But lots of other people excoriate him because his scholarship is apparently of the "I'll make the data fit my conclusion" type -- in other words, dishonest bullshit. (Also, lots of people excoriate him as a person, not as a scholar, because of his very sketchy, to say the least, associations with and defenses of Epstein.)
posted by trig at 10:35 AM on January 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Why is this relevant? While a lot of people divide the world into teams, and have a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality that lets them ignore all sorts of problematic things about such "friends" because team identity is what they find most important, there are still also a lot of people who practice a more careful type of thinking that, among other things, isn't actually based on dividing the world into two camps. I don't know much about Snyder, but it seems like his primary beef with Pinker is not Pinker's politics but Pinker's shoddy scholarship, because Snyder believes that careful, honest scholarship is important. (To some of us, dishonest scholarship feels like heresy might to a religious person. It is an actual sin before the search for truth, regardless of your feelings about the arguments it pretends to support.)
It's more clear to me why some people dislike Pinker, because his theories put blame on unchecked cultural influences, and not raw human tendencies, which is a reversal of traditional influences.
Again, some people might dislike him (or, you know, his work) because they don't like his conclusions. But lots of other people excoriate him because his scholarship is apparently of the "I'll make the data fit my conclusion" type -- in other words, dishonest bullshit. (Also, lots of people excoriate him as a person, not as a scholar, because of his very sketchy, to say the least, associations with and defenses of Epstein.)
posted by trig at 10:35 AM on January 4, 2022 [5 favorites]
Thanks for this, kmz. Someone very dear to me reads a lot of people who think like this person/Pinker, and it's the source of a lot of tension between us. They, and the authors they read, value open discourse, but in practice respond to critique as personal attack. I wish I could show them this review, and have an honest and un-defensive conversation about what it means when people are only willing to see evidence that supports what they already believe.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:10 AM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:10 AM on January 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Why is this relevant?
It's a followup to Snyder wrongly accusing Pinker of being a libertarian, even while ambiguously conflating both of his targets in that suggestion. No problem for me because I like and respect Snyder, but he seems a bit too indignant for being wrong. People who are easily offended are also easily manipulated. So it warrants someone addressing it, and since I read a few of Pinker's books and had a prior opinion, and nobody else seemed to care, I needed to investigate. Misinformation doesn't resolve itself, and the risk of not doing so is a chill effect of signalling to other intellectuals that similar ideas may be accused of being libertarian if they dare propose them, etc.
posted by Brian B. at 3:06 PM on January 4, 2022
It's a followup to Snyder wrongly accusing Pinker of being a libertarian, even while ambiguously conflating both of his targets in that suggestion. No problem for me because I like and respect Snyder, but he seems a bit too indignant for being wrong. People who are easily offended are also easily manipulated. So it warrants someone addressing it, and since I read a few of Pinker's books and had a prior opinion, and nobody else seemed to care, I needed to investigate. Misinformation doesn't resolve itself, and the risk of not doing so is a chill effect of signalling to other intellectuals that similar ideas may be accused of being libertarian if they dare propose them, etc.
posted by Brian B. at 3:06 PM on January 4, 2022
Less wrongly accusing then choosing to leave out the "nuance" Pinker seeks in differentiating "radical libertarianism", as mentioned in that dodgy link posted earlier, and a post-ideological politics with a libertarian base. See this tweet from Pinker and the essay mentioned in it for example.
And if the Gottschall piece wet your appetite for a similar take down, Jessica Riskin's LARB essay on Pinker's book Enlightenment Now might satisfy some of that longing.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:00 AM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
And if the Gottschall piece wet your appetite for a similar take down, Jessica Riskin's LARB essay on Pinker's book Enlightenment Now might satisfy some of that longing.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:00 AM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of the reasons Pinker gets mentioned with the "evo" crowd is that they both engage in backwards reasoning, starting from an end point then attempting to create a preceding logic to fit their ends which justifies their desired end, at least in the relevant arguments to the main post. The idea of getting past ideology only makes sense when one assumes one's own stance is ideology free and based on pure rationality, which it isn't and that's what the repeated examples of cherry picking information shows.
(And of course I meant "whet your appetite" in the previous post, not wet, though a good pissing contest may I guess kinda do both.)
posted by gusottertrout at 1:37 AM on January 5, 2022
(And of course I meant "whet your appetite" in the previous post, not wet, though a good pissing contest may I guess kinda do both.)
posted by gusottertrout at 1:37 AM on January 5, 2022
Less wrongly accusing then choosing to leave out the "nuance" Pinker seeks in differentiating "radical libertarianism", as mentioned in that dodgy link posted earlier, and a post-ideological politics with a libertarian base. See this tweet from Pinker and the essay mentioned in it for example.
Nothing wrong with anything linked there it seems, at first glance, very straightforward message to libertarians to give it up. I am pleased that Pinker distances from libertarianism when asked, and is also found to actually try to deprogram them. Nuance is exactly how that works without ideology and black and white thinking. Saying otherwise is nothing more than suggesting that if someone is not on your side then they are on the other side if you read between the lines. Not sure about the evo comment or that crowd, but backward reasoning of often confused with abductive reasoning, and not following a protocol on humans like lab specimens describes philosophy pretty well it seems, and that may suit Pinker fine.
posted by Brian B. at 8:12 AM on January 5, 2022
Nothing wrong with anything linked there it seems, at first glance, very straightforward message to libertarians to give it up. I am pleased that Pinker distances from libertarianism when asked, and is also found to actually try to deprogram them. Nuance is exactly how that works without ideology and black and white thinking. Saying otherwise is nothing more than suggesting that if someone is not on your side then they are on the other side if you read between the lines. Not sure about the evo comment or that crowd, but backward reasoning of often confused with abductive reasoning, and not following a protocol on humans like lab specimens describes philosophy pretty well it seems, and that may suit Pinker fine.
posted by Brian B. at 8:12 AM on January 5, 2022
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But seriously... the human narrative drive is insanely powerful and studied.
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:33 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]