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awildpoliticalnerd · 5 years

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Book Review: The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. By Robert Wright. (1994).

Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal is a look through the field of evolutionary psychology--at least as it stood at the book's writing in 1994. It's a promising work with a lot of insight. However, it can best be analogized to the peacock: If it survives, it does so despite the massive disadvantage of some obvious maladaptions. In the case of the peacock, the adaption is its oversized tail (or "train" as it's often referred to). In the case of The Moral Animal, it's Wright’s own unexamined moral and ideological biases presented as fact that lowered its potential.

The big sell of the book is actually a rather interesting premise: Take the most famous proponent of the theory of evolution (Charles “the Chuck” Darwin) and use his life to demonstrate the principles of evolutionary psychology. Want to illustrate the theory that men are less biologically inclined towards lifelong monogamy thanks to our disproportionately small part in the baby-making process? Highlight the fact that Darwin literally sketched out a cost/benefit analysis of getting married in his notebook. Want to argue that young siblings should be both predisposed towards rivalry and cooperation thanks to kin selection? Give some (admittedly adorable) examples of Darwin’s many, many children. Because of this, the book was part popular-science exploration of a then-burgeoning topic and accessible biography on one of the most important scientific minds to ever emerge from the primordial ooze. When done well, this was the book at its best. It was discursive, informative, and enjoyable. It kept me engaged over much of the book’s nearly 400-pages.

(Lest someone use the opening example as evidence that I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about later in the review, let it be known that I know that the mystery of the peacock’s train was solved with the insights of sexual selection--that peahens select males with large trains because possessing one shows that the males have got to be pretty dang "fit" to survive with such a glaringly obvious disadvantage. Writing thematically consistent introductions is hard; I claim some artistic liberties here).

There are two core ways that this plays out throughout the book. The first is the odd insistence that every possible point that Wright could conceive of making in this vast subject was exemplified by good ol’ Chuck. And there were times that this was very clearly a stretch. The way he pursued his eventual wife, Emma, is described through a very genetic lens instead of primarily cultural terms (part of a supposed genetic predisposition towards the “Madonna-Whore” dichotomy for those of us with that infernal y chromosome). His differential patterns of grief for the loss of two of his children (he reportedly mourned the death of his ten year old daughter far longer, and far more intensely, then that of his infant son) are couched as being primarily due to their proximity to prime fertility age. His intense anxiety about publishing what would be his scientific legacy (you know, apart from being the 19th century’s foremost barnacle expert)? It’s the genes! It’s genes, genes, genes all the way down.

I’d like to say that the book was always like this. Or, apparently, my desire to want to say this, my inability to do so, and the considerable amount of sarcasm required to pen these last two sentences are because of my genes. At least that’s the culprit if we were to take Wright literally. At times, he is positively (and ironically) evangelical about the power of our genetics in dictating our behavior. And it is to the rest of the work’s detriment.

I’m not some biological denialist. I believe whole-heartedly in evolutionary theory. And, of course, the potential for any and all physical actions have to ultimately originate in the code that facilitates every biological process we undertake. But, first off, since natural selection works probabilistically, what do you think the odds are that, of the billions of humans to walk the Earth, the theory’s first popular progenitor is an acceptable exemplar of all of these processes? It’s laughably small. Literally smaller than the first common ancestor of all life on this planet compared to the sun. I don’t think that this means that Wright had to abandon the mission of using Darwin as an illustration--again, that’s part of what made this book so interesting--but it would be far better served if, instead, Wright said something to the effect of “we can see an imperfect analogy to these processes in Darwin’s life.” A small change but, as Wright knows, small changes can have a large impact.

I suspect that Wright’s self-admitted zealousy on the subject was partially spurred on by the fact that this book was written before epigenetics (the process through which different parts of the genome are activated/deactivated in response to environmental changes, changing the genes’ expression) was more rigorously demonstrated. I recall him adamantly insisting, once or twice, that genes “can’t be changed” once we’ve been conceived. At the time, that was the belief commensurate with the best available evidence. Although epigenetics do not disprove this, the truth is that our genes are far more flexible than originally thought. If genetic fixedness is what you’re arguing, it’s pretty tough to say anything other than “everything Darwin did ever is totally explainable through evolutionary psychology.” Even if it's not true. So I’ve decided to chalk this up to scientific progress and its inevitable, unenviable ability to reveal certain pronouncements as utterly wrong. It’ll undoubtedly happen to me; it happens to any practicing scientist.

