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Home , Gerd Gigerenzer, Jerome Kagan, On Human Nature, Paul Rozin, Sid Smith (boxer), Simon Fisher

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on race Kenneth Prewitt, Orlando Patterson, George Fredrickson, Ian Hacking, Jennifer Hochschild, Glenn Loury, David Hollinger, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Victoria Hattam, Kwame A. Appiah, Ian Haney López, Melissa Nobles, and Kim Williams Fall 2004

on imperialism Niall Ferguson, Kenneth Pomeranz, Anthony Pagden, Jack Snyder, Akira Iriye, Molly Greene, William Easterly, Robin Fall 2004: on on Why nature & nurture won’t go away 5 Blackburn, and Henk Wesseling human nature Richard Rorty Philosophy-envy 18 on professions Howard Gardner, Lee Shulman, William Sullivan, Geoffrey Galt Killer species 25 & professionals Harpham, Jeanne Nakamura & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William Patrick Bateson The origins of human differences 36 Damon, Anne Colby, Kendall Bronk & Thomas Ehrlich, and Harvey Goldman Donald E. Brown Human universals 47 on body in mind Antonio & Hanna Damasio, A. S. Byatt, Carol Gilligan, Gerald & Craig Joseph Intuitive ethics 55 Edelman, Jorie Graham, , Raymond Dolan & Vernon L. Smith An economic perspective 67 Arne Öhman, and Mark Johnson Jerome Kagan A psychological perspective 77 on aging Henry J. Aaron, Paul Baltes, Frank Kermode, Linda Partridge, The biology of human nature 89 Dennis J. Selkoe, Caleb E. Finch, Sarah Harper, Chris Wilson, Jagadeesh Gokhale & Kent Smetters, Hillard Kaplan, and Lisa poetry Geoffrey Hill Improvisations for Hart Crane 99 Berkman

½ction I left my heart in Skaftafell 102 on identity Akeel Bilgrami, Wendy Doniger, Stephen Greenblatt, Sidney Victor LaValle Shoemaker, Susan Green½eld, Claudio Lomnitz, Carol Rovane, Todd E. Feinberg, and Courtney Jung notes Charles Altieri on dif½culty in contemporary American poetry 113 Lynn Margulis on syphilis & the nature of Nietzsche’s madness 118 plus poetry by Rachel Hadas, Franz Wright, W. S. Merwin, Charles Wright, Peg Boyers, Jorie Graham &c.; ½ction by Sigrid Nunez, Margaret Atwood, R. Edmund &c.; and notes by Donald Green, Shelley Taylor, Robert F. Nagel, Philip L. Quinn, Jeri Laber, Morris E. Fine, Michael Wood, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Peter Hohendahl, Allan Basbaum, Rita Colwell &c.

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Inside front cover: Nasty, brutish, and short: a tipple turns ugly in the Wild West. A still from a silent-era Western ½lm. See Jonathan Haidt & Craig Joseph on Intuitive ethics: how innately prepared intuitions generate culturally variable virtues, pages 55–66: “People love to exercise their third-party moral intuitions so much that they pay money to see and hear stories about ½ctional strangers who do bad things to each other.” Photograph © Bettmann/Corbis. James Miller, Editor of Dædalus

Steven Pinker, Consulting Editor for essays

Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications

Janet Foxman, Assistant Editor

Contributing Editors: Robert S. Boynton, D. Graham Burnett

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Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy

Russell Banks, Fiction Adviser

Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser

Joyce Appleby (u.s. history, ucla), Stanley Hoffmann (government, Harvard), Donald Kennedy (environmental science, Stanford), Martha C. Nussbaum (law and philosophy, Chicago), Neil J. Smelser (sociology, Berkeley), Steven Weinberg (physics, University of Texas at Austin); ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks (President of the Academy), Leslie Cohen Berlowitz (Executive Of½cer)

Editorial advisers

Daniel Bell (sociology, Harvard), Michael Boudin (law, u.s. Court of Appeals), Wendy Doniger (religion, Chicago), Howard Gardner (education, Harvard), Clifford Geertz (anthropology, Institute for Advanced Study), Carol Gluck (Asian history, Columbia), Stephen Greenblatt (English, Harvard), Thomas Laqueur (European history, Berkeley), Alan Lightman (English and physics, mit), Steven Pinker (, Harvard), Diane Ravitch (education, nyu), Richard Shweder (human development, Chicago), Frank Wilczek (physics, mit)

Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The pavement labyrinth once in the nave of Reims Cathedral (1240), in a drawing, with ½gures of the architects, by Jacques Cellier (c. 1550–1620).

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than four thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Fall 2004 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 133, Number 4 member individuals–$38; institutions–$81. Canadians add 7% gst. Print and electronic © 2004 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$42; institu- of Arts & Sciences tions–$90. Canadians add 7% gst. Outside Improvisations for Hart Crane the United States and Canada add $20 for © 2004 by Geoffrey Hill postage and handling. Prices subject to change I left my heart in Skaftafell without notice. © 2004 by Victor LaValle Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, year basis. All other subscriptions begin with 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. the next available issue. Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. Email: [email protected]. Single issues: current issues–$13; back issues for individuals–$13; back issues for institu- Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299 tions–$26. Outside the United States and isbn 0-87724-045-0 Canada add $5 per issue for postage and han- dling. Prices subject to change without notice. Dædalus publishes by invitation only and as- sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- Claims for missing issues will be honored free scripts. The views expressed are those of the of charge if made within three months of the author of each article, and not necessarily of publication date of the issue. Claims may be the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. submitted to [email protected]. Mem- issn e-issn bers of the American Academy please direct all Dædalus ( 0011-5266; 1548-6192) is questions and claims to [email protected]. published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, fall) by The mit Press, Cambridge ma 02142, Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Inc., 1240 Heil Quaker Blvd., La Vergne tn An electronic full-text version of Dædalus is 37086. Phone: 800 627 6247. available from The mit Press. Subscription and Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be address changes should be addressed to mit addressed to Marketing Department, mit Press Journals, Five Cambridge Center, Cam- Press Journals, Five Cambridge Center, Cam- bridge ma 02142-1407. Phone: 617 253 2889. bridge ma 02142-1407. Phone: 617 253 2866. Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: journals-orders@ Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-info@ mit.edu. mit.edu. Printed in the United States of America by Permission to photocopy articles for internal Cadmus Professional Communications, or personal use is granted by the copyright Science Press Division, 300 West Chestnut owner for users registered with the Copyright Street, Ephrata pa 17522. Clearance Center (ccc) Transactional Report- Postmaster: Send address changes to ing Service, provided that the per copy fee Dædalus, Five Cambridge Center, Cambridge of $10 per article is paid directly to the ccc, ma 02142-1407. Periodicals postage paid at 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. The Boston ma and at additional mailing of½ces. fee code for users of the Transactional Report- ing Service is 0011-5266/04. Address all other The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda mit Press Journals, Five Cambridge Center, ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2864. designed in the tradition of metal types. Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-rights@ mit.edu. Steven Pinker

Why nature & nurture wont go away

When Richard Mulcaster referred in that debates over nature and nurture 1581 to "that treasure.. .bestowed on evoke more rancor than just about any them by nature, to be bettered in them issue in the world of ideas. by nurture/' he gave the world a eupho During much of the twentieth century, nious name for an opposition that has a common position in this debate was to been debated ever since. People's beliefs deny that human nature existed at all - about the relative importance of heredi to aver, with Jos? Ortega y Gasset, that ty and environment affect their opinions "Man has no nature; what he has is his on an astonishing range of topics. Do tory." The doctrine that the mind is a adolescents engage in violence because blank slate was not only a cornerstone of the way their parents treated them of in psychology and social early in life ? Are people inherently ag constructionism in the social sciences, gressive and selfish, calling for a market but also extended widely into main economy and a strong police, or could stream intellectual life.1 they become peaceable and cooperative, Part of 's appeal came allowing the state to wither and a spon from the realization that many differ taneous socialism to blossom ? Is there a ences among people in different classes universal aesthetic that allows great art and ethnic groups that formerly were to transcend time and place, or are peo i Carl N. Degler, In Search of Human Nature : ple's tastes determined by their era and The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American culture? With so much seemingly at Social Thought (New York : Oxford University stake in so many fields, it is no surprise Press, 1991); Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate : The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York : Viking, 2002); Robin Fox, The Search for Soci ety : Quest for a Biosocial Science and Morality Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor in the (New Brunswick, N.J. : department of psychology at , Press, 1989); Eric M. Gander, On Our Minds: conducts research on and cognition. A How Is Reshaping the Fellow of the American Academy since 1998, he Nature-Versus-Nurture Debate (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) ; John is the author of six books, including "How the Tooby and , "The Psychological Mind Works" (1997), "" Foundations of Culture," in : (2000), and "The Blank Slate" (2002). Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, ed. Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, ? 2004 by the American Academy of Arts and (New York : Oxford University & Sciences Press, 1992).

