Our conceptions of human nature affect every aspect of our lives, from
the way we raise our children to the political movements we embrace. Yet
just as science is bringing us into a golden age of understanding human
nature, many people are hostile to the very idea. They fear that
discoveries about innate patterns of thinking and feeling may be used to
justify inequality, to subvert social change, to dissolve personal
responsibility, and to strip life of meaning and purpose.
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, bestselling author of The Language
Instinct and How the Mind Works, explores the idea of human nature
and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. He shows how many
intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing
three linked dogmas: the Blank Slate (the mind has no innate traits),
the Noble Savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and
the Ghost in the Machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free
from biology). Each dogma carries a moral burden, so their defenders
have engaged in desperate tactics to discredit the scientists who are
now challenging them.
Pinker injects calm and rationality into these debates by showing that
equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear
from discoveries about a rich human nature. He disarms even the most
menacing threats with clear thinking, common sense, and pertinent facts
from science and history. Despite its popularity among intellectuals
during much of the twentieth century, he argues, the doctrine of the
Blank Slate may have done more harm than good. It denies our common
humanity and our individual preferences, replaces hardheaded analyses of
social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding
of government, violence, parenting, and the arts.
Pinker shows that an acknowledgment of human nature that is grounded in
science and common sense, far from being dangerous, can complement
insights about the human condition made by millennia of artists and
philosophers. All this is done in the style that earned his previous
books many prizes and worldwide acclaim: wit, lucidity, and insight into
matters great and small.