The second theme, though, is less able to be chalked up to the inexorable march of progress. That is the distinct, but related, assertion interwoven throughout the text that literally everything can be explained by evolutionary psychology. Moral codes? Evolutionary psychology. Selective memory of our own moral failings? Evolutionary psychology. Western social structures and the necessity of political and economic inequality? Survey says: Evolutionary psychology.

These assertions are often manifest through what I call “cover your ass” language. We all know it; we all, regrettably, deploy it. It comes when the authors use absolute terms for the vast preponderance of the work and then say “now, do I really think that this explains everything? Of course not! But…” and then proceeds to make the exact same points, just with a couple of words interjected to signal intellectual humility. A few careful words do not erase the other 98% and the frames they collectively construct. Wright is arguing that evolutionary psychology alone can explain just about every social phenomenon, from the simple to profound. But the fact of the matter is that evolutionary psychology would be hard-pressed to understand why people on vacation with their families would bother to leave tips at restaurants despite the fact that they do, more often than not. (Seriously. Reciprocal altruism’s out since you’ll never see that server again. Odds are they weren’t related, so kin selection’s out too. Peacocking wealth contrasts with women’s supposed preference for mates who don’t needlessly divert resources away from her children. Tipping is a tough nut to crack for rational-choice-esque theoried like evolutionary psych). If it can’t explain something so banal as this, I have strong doubts of the deterministic account Wright explicates here. He will, almost begrudgingly, admit that social and environmental forces play a part in genetic expression. But he does not seem prepared to admit that it plays as big of a role as even the available evidence at the time did.

The more I read it, the more I felt that this book was symbolic of a lot of evolutionary science at the time: It contains real, interesting insight on genetic processes and their role (however expansive or limited) in complex interpersonal phenomena. These shouldn’t be undersold or ignored; I learned a great deal reading this book. The problem is that these insights come paired with uninterrogated moralizing, steeped in contemporaneous social events, passed off as timeless, objective Truth. The most obvious example (because of how often Wright returns to it) comes in the aforementioned asymmetry in male parental investment. Or, rather, the seemingly inevitable end-result: Divorce. This was often curiously paired with hand-wavey discussions of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy. Apparently, men who manage to have sex with women earlier in the relationship feel less inclined to see her as a viable marriage partner. Should a quickly-pairing couple (referring to the speed in which they decide to do the act and not, hopefully, the duration of the act itself) wind-up married, men are more likely to ditch the women--and ditch them for similar "kinds" of women. This discussion would often lead to Wright lamenting how women are engaging in sex earlier and earlier in romantic relationships. Things were better decades before this promiscuity was socially acceptable. Like back in Victorian England when Charles wed his beloved Emma. And the evidentiary linchpin, at times explicitly mentioned while only obliquely inferred at others, is the sky-high divorce rates that, Wright argues, came as a consequence of social structures being poorly designed considering our inherent genetic predispositions.

Of course, we now know that the high divorce rates of the 90s were a temporary thing. First-marriages are lasting far longer than they did (on average) in the 80’s, 90’s, and early 00’s but divorces are just as easy (if not easier) than ever before. If it was entirely because of early sex and our baser nature, the pattern should continue. The fact that it doesn’t is both evidence that evolutionary psychology is more limited than Wright suggests and that the urgency imbued in his analysis was shaped by his own moral sensibilities rather than those seen in society as a whole, inculcated by natural selection.