D dalus Fall 2004 5 Steven thought to reflect innate disparities in that have a precocious grasp Pinker on talent or temperament could vanish of objects, intentions, numbers, faces, human through immigration, social mobility, tools, and language. Behavioral nature and cultural change. But another part has shown that temperament emerges of its appeal was political and moral. If early in life and remains fairly constant nothing in the mind is innate, then dif throughout the life span, that much of ferences among races, sexes, and classes the variation among people within a cul can never be innate, making the blank ture comes from differences in , slate the ultimate safeguard against rac and that in some cases particular genes ism, sexism, and class prejudice. Also, can be tied to aspects of cognition, lan the doctrine ruled out the possibility guage, and personality. Neuroscience that ignoble traits such as greed, preju has shown that the genome contains a dice, and aggression spring from human rich tool kit of growth factors, axon nature, and thus held out the hope of un guidance molecules, and cell adhesion limited social progress. molecules that help structure the brain Though human nature has been debat during development, as well as mecha ed for as long as people have pondered nisms of plasticity that make learning their condition, it was inevitable that the possible. debate would be transformed by the re These discoveries not only have shown cent efflorescence of the sciences of that the innate organization of the brain mind, brain, genes, and evolution. One cannot be ignored, but have also helped outcome has been to make the doctrine to reframe our very conception of nature of the blank slate untenable.2 No one, and nurture. of course, can deny the importance of learning and culture in all aspects of lN ature and nurture, of course, are not human life. But cognitive science has alternatives. Learning itself must be shown that there must be in accomplished by innate circuitry, and nate mechanisms for learning and cul what is innate is not a set of rigid in ture to be possible in the first place. Evo structions for behavior but rather pro lutionary psychology has documented grams that take in information from the hundreds of universals that cut across senses and give rise to new thoughts and the world's cultures, and has shown that actions. Language is a paradigm case : many psychological traits (such as our though particular such as Jap taste for fatty foods, social status, and anese and Yoruba are not innate, the ca risky sexual liaisons) are better adapted pacity to acquire languages is a uniquely to the evolutionary demands of an an human talent. And once acquired, a lan cestral environment than to the actual guage is not a fixed list of sentences, but demands of the current environment. a combinatorial algorithm allowing an has shown infinite number of new thoughts to be 2 Pinker, The Blank Slate ; Gary F. Marcus, The expressed. Birth of the Mind : How a Tiny Number of Genes Moreover, because the mind is a com Creates the Complexities of Human Thought (New plex system composed of many inter York : Basic Books, 2004) ; Matt Ridley, Nature acting parts, it makes no sense to ask Via Nurture : Genes, Experience, and What Makes whether humans are selfish or generous Us Human ( : Fourth Estate, 2003) ; Robert Plomin, Michael J. Owen, and Peter or nasty or noble across the board. Rath McGuffin, "The Genetic Basis of Complex Hu er, they are driven by competing motives man Behaviors," Science 264 (1994) : 1733 -1739 elicited in different circumstances. And

6 D dalus Fall 2004 if genes affect behavior, it is not by tug there is a widespread desire that the Why nature & nurture ging on the muscles directly, but by their whole issue would somehow just go won't go intricate effects on the circuitry of a away. A common position on nature and away growing brain. nurture among contemporary scientists Finally, questions of what people in can be summarized as follows : nately have in common must be distin No one today believes that the mind is a guished from questions of how races, blank slate ; to refute such a belief is to tip sexes, or individuals innately differ. Evo over a straw man. All behavior is the prod lutionary biology gives reasons to be uct of an inextricable interaction between lieve that there are systematic species heredity and environment during develop wide universals, circumscribed ways in ment, so the answer to all nature-nurture which the sexes differ, random quantita questions is "some of each." If people only tive variation among individuals, and recognized this truism, the political re few if any differences among races and criminations could be avoided. Moreover, ethnic groups.3 modern biology has made the very dis This reframing of human nature also tinction between nature and nurture ob offers a rational way to address the polit ical and moral fears of human nature.4 solete. Since a given set of genes can have different effects in different environ Political equality, for example, does not ments, there may always be an environ hinge on a dogma that people are innate ment in which a supposed effect of the ly indistinguishable, but on a commit ment to treat them as individuals in genes can be reversed or canceled ; there fore the genes impose no significant con spheres such as education and the crim straints on behavior. Indeed, genes are inal justice system. Social progress does expressed in response to environmental not require that the mind be free of ig signals, so it is meaningless to try to dis noble motives, only that it have other tinguish genes and environments ; doing motives (such as the of empa so only gets in the way of productive re thy and cognitive faculties that can search. learn from history) that can counteract them. The attitude is often marked by words like 'interactionist,' 'developmentalist,' X)y now most scientists reject both the 'dialectic,' 'constructivist,' and 'epige nineteenth-century doctrine that biolo netic,' and is typically accompanied gy is destiny and the twentieth-century by a diagram with the labels 'genes,' doctrine that the mind is a blank slate. 'behavior,' 'prenatal environment,' 'bio At the same time, many express a dis chemical environment,' 'family environ comfort with any attempt to character ment,' 'school environment,' 'cultural ize the innate organization that the mind environment,' and 'socioeconomic envi does have (even in service of a better ronment,' and arrows pointing from understanding of learning). Instead, every label to every other label. This doctrine, which I will call holistic 3 John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "On the interactionism, has considerable appeal. Universality of Human Nature and the Unique It is based on some unexceptionable ness of the Individual : The Role of Genetics points, such as that nature and nurture and Adaptation, "Journal of Personality 58 (1990): 17-67. are not mutually exclusive, that genes cannot cause behavior directly, and that 4 Pinker, The Blank Slate. the direction of causation can go both

D dalus Fall 2004 7 Steven his culture, from the man-made part Pinker ways (for example, school can make you on smarter, and smart people are most en of the environment, from other human human gaged by schooling). It has a veneer of beings."6 Postmodernism and social nature moderation, of conceptual sophistica constructionism, which dominate many tion, and of biological up-to-dateness. of the humanities, vigorously assert that And as John Tooby and Leda Cosmides human , conceptual categories, have put it, it promises "safe conduct and patterns of behavior (such as those across the politicized minefield of mod characterizing men and women or ho ern academic life."5 mosexuals and heterosexuals) are social But the very things that make holistic constructions. Even many humanists interactionism so appealing should also who are not postmodernists insist bio make us wary of it. No matter how com logy can provide no insight into human plex an interaction is, it can be under mind and behavior. The critic Louis stood only by identifying the compo Menand, for instance, recently wrote nents and how they interact. Holistic that "every aspect of life has a biological interactionism can stand in the way of foundation in exactly the same sense, such understanding by dismissing any which is that unless it was biologically attempt to disentangle heredity and en possible it wouldn't exist. After that, it's vironment as uncouth. As Dan Dennett up for grabs."7 has satirized the attitude : "Surely 'every Nor is a belief in the blank slate absent one knows' that the nature-nurture de among prominent scientists. Richard bate was resolved long ago, and neither Lewontin, Leon Kamin, and Steven side wins since everything-is-a-mixture Rose, in a book entitled , of-both-and-it's-all-very-complicated, asserted that "the only sensible thing to so let's think of something else, right?" say about human nature is that it is 'in' In the following pages I will analyze that nature to construct its own his the tenets of holistic interactionism and tory."8 wrote that show that they are not as reasonable or the "brain [is] capable of a full range of as obvious as they first appear. behaviors and predisposed to none."9 Anne Fausto-Sterling expressed a com IN o one believes in the extreme nurture mon view of the origin of sex differ position that the mind is a blank slate." ences : "The key biological fact is that Whether or not this is true among scien boys and girls have different genitalia, tists, it is far from true in the rest of in tellectual life. The prominent anthropol 6 Ashley Montagu, ed., Man and Aggression, 2nd ogist Ashley Montagu, summing up a ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). common understanding in twentieth 7 Louis Menand, "What Comes Naturally," The century social science, wrote in 1973 that New Yorker, 25 November 2002. "With the exception of the instinctoid reactions in infants to sudden with 8 R. C. Lewontin, , and Leon J. drawals of support and to sudden loud Kamin, Not in Our Genes : Biology, Ideology, and noises, the human being is entirely in Human Nature (New York : Pantheon Books, stinctless... .Man is man because he has 1984).

no instincts, because everything he is 9 Stephen Jay Gould, "Biological Potential vs. and has become he has learned... from Biological Determinism," in Ever Since Darwin : 5 Tooby and Cosmides, "The Psychological Reflections in Natural History, ed. Stephen Jay Foundations of Culture." Gould (New York: Norton, 1977).