This wasn’t all of the social critique Wright was inclined to wade in. All fields and theories have their critics. Good authors often anticipate common objections and address them in the text. He saw his most likely critics as less scientifically driven as ideologically so. Lofty prose to the contrary, he was on the attack far more than on the defense; Darwin found himself a new bull dog. His target: Those dastardly post-modernists. He often panned “post-modernism” for their critiques of evolutionary psychology, often claiming (without much evidence) that it stemmed from the post-modernists’ universal and fundamental ignorance about biology. Honestly, the way Wright so derisively talked about them, I was surprised that he didn’t bust out a couple of verbose “yo mamma” jokes.

What makes his vituperative swipes so ironic 25 years later is that the post-structuralists were right. Many evolutionary scientists were predisposed towards advancing biologically deterministic theories of human behavior. Any practicing geneticist worth their salt today would tell you that human behavior is so dependent on genes' interactions with the social and physical environment that even things we take for granted as “hard-wired” (such as one’s sexual preference) has been persuasively shown to not be the consequence of singular genes--or even wholly the consequence of complex genetic interactions. This is a far, far cry from Wright’s portrayal in the book; I honestly think he would be aghast at this suggestion, as if it surrenders precious ground to heretical forces in the battle for all of science’s soul. And the post-modernists are consequently vindicated in questioning what kind of power is made manifest, and towards whom is it ultimately directed, when these assertions are given the pop-science stamp of total veracity. (Actually, despite it being basically their entire deal, I can’t recall a moment when Wright discussed power when issuing his disses of post-modernism. Instead, he discussed them in the same kind of shifting, ephemeral manner that paints them as boogeymen with accusations that were often equally grounded in reality. I think he would find his own intellectual horizons broadened if he allotted the same serious attention to their intellectual contributions as he demands for his subject).

To shoehorn in a personal complaint that I had, the book was heavy in evolutionary theory but very, very sparse in social-psychological insight. Spare a chapter where Wright tried to rehabilitate Freud’s reputation (as successful attempt as one’s going to have considering how uphill that battle is), most of the psychology was relegated to sexual pairing preferences and over-general suggestions on morality and social bonding. The former was interesting and insightful; the rest woefully underdeveloped. I may be spoiled by books like Behave and How Emotions Are Made (part of these phenomenal works both touched on how evolution may bring around specific cognitive processes), but I think Wright could have comfortably fit interesting, more specific insights if he shed the weird moralism and extensive post-modernist vendetta.

I hate closing reviews with negatives, no matter how well deserved. Presumably that’s in my genes as well. So I’d actually like to conclude by saying that I well and truly learned a lot from this book. Some of it was less novel so much as it was a refresher (I have read a number of prominent books on evolutionary theory, including the oft-referenced Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins), but some insights were well and truly new to me and illuminating. The one that stands out the most at the moment is the game theoretic accounts claiming that monogamy ultimately serves men (while institutional polygyny would be better for women) and the argument that people are more rude in spaces with fewer permanent interpersonal ties. I also thought the point that adherence to cultural values are an expedient for environmentally contingent reproductive success was well argued. I don’t buy these arguments entirely, but I think they and other points are worth mulling over to extract the useful bits. But in order to get to these bits, you have to be attentive and willing to parse through a lot of things that, in the rat-race of ideas, deserve to be thoroughly out-competed.

#reviews #book review #evolutionary psychology #books #psychology #nonfiction

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zenosanalytic · 7 years

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Discworld: The Fifth Elephant

This one’s another theme title, like Jingo, and the theme THIS time is unstated/invisible/minor/ephemeral/unknown/dead/nonexistent things that, regardless, happen to VERY important, and to influence events and behavior deeply.

Though, tbf, what Uberwaldians might call a “fifth elephant”, seems somewhat like what we readers might call “the elephant in the room”. There’s a nice irony in that, though, since “the elephant in the room” is a huge and obvious problem no one wants to deal with or acknowledge, whereas a “fifth elephant” is an invisible or unknowable influences everyone acknowledges. I’m basically just going to list and discuss the “Fifth Elephants” that jumped out at me while reading.