8 D dalus Fall 2004 Why nature and it is this biological difference that are women is less than 50 percent, are & nurture leads to interact differently with attributed entirely to prejudice and hid won't go different babies whom we conveniently den barriers. The possibility that, on away color-code in pink or blue to make it average, women might be less interested unnecessary to go peering into their dia than men in people-free pursuits is simi pers for information about gender."10 larly unspeakable.13 The point is not that These opinions spill into research and we know that evolution or genetics are policy. Much of the scientific consensus relevant to explaining these phenomena, on parenting, for example, is based on but that the very possibility is often studies that find a correlation between treated as an unmentionable taboo rath the behavior of parents and the behavior er than as a testable hypothesis. of children. Parents who spank have children who are more violent; authori J7or every question about nature and tative parents (neither too permissive nurture, the correct answer is 'some of nor too punitive) have well-behaved each.'" Not true. Why do people in Eng children; parents who talk more to their land speak English and people in Japan children have children with better lan speak Japanese? The 'reasonable com guage skills. Virtually everyone con promise' would be that the people in cludes that the behavior of the parent England have genes that make it easier causes the outcomes in the child. The to learn English and the people in Japan possibility that the correlations may have genes that make it easier to learn arise from shared genes is usually not Japanese, but that both groups must be even mentioned, let alone tested.11 exposed to a language to acquire it at all. Other examples abound. Many scien This compromise is, of course, not rea tific organizations have endorsed the sonable but false, as we see when chil slogan "violence is learned behavior," dren exposed to a given language acquire and even biologically oriented scientists it equally quickly regardless of their ra tend to treat violence as a public health cial ancestry. Though people may be ge problem like malnutrition or infectious netically predisposed to learn language, disease. Unmentioned is the possibility they are not genetically predisposed, that the strategic use of violence could even in part, to learn a particular lan have been selected for in human evolu guage ; the explanation for why people in tion, as it has been in the evolution of different countries speak differently is other primate species.12 Gender differ 100 percent environmental. ences in the professions, such as that the Sometimes the opposite extreme turns proportion of mechanical engineers who out to be correct. Psychiatrists common ly used to blame psychopathology on ?o Anne Fausto-Sterling, Myths of Gender: Bio mothers. Autism was caused by 'refrig logical Theories About Women and Men (New York: Basic Books, 1985). erator mothers' who did not emotionally engage their children, schizophrenia by 11 David C. Rowe, The Limits of Family Influ mothers who put their children in dou ence: Genes, Experience, and Behavior (New York: ble binds. Today we know that autism Guilford Press, 1994) ; , The Nurture Assumption : Why Children Turn Out the 13 David Lubinski and Camilla Benbow, "Gen Way They Do (New York: Free Press, 1998). der Differences in Abilities and Preferences Among the Gifted : Implications for the Math 12 and , Homicide Science Pipeline," Current Directions in Psycho (New York: A. de Gruyter, 1988). logical Science i (1992) : 61 - 66.

D dalus Fall 2004 9 Steven Pinker and schizophrenia are highly heritable, chology, the possibility that heredity has on and though they are not completely de any explanatory role at all is still inflam human termined by genes, the other plausible matory. nature contributors (such as toxins, pathogens, and developmental accidents) have JLhe effects of genes depend crucially nothing to do with how parents treat on the environment, so heredity imposes their children. Mothers don't deserve no constraints on behavior." Two exam some of the blame if their children have ples are commonly used to illustrate the these disorders, as a nature-nurture point: different strains of corn may grow compromise would imply. They de to different heights when equally irrigat serve none of it. ed, but a plant from the taller strain "T might end up shorter if it is deprived of If people recognized that every aspect water; and children with phenylke of behavior involves a combination tonuria (pku), an inherited disorder of nature and nurture, the political dis resulting in retardation, can end up nor putes would evaporate." Certainly mal if given a diet low in the amino acid many strive for an in phenylalanine. nocuous middle ground. Consider this There is an aspect of this statement quotation : that indeed is worth stressing. Genes do not determine behavior like the roll of a If the reader is now convinced that either player piano. Environmental interven the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, tions - from education and psychothera py to historical changes in attitudes and we have not done a sufficiently good job of political systems - can significantly af presenting one side or the other. It seems fect human affairs. Also worth stressing highly likely to us that both genes and en is that genes and environments may in vironment have something to do with this issue. teract in the statistician's sense, namely, that the effects of one can be exposed, This appears to be a reasonable interac multiplied, or reversed by the effects of tionist compromise that could not pos the other, rather than merely summed sibly incite controversy. But in fact it with them. Two recent studies have comes from one of the most incendiary identified single genes that are respec books of the 1990s, Herrnstein and tively associated with violence and de Murray's The Bell Curve. In this passage, pression, but have also shown that their Herrnstein and Murray summed up their effects are manifested only with particu argument that the difference in average lar histories of stressful experience.14 IQ scores between American blacks and At the same time, it is misleading to American whites has both genetic and invoke environment dependence to deny environmental causes. A "some-of 14 Avshalom Caspi, Karen Sugden, Terrie E. each" position did not protect them Moffitt, Alan Taylor, and Ian W. Craig, "Influ from accusations of racism and compar ence of Life Stress on Depression : Moderation isons to Nazis. Nor, of course, did it by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT ," Science establish their position was correct : as (2003) : 386 - 389 ; Avshalom Caspi, Joseph McClay, Terrie E. Moffitt, Jonathan Mill, Judy with the language a person speaks, the Martin, and Ian W. Craig, "Evidence that the black-white average IQ gap could be 100 Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children De percent environmental. The point is that pends on Genotype," Science 297 (2002) : 727 - in this and many other domains of psy 742-.

?O D dalus Fall 2004 Why nature the importance of understanding the matoes or pinecones. Chinese foot-bind & nurture effects of genes. To begin with, it is sim ing is an environmental manipulation won't go ply not true that any gene can have any that can radically affect the shape of the away effect in some environment, with the foot, but it would be misleading to deny implication that we can always design an that the anatomy of the human foot is environment to produce whatever out in an important sense specified by the come we value. Though some genetic genes, or to attribute it in equal parts to effects may be nullified in certain envi heredity and environment. The point is ronments, not all of them are: studies not merely rhetorical. The fact that kit that measure both genetic and environ tens' visual systems show abnormalities mental similarity (such as adoption when their eyelids are sewn shut in a designs, where correlations with adop critical period of development does not tive and biological parents can be com imply (as was believed in the 1990s) that pared) show numerous main effects of playing Mozart to babies or hanging col personality, , and behavior orful mobiles in their cribs will increase across a range of environmental varia their intelligence.16 tion. This is true even for the poster In short, the existence of environmen child of environmental mitigation, PKU. tal mitigations doesn't make the effects Though a low-phenylalanine diet does of the genes inconsequential. On the prevent severe mental retardation, it contrary, the genes specify what kinds does not, as is ubiquitously claimed, ren of environmental manipulations will der the person 'perfectly normal.' PKU have what kinds of effects and with what children have mean iQs in the 80s and costs. This is true at every level, from the 90s and are impaired in tasks that de expression of the genes themselves (as pend on the prefrontal region of the I will discuss below) to large-scale at cerebral cortex.15 tempts at social change. The totalitarian Also, the mere existence o? some envi Marxist states of the twentieth century ronment that can reverse the expected often succeeded at modifying behavior, effects of genes is almost meaningless. but at the cost of massive coercion, ow Just because extreme environments can ing in part to mistaken assumptions disrupt a trait does not mean that the about how easily human motives ordinary range of environments will would respond to changed circum modulate that trait, nor does it mean stances.17 that the environment can explain the Conversely, many kinds of genuine nature of the trait. Though unirrigated social progress succeeded by engaging corn plants may shrivel, they won't grow specific aspects of human nature. Peter arbitrarily high when given ever-increas Singer observes that normal humans in ing amounts of water. Nor does their dependence on water explain why they i6 John T. Bruer, The Myth of the First Three bear ears of corn as opposed to to Years : A New Understanding of Early Brain Devel opment and Lifelong Learning (New York : Free 15 , "A Model System for Study Press, 1999). ing the Role of Dopamine in the Prefrontal Cor tex During Early Development in Humans : Ear 17 Jonathan Glover, Humanity : A Moral His ly and Continuously Treated Phenylketonuria, " tory of the Twentieth Century (London : J. Cape, in Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuro 1999) ; Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left: Politics, science, ed. Charles A. Nelson and Monica Evolution, and Cooperation (London : Weidenfeld Luciana (Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2001). & Nicolson, 1999).

D dalus Fall 2004 11 Steven Pinker all societies manifest a sense of sympa temperature, hormones, the molecular on thy : an ability to treat the interests of environment, and neural activity.21 human others as comparable to their own.18 Among the environmentally sensitive nature Unfortunately, the size of the moral cir gene-expression effects are those that cle in which sympathy is extended is a make learning itself possible. Skills and free parameter. By default, people sym memories are stored as physical changes pathize only with members of their own at the synapse, and these changes re family, clan, or village, and treat anyone quire the expression of genes in response outside this circle as less than human. to patterns of neural activity. But under certain circumstances the cir These causal chains do not, however, cle can expand to other clans, tribes, render the nature-nurture distinction races, or even species. An important way obsolete. What they do is force us to to understand moral progress, then, is to rethink the casual equation of 'nature' specify the triggers that prompt people with genes and of 'nurture' with every to expand or contract their moral circles. thing beyond the genes. Biologists have It has been argued that the circle may be noted that the word 'gene' accumulated expanded to include people to whom several meanings during the twentieth one is bound by networks of reciprocal century.22 These include a unit of hered trade and interdependence,19 and that ity, a specification of a part, a cause of a it may be contracted to exclude people disease, a template for protein synthesis, who are seen in degrading circum a trigger of development, and a target of stances.20 In each case, an understand . ing of nonobvious aspects of human na It is misleading, then, to equate the ture reveals possible levers for humane prescientific concept of human nature social change. with 'the genes' and leave it at that, with the implication that environment VJenes are affected by their environ dependent gene activity proves that hu ments, and learning requires the expres man nature is indefinitely modifiable by sion of genes, so the nature-nurture dis experience. Human nature is related to tinction is meaningless." It is, of course, genes in terms of units of heredity, de in the very nature of genes that they are velopment, and evolution, particularly not turned on all the time but are ex those units that exert a systematic and pressed and regulated by a variety of sig lasting effect on the wiring and chem nals. These signals in turn may be trig istry of the brain. This is distinct from gered by a variety of inputs, including the most common use of the term 'gene' in molecular biology, namely, in refer i8 Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle : Ethics ence to stretches of DNA that code for a and (New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1981). 21 Marcus, The Birth of the Mind ; Ridley, Nature Via Nurture. 19 Robert Wright, NonZero : The Logic of Human Destiny (New York: Pantheon Books, 2000). 22 Ridley, Nature Via Nurture ; Richard Dawk ins, The Extended Phenotype : The Gene as the Unit 20 Glover, Humanity ; Philip G. Zimbardo, Christina Maslach, and Craig Haney, "Reflec of Selection (San Francisco : W. H. Freeman & tions on the Stanford Prison Experiment : Gen Company, 1982) ; Seymour Benzer, "The Ele mentary Units of Heredity, " in A Symposium on esis, Transformations, Consequences," in Obe the Chemical Basis of Heredity, ed. William D. dience to Authority : Current Perspectives on the McElroy and Bentley Glass (Baltimore : Johns Milgram Paradigm, ed. Thomas Blass (Mahwah, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000). Hopkins Press, 1957).

12 D dalus Fall 2004 Why nature protein. Some aspects of human nature perceptual environment are instructive & nurture may be specified in information carriers in the sense that their effects are pre won't go other than protein templates, including dictable by the information contained in away the cytoplasm, noncoding regions of the the input. Given a child who is equipped genome that affect gene expression, to learn words in the first place, the con properties of genes other than their se tent of her vocabulary is predictable quence (such as how they are imprint from the words spoken to her. Given an ed), and -generationally consistent equipped to understand contin aspects of the maternal environment gencies, the spot where he will park his that the genome has been shaped by car will depend on where the No Parking natural selection to expect. Conversely, signs are posted. But other aspects of the many genes direct the synthesis of pro environment, namely, those that affect teins necessary for everyday metabolic the genes directly rather than affecting function (such as wound repair, diges the brain through the senses, trigger ge tion, and memory formation) without netically specified if-then contingencies embodying the traditional notion of that do not preserve information in the human nature. trigger itself. Such contingencies are per The various concepts of 'environ vasive in biological development, where ment,' too, have to be refined. In most many genes produce transcription fac nature-nurture debates, 'environment' tors and other molecules that set off cas refers in practice to aspects of the world cades of expression of other genes. A that make up the perceptual input to the good example is the Pax6 gene, which person and over which other humans produces a protein that triggers the ex have some control. This encompasses, pression of twenty-five hundred other for example, parental rewards and pun genes, resulting in the formation of the ishments, early enrichment, role mod eye. Highly specific genetic responses els, education, laws, peer influence, cul can also occur when the organism inter ture, and social attitudes. It is misleading acts with its social environment, as to blur 'environment' in the sense of the when a change of social status in a male psychologically salient environment of cichlid fish triggers the expression of the person with 'environment' in the more than fifty genes, which in turn al sense of the chemical milieu of a chro ter its size, aggressiveness, and stress mosome or cell, especially when that response.23 These are reminders both milieu itself consists of the products of that innate organization cannot be other genes and thus corresponds more equated with a lack of sensitivity to the closely to the traditional notion of he environment, and that responses to the redity. There are still other senses of environment are often not specified by 'environment,' such as nutrition and the but by the nature of the environmental toxins ; the point is not organism. that one sense is primary, but that one should seek to distinguish each sense JTraming problems in terms of nature and characterize its effects precisely. and nurture prevents us from under A final reason that the environment standing human development and mak dependence of the genes does not vitiate 23 Russell Fernald, "How Does Behavior the concept of human nature is that an Change the Brain ? Multiple Methods to An environment can affect the organism in swer Old Questions," Integrative Comparative very different ways. Some aspects of the Biology 43 (2003) : 771 - 779

D dalus Fall 2004 13 Steven Pinker ing new discoveries." On the contrary, but only half their variable genes) ; and on some of the most provocative discover that biological siblings (who share their human ies in twentieth-century psychology environment and half their variable nature would have been impossible if there genes) are more similar than adoptive had not been a concerted effort to dis siblings (who share their environment tinguish nature and nurture in human but none of their variable genes). These development. studies have been replicated in large For many decades psychologists have samples from several countries, and have looked for the causes of individual dif ruled out the most common alternative ferences in cognitive ability (as mea explanations (such as selective place sured by IQ tests, school and job per ment of identical twins in similar adop formance, and indices of brain activity) tive homes). Of course, concrete behav and in personality (as measured by ques ioral traits that patently depend on con tionnaires, ratings, psychiatric evalua tent provided by the home or culture - tions, and tallies of behavior such as di which language one speaks, which reli vorce and crime). The conventional gion one practices, which political party wisdom has been that such traits are one supports - are not heritable at all. strongly influenced by parenting prac But traits that reflect the underlying tal tices and role models. But recall that this ents and temperaments - how proficient belief is based on flawed correlational with language a person is, how religious, studies that compare parents and chil how liberal or conservative - are partially dren but forget to control for genetic heritable. So genes play a role in making relatedness. people different from their neighbors, Behavioral geneticists have remedied and their environments play an equally those flaws with studies of twins and important role. adoptees, and have discovered that in At this point it is tempting to con fact virtually all behavioral traits are clude that people are shaped both by partly (though never completely) heri genes and by family upbringing : how table.24 That is, some of the variation their parents treated them and what among individual people within a cul kind of home they grew up in. But the ture must be attributed to differences in conclusion is unwarranted. Behavioral their genes. The conclusion follows from genetics allows one to distinguish two repeated discoveries that identical twins very different ways in which people's reared apart (who share their genes but environments might affect them. The not their family environment) are highly shared environment is what impinges similar; that ordinary identical twins on a person and his or her siblings alike : (who share their environment and all their parents, home life, and neighbor their genes) are more similar than frater hood. The unique environment is every nal twins (who share their environment thing else : anything that happens to a 24 Plomin, Owen, and McGuffin, "The Genet person that does not necessarily happen ic Basis of Complex Human Behaviors" ; Eric to that person's siblings. Turkheimer, "Three Laws of Behavior Genetics Remarkably, most studies of intelli and What They Mean," Current Directions in gence, personality, and behavior turn up Psychological Science 9 (5) (2000) : 160 -164 ; few or no effects of the shared environ Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., "Genetic and Environ mental Influences on Intelligence and Special ment - often to the surprise of the re Mental Abilities," Human Biology 70 (1998) : searchers themselves, who thought it 257-259. was obvious that nongenetic variation

14 D dalus Fall 2004 Why nature had to come from the family.25 First, data.26 Children of immigrants end up & nurture adult siblings are about equally correlat with the language, accent, and mores of won't go ed whether they grew up together or their peers, not of their parents. Wide away apart. Second, adoptive siblings, when variations in child-rearing practices - tested as adults, are generally no more day-care versus stay-at-home mothers, similar than two people from the same single versus multiple caregivers, same culture chosen at random. And third, sex versus different-sex parents - have identical twins are no more similar than little lasting effect when other variables one would expect from the effects of are controlled. Birth order and only their shared genes. Setting aside cases of child status also have few effects on be extreme neglect or abuse, whatever ex havior outside the home.27 And an ex periences siblings share by growing up tensive study testing the possibility that in the same home in a given culture children might be shaped by unique as make little or no difference to the kind pects of how their parents treat them (as of people they turn into. Specific skills opposed to ways in which parents treat like reading and playing a musical in all their children alike) showed that dif strument, of course, can be imparted by ferences in parenting within a family are parents, and parents obviously affect effects, not causes, of differences among their children's happiness and the quali the children.28 ty of family life. But they don't seem to determine their children's intellects, JLhe discovery of the limits of family tastes, and personalities in the long run. influence is not just a debunking exer The discovery that the shared family cise, but opens up important new ques environment has little to no lasting ef tions. The finding that much of the vari fect on personality and intelligence ance in personality, intelligence, and be comes as a shock to the traditional wis havior comes neither from the genes nor dom that "as the twig is bent, so grows from the family environment raises the the branch. " It casts doubt on forms of question of where it does come from. that seek the roots of an Judith Rich Harris has argued that the adult's dysfunction in the family envi phenomena known as socialization ronment, on theories that attribute ado - acquiring the skills and values needed lescents' alcoholism, smoking, and de to thrive in a given culture - take place linquency to how they were treated in in the peer group rather than the family. early childhood, and on the philosophy of parenting experts that parental micro 26 Harris, The Nurture Assumption. management is the key to a well-adjust ed child. The findings are so counterin 27 Ibid. ; Judith Rich Harris, "Context-Specific tuitive that one might doubt the behav Learning, Personality, and Birth Order," Current Directions in Psychological Science 9 (2000) : 174 - ioral genetic research that led to them, 177 ; Jeremy Freese, Brian Powell, and Lala Carr but they are corroborated by other Steelman, "Rebel Without a Cause or Effect : Birth Order and Social Attitudes," American 25 Rowe, The Limits of Family Influence ; Sociological Review 64 (1999) - 207 - 231. Harris, The Nurture Assumption ; Turkheimer, "Three Laws of Behavior Genetics" ; Robert 28 David Reiss, Jenae M. Neiderhiser, E. Mavis Plomin and Denise Daniels, "Why Are Children Hetherington, and Robert Plomin, The Relation in the Same Family So Different from One An ship Code : Deciphering Genetic and Social Influ other ?" Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (1987) : ences on Adolescent Development (Cambridge, 1-60. Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2000).