The Fifth Elephant itself. It’s mentioned as a dwarven myth near the start of the book and not really mentioned after, yet it is the source of Uberwald’s mining wealth, thus the draw of of the outside world’s attentions, thus the impetus for the weres’ plot, the dwarves’ civil strife, and the main action of the text. It also rears up again at the end as the true reason for the visit, during Sybil’s negotiations with the Low King. As an aside, I just want to say how much I LOVE the idea of fat, treacle, and other such “organic” mines, as a Fantasy Worldbuilding decision :] Particularly given the geological approach Dwarves take to bread and other confections :] :]

Candlefat. Fat is sort of looked down on by most of the characters in the book when put next to Uberwald’s gold, iron, and other mineral wealth, but it’s what A-M, and A-M’s “progressive” society, run on. And it is, literally, running under the surface of the whole place, erupting at point like Yellowstone geysers. As the setting for Vimes’ final fight with Wolfgang’s ...wolf gang(well, were gang)... it enacts a quite direct and literal influence over the plot. And, returning to the above para, it’s the final prize for Vimes’ efforts, and reward for A-M’s diplomatic victory in the region.

Silver. This is a lesser and more subtle example, but I think that actually makes the fit better. It’s very rarely mentioned -once to say that it’s banned under the Diet of Bugs, once again at the end- but its value is keenly felt by the reader through its lack and all the fighting against werewolves. Which is pretty cool from a meta standpoint, too, as it turns a necessity of the story -not having any silver around so that the werewolves provide a serious threat to the protags- into a tool for increasing the reader’s emotional engagement, and does it with a plausible in-universe justification. More prosaically the absence of its use and the license that gives the weres emphasizes it’s importance. The reader is shown, directly, how the prohibition on silver mining allows the current power-structure to exist and keeps the peace, and by closing the books with the Dwarves reopening their silver mines in response to the weres’ violation of the Diet, declares the collapse of that order and the rising of a new one, more in-line with A-M’s industrial, commercial, “civilized” worldview.

Vampires. We only see ONE vampire, and she’s sworn off blood, but we know from the Diet, and Uberwaldean architecture, and the decisive role Lady Margolotta repeatedly plays in the story, and her patronage of the Igors(and how we’re introduced to them through her) how powerful, influential, and important to Uberwaldean society vampires are. And, through the unnamed and unseen members of her Recovery Group, we know not only that there are more vampires, but that there are also unreconstructed ones. Which leads to a sort of second-tier Fifth Elephant re: Lady Margolotta’s power: there are other vamps but they don’t interfere in Vimes’ mission, despite the importance of it to Uberwald’s future, suggesting that crossing Margolotta, despite her non-traditional choices which MUST annoy some of this, is not something other vamps feel willing or able to do.

Wolfgang’s plot. Its fullness is not revealed til the end though it, and thwarting it, forms the main-action of the book.

Angua’s past, and particularly her family politics. Wolfgang’s motivations are not entirely political but also personal(a nice riff on Carrot’s “Personal isn’t the same as Important”); Angua was the only one who could stand up to and defeat him, and he resents this, and that she left, and that she is romantically involved with a particularly tall dwarf. Serafine’s shared anger over this, which she sees as an abandonment and repudiation, is how she justifies giving Wolfgang his head. One can also take this into more pretentious territory :p Angua, through her place in the A-M City Watch, represents and is creating a world in direct opposition to the one Wolfgang represents and want to bring into being. So, in both a familial and philosophical sense, the font of Wolfgang’s actions, the plots which drove the main-action, are founded in his antagonism with Angua.

Dee, Dwarf Gender, and Cheri. This is another one, like Silver, that flies low under the radar but ends up having played a huge part in the story. Dee went along with Wolfgang’s plan, and destroyed the Scone, primarily in an attempt to halt the changes in Dwarven society Cheri had, by having the courage to be herself, set in motion. Dee wanted to stop these changes out of projected self-loathing and frustration over her own inability, as a deep dwarf, to express her feminine identity. So, without Dee’s envious anger at Cheri’s freedom of identity, Wolfgang’s plan would have come to nothing.

Carrot’s feelings for Angua. Until now, we’ve always only seen Angua and Carrot’s relationship from her perspective, and even here Carrot’s feelings, in true Fifth Elephant style, go unspoken. However we do see them, quite explicitly, put into action. Angua always feared Carrot cared more for the city and the Watch than for her. Carrot resigns his commission and abandons the city to the tender mercies of a fright-mad Fred Colon to pursue her. He chases her through winter cold, hunger, and exhaustion without once mentioning any of it. In fact, in a rather excellently explicative literary move, Pratchett leaves all of this to be mentioned by Gaspode, and described by Angua, after she had saved him from his own poor decisions. We also get to see more hints at Carrot’s hidden depths in general; not only through the immediate leap to resigning his commission(suggesting a guilty jump to self-blame, via his love for the City and the Watch and the alienation and insecurity it caused her, in Angua’s departure), but also through hints at his perception, his capacity for cruelty, deception, and manipulation, and even, through his frightening smile, the brittleness of his usual “civilized” behavior.

The lives and world of wolves. Through the Howl, Gavin, and Angua/Carrot/Gaspode’s travels, we see how complex and influential the lives of wolves on the Disc can be.

Gaspode. This is a rather direct one. Gaspode convinces humans to do what he wants them to by exploiting the fact that they, knowing “dogs can’t talk” will rationalize away his arguments and demands as their own thoughts. He’s a literal, doggy embodiment of the entire Fifth Elephant concept.

Sybil’s pregnancy. It is the unspoken, but rather obvious from even the beginning, motor of her actions in the book; a situation not mentioned til the end, but constantly important both for why she was there and, more metawise, for making the dangers Vimes’ faces more suspenseful for those readers who realize what she’s trying to tell Sam for most of the book. Without the pregnancy she might not have insisted on coming, and those wouldn’t have been there to seal the deal, either.

History. Much of the behaviors of the Uberwaldians towards the characters is influenced by the history of Dwarf/Troll/Human/Undead violence there. Detritus alludes to this once when confronted with the troll head in the embassy, it is referenced a second time in the clear absence of mounted(presumably human and dwarf) heads from the von Uberwald’s wall, and there is a constant reminder of it in the treatment of Detritus by the Uberwaldians Vimes’ group encounters. I AM kind of disappointed that Cuddy, maybe via the helmet he gave Detritus, didn’t turn out to be a Chekov’s Gun for this book though, at it would have fit really well thematically for his friendship to Detritus to pop up again and be important in this book.

Vetinari’s past. There’s barely any discussion of it, but what there is assures us that it is one major reason why Margolotta is interested in Vimes in the first place. She acts, to help or hinder, in response to her past with Vetinari, and her relationship to him, whatever that is.

Related to the above, Margolotta’s interests, which are never directly mentioned or addressed, but which we know also motivate her actions, and thus influence how the book plays out.

The Beast. This is a great, though direct, example of a “Fifth Elephant”. It’s what Vimes calls his desire to do violence, to act reflexively on hate, to just burn the whole stinking rotten world down if he can. He describes it directly as an internal motivation that is always there, always threatening to get out, always trying to influence his actions, but which he keeps contained, controlled, and never mentions. It is, literally, an unmentioned influence he is always having to deal with and work his way around.

The Igors. They are a background to Uberwaldian, and particularly Noble-Uberwaldian, life, taken as a given and rarely mentioned, but always there, managing the health of the people in the region through their mysterious medical expertise. Where they come from and what, exactly, they do isn’t precisely known, and yet they are incredibly important to the Uberwald.

Networks and Communications, both of which are invisible, non-corporeal, yet very real, things. The Howl, the Clacks, Dwarf Rumor, the Igor Organ Donation service, Margolotta’s informants, the Black Ribboners, Copperness; as themes, Networks and Communications come up again and again and again.

Unspoken Rules. The Lore, Hot Pursuit, the 12 Steps, Wolf social cues, Dwarven law, the nuances of Command and Rulership implied through Colon and Vetinari’s parts in the story, probably lots of stuff I’m forgetting.

Wallace Sonky, referenced directly as an unsung, little recognized hero for his prophylactics and how they’ve slowed A-M’s population growth.