D dalus Fall 2004 15 Steven Pinker Though children are not prewired with ly similar, they are far from indistin on cultural skills, they also are not indis guishable : by most measures, correla human criminately shaped by their environ tions in their traits are in the neighbor nature ment. One aspect of human nature hood of 0.5. Peer influence cannot directs children to figure out what is explain the differences, because identi valued in their peer group - the social cal twins largely share their peer groups. milieu in which they will eventually Instead, the unexplained variance in per compete for status and mates - rather sonality throws a spotlight on the role of than to surrender to their parents' at sheer chance in development: random tempts to shape them. differences in prenatal blood supply Acknowledging this feature of human and exposure to toxins, pathogens, hor nature in turn raises questions about mones, and antibodies ; random differ how the relevant environments, in this ences in the growth or adhesion of axons case peer cultures, arise and perpetuate in the developing brain; random events themselves. Does a peer culture trickle in experience ; random differences in down from adult culture? Does it origi how a stochastically functioning brain nate from high-status individuals or reacts to the same events in experience. groups and then proliferate along peer Both popular and scientific explanations networks? Does it emerge haphazardly of behavior, accustomed to invoking in different forms, some of which en genes, parents, and society, seldom trench themselves when they reach a acknowledge the enormous role that tipping point of popularity? unpredictable factors must play in the A revised understanding of how chil development of an individual. dren socialize themselves has practical If chance in development is to explain implications as well. Teen alcoholism the less-than-perfect similarity of identi and smoking might be better addressed cal twins, it also highlights an interesting by understanding how these activities property of development in general. One become status symbols in peer groups can imagine a developmental process in than by urging parents to talk more to which millions of small chance events their adolescents (as current advertise cancel one another out, leaving no dif ments, sponsored by beer and tobacco ference in the resulting organism. One companies, insist). A major determinant can imagine a different process in which of success in school might be whether a chance event could disrupt develop classes fission into peer groups with ment entirely. Neither of these happens different status criteria, in particular to identical twins. Their differences are whether success in school is treated as detectable both in admirable or as a sign of selling out.29 and in everyday life, yet both are (usual The development of personality - a ly) healthy human beings. The develop person's emotional and behavioral idio ment of organisms must use complex syncrasies - poses a set of puzzles dis feedback loops rather than prespecified tinct from those raised by the process of blueprints. Random events can divert socialization. Identical twins growing up the trajectories of growth, but the trajec in the same home share their genes, their tories are confined within an envelope of parents, their siblings, their peer groups, functioning designs for the species. and their culture. Though they are high These profound questions are not about . They are 29 Harris, The Nurture Assumption. about nurture versus nurture : about

l6 D dalus Fall 2004 Why nature what, precisely, are the nongenetic & nurture causes of personality and intelligence. won't go But the puzzles would never have come away to light if researchers had not first taken measures to factor out the influence of nature, by showing that correlations be tween parents and children cannot glibly be attributed to parenting but might be attributable to shared genes. That was the first step that led them to measure the possible effects of parenting empiri cally, rather than simply assuming that parents had to be all-powerful. The everything-affects-everything diagram turns out to be not sophisticated but dogmatic. The arrows emanating from 'parents,' 'siblings,' and 'the home' are testable hypotheses, not obvious tru isms, and the tests might surprise us both by the arrows that shouldn't be there and by the labels and arrows we may have forgotten. The human brain has been called the most complex object in the known uni verse. No doubt hypotheses that pit na ture against nurture as a dichotomy or that correlate genes or environment with behavior without looking at the in tervening brain will turn out to be sim plistic or wrong. But that complexity does not mean we should fuzz up the issues by saying that it's all just too com plicated to think about, or that some hypotheses should be treated a priori as obviously true, obviously false, or too dangerous to mention. As with inflation, cancer, and global warming, we have no choice but to try to disentangle the mul tiple causes.30

30 The writing of this paper was supported by NIH Grant HD-18381.1 thank Helena Cronin, Jonathan Haidt, Judith Rich Harris, and Matt Ridley for comments on an earlier draft.

D dalus Fall 2004 17 Richard Rorty

Philosophy-envy

When philosophers like Ortega y Gas- tracing what we have in common back to set say that we humans have a history the evolutionary needs of our ancestors, rather than a nature, they are not sug- will give us anything appropriately la- gesting that we are blank slates. They beled ‘a theory of human nature.’ For do not doubt that biologists will eventu- such theories are supposed to be norma- ally pin down the genetic factor in au- tive–to provide guidance. They should tism, homosexuality, perfect pitch, light- tell us what to do with ourselves. They ning calculation, and many other traits should explain why some lives are better and abilities that differentiate some hu- for human beings than other lives, and mans from others. Nor do they doubt why some societies are superior to oth- that, back in the days when our species ers. A theory of human nature should was evolving its way into existence on tell us what sort of people we ought to the African savannas, certain genes were become. weeded out and others preserved. They Philosophical and religious theories of can cheerfully agree with scientists like human nature flourished because they Steven Pinker that the latter genes ac- stayed clear of empirical details. They count for various sorts of behavior com- took no chances of being discon½rmed mon to all human beings, regardless of by events. Plato’s and Aristotle’s theo- acculturation. ries about the parts of the soul were of What these philosophers doubt is that this sort, and so were Christianity’s the- either factoring out the role of genes in ory that we are all children of a loving making us different from one another, or God, Kant’s theory that we are phenom- enal creatures under noumenal com- Richard Rorty, a Fellow of the American Acade- mand, and Hobbes’s and Freud’s natu- my since 1983, is professor of comparative litera- ralizing stories about the origins of soci- ture and philosophy at Stanford University, as ality and of morality. Despite their lack well as a regular contributor to “The Nation” of predictive power and empirical dis- and “Dissent.” His books include “Philosophy con½rmability, such theories were very and the Mirror of Nature” (1979), “Contingency, useful–not because they were accurate Irony, and Solidarity” (1989), and, most recently, accounts of what human beings, deep “Philosophy and Social Hope” (1999). down, really and truly are, but because they suggested perils to avoid and ideals © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts to serve. They marketed helpful moral & Sciences

18 Dædalus Fall 2004 and political advice in fancy, disposable, are. There are many lessons to be Philosophy- packaging. learned from history, but no super- envy Steven Pinker is trying to recycle this lesson to be learned from science, or re- packaging, wrapping it around a mis- ligion, or philosophy. The unfortunate cellany of empirical facts rather than idea that philosophy could detect the around a vision of the good life or of the difference between nature and conven- good society. But it is hard to see how a tion–between what is essential to being composite, or a synthesis, of the various a human being and what is merely a empirical disciplines that now call them- product of historical circumstance–was selves cognitive sciences could serve the passed on from Greek philosophy to the purposes that religion and philosophy Enlightenment. There it reappeared, in a once served. The claim that what the version that would have disgusted Plato, philosophers did a priori and badly can in Rousseau. But in the last two centuries now be done a posteriori and well by the notion that beneath all cultural over- cognitive scientists will remain empty lays there lurks something called human rhetoric until its adherents are willing nature, and that knowledge of this thing to stick their necks out. To make good will provide valuable moral or political on the promise of the term ‘a scienti½c guidance, has fallen into deserved disre- theory of human nature’ they would pute. have to start offering advice about how Dewey was right to mock Plato’s and we might become, individually or collec- Aristotle’s claims that the contemplative tively, better people. Then they would life was the one that best utilized our dis- have to spell out the inferences that had tinctively human abilities. Such claims, led them from particular empirical dis- he said, were merely ways in which coveries about our genes or our brains these philosophers patted themselves to these particular practical recommen- on the back. Ever since Herder, the dations. Rousseauvian claim that the aim of E. O. Wilson, Pinker, and others who sociopolitical change should be to think that biology and cognitive science bring us back to uncorrupted nature can take over at least part of the cultural has been rejected by thinkers impressed role of philosophy are reluctant to start by the extent, and the value, of cultural down this path. They remember the fate variation. The idea, shared by Plato and of the eugenics movement–of claims to Rousseau, that there is such a thing as have ‘proved scienti½cally’ that interra- the good life for man has gradually been cial marriage, or increased immigration, replaced by the conviction that there are would produce cultural degeneration. many equally valuable human lives. This Recalling this obnoxious predecessor change has resulted in our present con- makes them leery of betting the prestige viction that the best sociopolitical setup of their disciplines on the outcome of is one in which individuals are free to practical recommendations. Instead, live whichever of these lives they choose they just repeat over and over again that –to make themselves up as they go as we learn more and more about our along, without asking what they were genes and our brains, we shall gain a bet- somehow ‘meant’ to become. It has ter understanding of what we essentially also resulted in religion and philosophy are. being nudged aside by history, literature, But for historicist philosophers like and the arts as sources of edi½cation and Ortega there is nothing we essentially of ideals.

Dædalus Fall 2004 19 Richard arl Degler’s In Search of Human Na- –autism, for example. But at more ab- Rorty C on ture: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism stract levels, such debates are vacuous. human in American Social Thought tells the story They are rhetorical exchanges occa- nature of the biologists’ attempts to move onto sioned by academic turf wars. The ques- some of the turf from which the philoso- tion “Is our humanity a biological or a phers have been withdrawing. Darwin- cultural matter?” is as sterile as “Are ism revealed previously unsuspected our actions determined or do we have continuities between humans and free will?” No concrete result in genet- brutes, and these made it seem plau- ics, or physics, or any other empirical sible that further biological research discipline will help us answer either bad could tell us something morally sig- question. We will go right on deliberat- ni½cant. In a chapter called “Why ing about what to do, and holding each Did Culture Triumph?” Degler ex- other responsible for actions, even if we plains how the overweening preten- become convinced that every thought sions of the eugenicists, and the futile we have, and every move we make, will attempt to stem the tide of feminism have been predicted by an omniscient by appeals to biological facts about the neurologist. We will go right on experi- differing ‘natures’ of men and women, menting with new lifestyles, new ideas, helped to discredit this suggestion. and new social institutions, even if we Then, in a chapter called “Biology Redi- become convinced that, deep down, vivus,” he describes how sociobiologists everything somehow depends on our and their allies have been trying to push genetic makeup. Discussion of the na- the pendulum back in the other direc- ture-nurture question, like discussion tion. of the problem of free will, has no prag- Degler ends his book on an ecumeni- matic import. cal note, endorsing what Pinker calls Pinker says, correctly, that there is a holistic interactionism. But many of his “widespread desire that the whole readers will conclude that the moral of [nature-nurture] issue would somehow the story he tells is that “nature or nur- just go away” and an equally widespread ture?” was never a very good question. suspicion that to refute a belief in the Darwin did make a tremendous differ- blank slate is “to tip over a straw man.” ence to the way we think about our- Readers of Degler will be disposed to selves, because he discredited religious share both that desire and that suspi- and philosophical accounts of a gap be- cion. Pinker hopes to change their minds tween the truly human and immaterial by tipping over other straw men: “post- part of us and the merely animal and modernism and social constructionism, material part. But nothing Darwin which dominate many of the humani- taught us blurs the distinction between ties.” But it is hard to think of any hu- what we can learn from the results of manist–even the most far-out Foucaul- biological and psychological experi- dian–who would endorse the view, im- ments and what we can only learn from plausibly attributed by Pinker to Louis history–the record of past intellectual Menand, that “biology can provide no and social experiments. insight into human mind and behavior.” Pinker is right that the nature vs. nur- What Foucault, Menand, and Ortega ture debate will not go away as long as doubt is that insights provided by biolo- the question is raised in respect to some gy will ever help us decide which indi- very particular type of vidual and social ideals to strive for.

20 Dædalus Fall 2004 Pinker thinks that science may succeed otechnology eventually enables us to Philosophy- where philosophy has failed. To make trace the transmission of electrical envy his case, however, he has to treat plati- charges from axon to axon within the tudes as gee-whiz scienti½c discoveries. living brain, and to correlate such pro- He says, for example, that “cognitive sci- cesses with minute variations in behav- ence has shown that there must be com- ior. Suppose that we become able to plex innate mechanisms for learning and modify a person’s behavioral disposi- culture to be possible.” Who ever doubt- tions, in pretty much any way we like, ed there were? We already knew, before just by tweaking her brain cells. How cognitive science came along, that you will this ability help us ½gure out what cannot teach young nonhuman animals sort of behavior to encourage and what to do things that you can teach young sort to discourage–to know how hu- humans to do. We ½gured out a long man beings should live? Yet that sort time ago that if an organism had one of help is just what philosophical the- kind of brain we could teach it to talk, ories of human nature claimed to pro- and that if it had another kind we could vide. not. Yet Pinker writes as if people like Pinker says at various places in The Menand were committed to denying evi- Blank Slate that everybody has and needs dent facts such as these. a theory of human nature, and that em- Again, Pinker cites recent suggestions pirical scienti½c inquiry is likely to give that the circle of organisms that are ob- us a better theory than either unin- jects of our moral concern “may be ex- formed common sense or a priori philos- panded to include people to whom one is ophizing. But it is not clear that we have bound by networks of reciprocal trade or need anything of the sort. Every hu- and interdependence, and . . . contracted man being has convictions about what to exclude people who are seen in de- matters more and what matters less, and grading circumstances.” But we did not thus about what counts as a good human need recent scienti½c research to tell us life. But such convictions need not–and about these “possible levers for humane should not–take the form of a theory of social change.” The relevance of interde- human nature, or a theory of anything pendence to the way we treat foreign else. Our convictions about what really traders, and of degradation to the way matters are constantly modi½ed by new we treat prisoners of war, is hardly news. experiences–moving from a village to People have been recommending trade a city or from one country to another, and intermarriage as a way of achieving meeting new people, and reading new wider community for a long time now. books. The idea that we deduce them, or For an equally long time, they have been should deduce them, from a theory is a suggesting that we stop degrading peo- Platonist fantasy that the West has grad- ple in order to have an excuse for oppres- ually outgrown. sing them. But Pinker describes facts fa- The books that change our moral miliar to Homer and Herodotus as ex- and political convictions include sacred hibiting “nonobvious aspects of human scriptures, philosophical treatises, intel- nature.” lectual and sociopolitical histories, epic It is likely that further discoveries poems, novels, political manifestoes, about how our brains work will give us a and writings of many other sorts. But lot of useful ideas about how to change scienti½c treatises have become increas- human behavior. But suppose that nan- ingly irrelevant to this process of change.

Dædalus Fall 2004 21 Richard This is because, ever since Galileo, natu- They think they will learn whether to be Rorty on ral science has won its autonomy and its more like Antigone than like Ismene, or human richly deserved prestige by telling us more like Martha than like Mary, or nature how things work, rather than, as Aristo- more like Spinoza than like Baudelaire, tle hoped to do, telling us about their in- or more like Lenin than like fdr, or trinsic natures. more like Ivan Karamazov than like Post-Galilean science does not tell us Alyosha. They want to know whether what is really real or really important. It they should throw themselves into cam- has no metaphysical or moral implica- paigns for world government, or against tions. Instead, it enables us to do things gay marriage, or for a global minimum that we had not previously been able to wage, or against the inheritance tax. do. When it became empirical and ex- They hope for the sort of guidance that perimental, it lost both its metaphysical idealistic freshmen still think their pretensions and the ability to set new teachers may be able to provide. When ends for human beings to strive for. It they take courses in cognitive science, gained the ability to provide new means. however, this is not what they get. They Most scientists are content with this get a better understanding of how their trade-off. But every so often a scientist brains work, but no help in ½guring out like Pinker tries to have it both ways, what sort of people to be or what causes and to suggest that science can provide to ½ght for. empirical evidence to show that some This sense that they have been sub- ends are preferable to others. jected to bait-and-switch tactics often also afflicts freshmen who sign up for Whereas physics-envy is a neurosis philosophy courses because they have found among those whose disciplines been turned on by Marx, Camus, Kier- are accused of being soft, philosophy- kegaard, Nietzsche, or Heidegger. They envy is found among those who pride imagine that if they take a course in themselves on the hardness of their dis- what are advertised as ‘the core areas ciplines. The latter think that their supe- of philosophy’–metaphysics and episte- rior rigor quali½es them to take over the mology–they will be better able to an- roles previously played by philosophers swer the questions these authors raised. and other sorts of humanists–roles such But what they get in such courses is, typ- as critic of culture, moral guide, guard- ically, a discussion of the place of such ian of , and prophet of the things as knowledge, , and value new utopia. Humanists, such scientists in a world made up of elementary parti- argue, only have opinions, but scientists cles. Many would-be students of philos- have knowledge. Why not, they ask us, ophy are unable to see why they need stop your ears against culture-babble have views on that topic–why they (which is all you are going to get from need a metaphysics. those frivolous postmodernists and irre- sponsible social constructionists) and It was because Ortega found such top- get your self-image from the people who ics pro½tless that he wrote polemical know what human beings really, truly, essays like the one from which Pinker objectively, enduringly, transculturally quotes (“History as a System,” in Or- are? tega’s Toward a Philosophy of History). Those who succumb to such urgings There he said: are subjected to bait-and-switch tactics.