Knockermen. Unseen, considered dead by their families, working in the dark of new delvings, covered head to toe in armor which obliterates their private identities, and the absolute heart of dwarven identity, mythology, belief, and politics since their leaders are almost exclusively chosen from this class. And of course, knockermen also form the core of the “Deep Dwarves”, essentially a priest-caste who deliberately eschew sunlight and the surface, making them an “invisible”, underground, influence.

Natural Gas. It’s invisible and without scent, but it will most certainly “influence” anyone who comes into close contact with it in a whole host of ways.

The Scone of Stone. Most Dwarves, even underground ones, will never see it, yet who sits upon and protects it arbitrates their entire world. Its power and influence comes not from itself, but from the place it holds in their culture and mythology through B’rian(sp?) Bloodaxe and the opera/stories/myths revolving around him.

Ideas. The current Scone is not THE original Scone in a physical sense. And yet, in a very real and practical sense, it carries the concept of the Scone with it, and so all the believe and functionality the original Scone carried, and so it IS “The Thing and the whole of the Thing”. This idea comes up in one other major way through Rhys Rhysson’s explanation of “Family Tools” in the dwarven mindset. Tools get old and worn and they break, and when they do the broken piece is replaced or repaired. After a certain point the tool is no longer, physically, the same tool that it once was, and yet it remains “the Family Axe”, or whathaveyou, because it continues to carry the idea and identity of the original. Basically Ideas, which are formless and metaphysical and exist only within the brains of living creatures, persist beyond the death of those who hold them and even the destruction of those objects they were invested in. They exist and influence without any real existence. Ideas are “the Thing and the Whole of the Thing”.

Culture. The Fifth Elephant is a story of cultures in conflict. A-M, and it’s culture of innovation, “progress”, and openness, is drastically changing the Disc, and other cultures, whether that of the Dwarves, the wolves, or the Uberwaldeans, are forced to respond to it. The influence of culture is shown not only through the actions self-conception brings out in others(Dee’s destruction of the Scone, Wolfgang’s plot to keep A-M out of the Uberwald, the peculiar individuation within the corporate identity Igors share), but also through this direct clash of cultures, most visibly displayed through Vimes’ interactions with Uberwaldean figures.

Choice. Albrecht(and any number of Dwarves before him) chooses to keep the secret of the Scone’s true nature. Dee chooses to destroy the Scone. Vimes chooses, again and again, to be civilized and rule-bond. Skimmer chooses to stay at the tower, and to check the door. The Igors choose their calling, and the good it can do for others, over their own lives. The Dwarves choose to believe in “Dwarfishness”, even when they live on the surface, in the light, in A-M. Choice, that ephemeral, invisible, here-and-gone thing, again and again shifts the story, and makes the world it takes place in.

Discipline. Margolotta and the Black Ribboners. Vimes. Angua. Gavin. Cheri. These characters stick to their choices, no matter what it costs them, and live authentically, and in doing that they, without really meaning to, drive the story and change the Disc.

Belief. This is probably the biggest and most central Fifth Elephant of the book. Through Wolfgang’s philosophy and Dee’s internalized self-hate, it drives the main-action of the plot. Through Vimes’ dedication to Civilization it informs all his choices in the book. Through Dwarfishness, the Low King(basically a Dwarf Pope), and the Scone of Stone, it is the motivation and central suspense(the possibility of civil war in Vimes’ fails) of the book.

Ok I think that’s everything. I know some of these are more cursory than they deserve, but I was kinda getting tired of writing there at the end -__- Also: for IRL reasons I wrote this over the course of about a week, and read the book two weeks ago, and I was much clearer on the book when I started writing it than when I finished it just now -__- -___-

All in all I really liked this book and its focus on politics. I also thought it did a great job of showing how the personal IS the political and vice versa, and how pretty much everything is “political”. Comments and questions welcome, though it may take me awhile to respond. If you read all of this Good on You :p

#Discworld #Terry Pratchett #The Fifth Elephant #Themes #Critical Analysis #Book Reviews

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