22 Dædalus Fall 2004 all the naturalist studies on man’s body disagreements about the nature of neu- Philosophy- and soul put together have not been of rons or about where we came from as envy the slightest use in throwing light on any they do from controversies about the of our most strictly human feelings, on nature of quarks or about the timing of what each individual calls his own life, the big bang.1 that life which, intermingling with others, The issue Pinker has with Ortega, and forms societies, that in their turn, persist- with most philosophers outside the so- ing, make up human destiny. The prodi- called analytic tradition, has nothing to gious achievement of natural science in do with blank slates. It is about whether the direction of the knowledge of things the conversations among humanists contrasts brutally with the collapse of this about alternative self-images and alter- same natural science when faced with the native ideals would be improved if the strictly human element. participants knew more about what is going on in biology and cognitive sci- Ortega insisted that increasing knowl- ence. Pinker argues that men and wom- edge of how things such as the human en with moral and political concerns brain and the human genome work will have always relied upon theories of hu- never help us ½gure out how to envisage man nature, and that empirically based ourselves and what to do with ourselves. theories are now available. But Ortega Pinker thinks that he was wrong. But on- would reply that for the last few hundred ly a few pages of The Blank Slate grapple years we have learned to substitute his- directly with this issue. Among those torical narrative and utopian speculation that do, the most salient are the ones in for such theories. which Pinker argues that scienti½c dis- This historicist turn does, however, coveries give us reason to adopt what he owe a great deal to one particular scien- calls “The Tragic Vision” rather than tist: Darwin. Darwin helped us stop “The Utopian Vision” of human life–to thinking of ourselves as an animal body take a dim view of the capacity of human in which something extra, and speci½- beings to change themselves into new cally human, has been inserted–a mys- and better sorts of people. terious ingredient whose nature poses In order to show that our choice be- philosophical problems. His critics said tween these two visions should be made that he had reduced us to the level of the by reference to science rather than to beasts, but in fact he let us see imagina- history, Pinker has to claim, cryptically, tive daring as a causal force comparable that “parts of these visions” consist of to genetic mutation. He reinforced the “general claims about how the mind historicism of Herder and Hegel by let- works.” But that is just what historicist ting us see as on a par philosophers like Ortega doubt. They with biological evolution–as equally think that the contest between these capable of creating something radically two visions will be unaffected even if new and better. He helped poets like the brain turns out to work in some Tennyson and Whitman, and thinkers weird way that contemporary science like Nietzsche, H. G. Wells, George Ber- has not yet envisaged, or if new fossil nard Shaw, and John Dewey, to dream of evidence shows that the current story about the evolution of our species is all 1 For more on this point, see my “The Brain as wrong. Debates about what to do with Hardware, Culture as Software,” Inquiry 47 (3) ourselves, they say, as free from (June 2004): 219–235.

Dædalus Fall 2004 23 Richard utopias in which human beings had be- Rorty on come as wonderfully different from us human as we are from the Neanderthals. The nature dreams of socialists, feminists, and oth- ers have produced profound changes in Western social life, and may lead to vast changes in the life of the species as a whole. Nothing that natural science tells us should discourage us from dreaming further dreams.

24 Dædalus Fall 2004 Richard Wrangham

Killer species

Human social behavior varies so much will, multilevel ties among communities, that our plasticity can sometimes seem mothers forming mating bonds, coali- in½nite. But human variation has obvi- tions of males ½ghting over territory, ous limits when we compare ourselves and so on. with our primate relatives. Napoleon That all humans share some character- may have claimed that he always had istic social tendencies may be unremark- to give in to his wife, the Empress Jose- able in comparison with other species, phine, but there are no human societies but it provides valuable insight into be- that follow the lemur pattern of all males havioral evolution. In this essay I will invariably subordinating themselves to focus on a few features we share with all females. Nor do women anywhere our closest ape relatives, but that are entice all their male counterparts in their otherwise found rarely. In particular, community to mate with them every we share the tendency for coalitions of month, as female chimpanzees do. Just related males to cooperate in defending as other species have their particular so- a shared territory; and we kill our ene- cial tendencies, in other words, so does mies. These are unusual patterns in oth- ours. Features characteristic of human er primates, so the question is why they society include social communities com- should be prominent in humans and our posed of individuals who associate at close kin. One hypothesis is phylogenetic iner- tia, the nonadaptive retention of an an- Richard Wrangham, professor of biological an- cestral trait. Phylogenetic inertia is a thropology at Harvard University, has studied possibility whenever closely related spe- chimpanzees in Gombe (with Jane Goodall) and cies behave alike. For example, horses in Kibale, as well as vervet monkeys and gelada and zebras both live in groups of unre- baboons. His book “Demonic Males: Apes and lated females and single stallions within the Origins of Human Violence” (1996) popular- larger herds. Breeding wolves and coy- ized ideas he developed in research focused on the otes live as isolated monogamous pairs influence of ecology on the evolution of primate aided by nonbreeding helpers. Male social behavior. He has been a Fellow of the hornbills of many different species American Academy since 1993. imprison their mating partners in a se- © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts cluded breeding hole. There are many & Sciences such examples of social systems corre-

Dædalus Fall 2004 25 Richard lated with phylogeny, and in theory their dry habitat, food is so sparse that in Wrangham these could result from species failing to bad seasons the large groups fragment on human adapt their behavior to new circum- by day in search of forage. But females nature stance. can’t survive without a defending male, However attractive the notion of phy- so each stays in a small subgroup with a logenetic inertia might seem, it suffers single male, to whom she becomes faith- from the problem of explaining why fully bonded and whom she allows to adaptive changes in social behavior herd her when other males are near. To should be constrained. The hypothesis prevent other males from stealing their of adaptive socioecology is therefore a females when the subgroups reunite at strong a priori alternative to phylogenet- sleeping sites, males form defensive alli- ic inertia. Adaptive socioecology posits ances with each other. A poor food sup- that a similar lifestyle is the key to simi- ply thus leads to small families of acqui- lar behavior among closely related spe- escent female hamadryas attached to a cies, whether it be grass-eating for hors- network of bonded males. es and zebras, den-living for wolves and The contrasting baboon social pat- coyotes, or a shortage of suitable nesting terns conform to the respective ecologi- holes for different species of hornbills. cal pressures. These differences could Adaptive socioecology rests on the no- in theory emerge merely as the baboons’ tion that social systems can change rap- developmental response to their imme- idly in response to a novel ecology. diate environments, but there is evi- Baboons offer a particularly tidy ex- dence of strong genetic influence. Thus ample of adaptive socioecology, because even after many generations in captivity, even within a single species genetically baboons of the two subspecies form the based differences in psychology have same kinds of social groups as their wild evolved in apparent response to a specif- ancestors. The same differentiation is ic ecological change. East Africa’s olive dramatically echoed among naturally baboons live in lush grasslands where occurring hybrids in Ethiopia, for which the abundance of food permits large, co- physical features and behavior are corre- operative groups of female kin that aid lated. Females that look more like olive each other in competition against other baboons, for example, strongly resist females. Too large to be monopolized by male efforts to herd them. By contrast, a single male, a group generally includes those that look more like hamadryas ten or more unrelated males that join readily accept a male’s herding. Differ- as adolescents. Female olive baboons re- ences in serotonin levels between males spond to the plethora of males by mating of the two subspecies of baboons con- widely within the group, thereby garner- form to the different patterns of aggres- ing protection for their offspring from sion. the numerous possible fathers. A rich Olive and hamadryas baboons differ- food supply thus promotes large, multi- entiated from each other around three male groups of promiscuous and kin- hundred thousand years ago. Even with- bonded females. out any notable anatomical evolution, Hamadryas baboons, by contrast, oc- therefore, three hundred thousand years cupy semideserts in northeast Africa and and a changed ecology are enough for Arabia. They resemble olive baboons radical adaptation in social behavior, in- closely, being only marginally smaller, cluding patterns of grouping, kin rela- with somewhat more colorful males. In tions, and feeding competition.

26 Dædalus Fall 2004 Why, then, should humans be in the Chimpanzees and bonobos are the Killer least similar to our cousin apes? Chim- species of apes that are closest to hu- species panzees and bonobos are separated from mans. Both are quadrupedal, forest-liv- humans not only by ½ve to six million ing fruit-eaters that climb for most of years, but by enormous changes in ecol- their food, sleep in trees exposed to the ogy and ability, including raw biological rain, and use only the simplest tools differences in diet, locomotion, and sex- (some populations use none). Their uality, as well as by the re½ned influ- communities are limited to the set of ences of language and culture. Against individuals that live suf½ciently close this background, signi½cant social sim- that they might meet by chance. These ilarities with our cousin apes are puz- communities are formed around a core zling. While phylogenetic inertia is an of related males, and there are no bonds explanation of last resort, adaptive so- among mates. cioecology is at ½rst glance improbable. Yet different as humans and these apes As we will see, however, hidden ecologi- are, all three species live in social com- cal similarities suggest that contrary to munities with no ½xed associations of the apparent differences between hu- individuals other than those between mans and other apes, our shared social mothers and their dependent offspring features derive from parallel ecological –a rare trait in the context of most other pressures. primates. Accordingly, during the day, individuals of these species can decide Though human hunter-gatherers (also for themselves where to go. In practice, called foragers) offer the most appropri- among hunter-gatherers most women ate comparison with other species, their forage every day in the company of oth- lifestyle and social relations differ about er women from their temporary camp, as much from those of our cousin apes as much as most male chimpanzees spend any other people’s. Foragers dig for roots the day in the company of chosen allies. and collect fruits, hunt large game, cook But in both cases, there are options. A their food, construct simple housing, woman might choose to make a tryst, and defend themselves with spears or stay in the camp, or walk alone. A male other weapons. They tend to occupy chimpanzee might equally well opt to temporary camps for several weeks at a travel alone for hours or days at a time. time, housing a group of perhaps twenty Such individual choice within a de- to forty people, and they relocate these ½ned social network occurs in only one camps when the women ½nd it hard to other group of primates: the atelines, get enough food within a reasonable South American monkeys distantly re- day’s walk. The members of a camp are lated to apes. In addition to community part of a larger social community that organization, those species share a sec- might include a few hundred or even a ond rare similarity with humans, chim- thousand or more people. At certain panzees, and bonobos: their males form times of the year this community gath- coalitions to defend territory. ers for a few days, when feasts and cere- There are other ways in which the monies allow social relationships to be atelines (spider monkeys, woolly mon- re-formed across the wider network of keys, and muriqui) are the most ape-like the tribe. And as is true for every other group of monkeys: their large size rela- human society, cultural rules pervade tive to other South American monkeys, life among such communities. None of relatively ef½cient travel, mobile shoul- this is very ape-like. ders, and diet of ripe fruit and soft Dædalus Fall 2004 27 Richard leaves. It has therefore been suggested and may penetrate beyond the zone of Wrangham on that resemblances between the social relative safety, looking carefully as they human behavior of atelines and that of the apes go. Sometimes they climb a tree and face nature have resulted from parallel adaptations the neighboring range, as if listening for for harvesting ripe fruit, a resource that rivals. Occasionally they make deep induces intense feeding competition, in- invasions. dependent travel, and territorial de- Most encounters that result from fense.1 In line with this suggestion, the these behaviors happen by chance protean grouping patterns of humans when nearby parties surprise each other may be similarly derived from an evolu- at close range–a few hundred yards, say. tionary commitment to high-quality Calls from strangers prompt immediate foods. tension. Sometimes the listeners briefly Whatever its precise cause, the com- freeze, but more often they let out a vol- bination of social communities with ley of shouts and quickly move. If they small and frequently changing sub- are numerous, they advance. If not, groups appears to be an important pre- they retreat toward the heart of their condition for one of the most striking territory.2 similarities between humans and any But when they meet at close range and other primates: the territorial aggression the numbers of males on each side are observed in humans and chimpanzees similar they’re more likely to stand their alike. ground. Typically, chimpanzees in the Warfare is often de½ned in a way that battleground hurtle unpredictably suggests it is unique to humans, for in- through the brush, pausing after each stance, as an interaction involving cul- rush to look and listen tensely around, turally sanctioned plans or weapons or often standing bipedal with one hand organized ½ghting between large groups. on a small tree. For them one decision But of course the behavior that underlies might be a matter of success or death. human warfare is not unique, as the Their pauses allow them to gauge who’s chimpanzee case makes clear. where, to ½nd an ally, or to see uncer- tainty in the enemy. After a stop, alone Most encounters between chimpan- or in a small tight group of two or three, zee communities involve males. There they charge off on a new run across the can be as many as thirty-½ve males in battle area. Occasionally one of them a community, but the average is ten to gets hit by a passing rusher, but mostly twelve, and most parties (temporary the chimpanzees from each community subgroups) have about half that number. charge backwards and forwards from Interactions with neighboring commu- safe spots as each side tries to frighten nities are never friendly and are often the other into retreat. The air is thick dangerous. 2 Michael L. Wilson, Marc D. Hauser, and But even so, males sometimes seek out Richard W. Wrangham, “Does Participation opportunities to engage with neighbors. in Intergroup Conflict Depend on Numerical They routinely conduct border patrols Assessment, Range Location, or Rank for Wild Chimpanzees?” Animal Behaviour 61 (2001): 1 Colin A. Chapman, Richard Wrangham, and 1203–1216, describe playback experiments Lauren J. Chapman, “Ecological Constraints on showing that when a call is heard from a single Group Size: An Analysis of Spider Monkey and stranger, chimpanzees move forward only if Chimpanzee Subgroups,” Behavioral Ecology and there are at least three males in the listening Sociobiology 36 (1995): 59–70. party, and that otherwise they retreat.

28 Dædalus Fall 2004 with screams and emotion. It’s hard to account, these ½gures yield a median Killer tell exactly what’s happening; it’s dif½- death rate from intergroup aggression of species cult even to identify the males in the me- 140 per 100,000, which rises to 356 per lee of speed and power and fully erected 100,000 if we include suspected cases in hair. Their screams and barks can go on addition to those observed or con½dent- with hardly a pause for forty-½ve min- ly inferred.3 utes. The chimpanzee data resemble death In the end, the party with fewer males rates from war among traditional subsis- generally retreats. The result can be im- tence societies. Thus, based on a world- portant. For several weeks, the losing wide compilation by Lawrence Keeley, community tends to avoid an area that Michael Wilson and I have assembled would otherwise have provided access demographic data for thirty-two po- to a preferred food; this could mean the litically independent peoples. These difference between a few weeks of eating include twelve hunter-gatherer and from a rich fruit crop, and being forced twenty gardening or farming cultures. onto a poor diet that causes delayed re- For hunter-gatherers, annual war death sponse and threatens survival. rates averaged 165 per 100,000, about Of more immediate importance, these the same as the intergroup killing rate battles sometimes lead to a lone partici- for chimpanzees. For the subsistence pant being caught by several of his ri- farmers, the toll rose to a startling 595 vals. The result tends to be remarkably per 100,000, somewhat above the up- lopsided. While the aggressors are un- per estimate for chimpanzees (356 likely even to be scratched, the victim per 100,000).4 The sampled cultures may be killed on the spot, or bruised, range from relatively peaceful people bitten, and torn so badly that he survives such as the Semai of Malaysia to the for only a few days or weeks. The same famously dangerous Dani of New Guin- result can follow from border patrols ea, among whom at least 28 percent of or deep invasions. Overwhelming num- men’s deaths, and 2 percent of women’s, bers mean the attackers are safe. Several occurred in war.5 Understanding why males each hold a hand or foot of the ri- there is such a range is an important val. The immobilized victim can then be challenge for the future. For the mo- damaged at will. ment, however, we can conclude that Observations from ½ve study sites now allow the ½rst rough estimates of 3 Rates are calculated from data presented in Michael L. Wilson and Richard W. Wrangham, death rates from intergroup killing “Intergroup Relations in Chimpanzees,” Annual among chimpanzees. Between 1963 Review of Anthropology 32 (2003): 363–392. For (when we have Jane Goodall’s ½rst de- adult males as a separate class, the equivalent mographic data from Gombe) and 2002, rates are between 0.38 and 1.30 percent per a total of about 145 data-years of obser- year. vation were logged across the ½ve long- 4 Lawrence H. Keeley, War Before Civilization term sites. During that time, forty-six (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). intercommunity kills were observed or suspected. Thirty-one involved mem- 5 Karl G. Heider, The Dugum Dani: A Papuan bers of the study communities (twenty- Culture in the Highlands of West New Guinea (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970), four adult males, one adult female, six 128, recorded for Dani living in the Grand Val- infants). When the number of chimpan- ley of Balim River in the central highlands of zees in each community is taken into western New Guinea.

Dædalus Fall 2004 29 Richard death rates from intergroup aggression an area they considered to be free of hu- Wrangham on among small independent communities man influences. Based on twenty-two human are broadly similar for humans and killings in at least seventeen packs, they nature chimpanzees. estimated that 39 to 65 percent of adult wolves were killed by other packs. We Shockingly, death rates in the modern can expect variation in such rates across era tend to be lower even when periods populations, but at least in Minnesota a of major war are included. During the similar ½gure emerged: 43 percent of twentieth century, for example, Ger- wolves not killed by humans were killed many, Russia, and Japan each experi- by other wolves.7 enced rates of war deaths that were less These data were presented as percent- than half the average hunter-gatherer ages of deaths from violence, rather than rate. The contrast reflects a difference in as an annual death rate. Human data the practice of war between prestate and have sometimes been compiled in the state societies. In prestate societies all same way, and show that only the most men are warriors, and all women are vul- extreme of human cultures match the nerable. In state societies, by contrast, killing rate of wolves. The highest hu- fewer people are directly exposed to vio- man death rate from violence has been lence (even though civilians and chil- recorded in eastern Ecuador, where an- dren often suffer worse casualties than thropologist James Yost and colleagues the military) because armies ½ght on collected data on causes of death for behalf of the larger group.6 Waorani horticulturalists living in dis- There’s only one other mammal persed villages of less than a hundred whose intergroup killing has been ob- people. Based on 551 deaths, they found served frequently enough to have been that homicide took the lives of 49 per- calculated. The discovery would have cent of women and 64 percent of men, been a surprise to , a close to the ½gure for Denali wolves.8 founding father of . Lorenz Other prestate societies show slightly thought wolves would not kill wolves, lower ½gures. More such data have been because he saw captive dominants treat- collected from highland New Guinea ing helpless subordinates in a kindly than from any other part of the world, manner. So he argued that wolves must because many of the people living there have been selected for inhibition. He was continued to practice local war until re- right in one sense: within social groups, cently. These people include the Tauna wolves normally control their emotions well. But Lorenz didn’t know about 7 L. David Mech, Layne G. Adams, Thomas J. wolves in the wild, where food is scarce Meier, John W. Burch, and Bruce W. Dale, The and every group is surrounded by its Wolves of Denali (Minneapolis: University of neighbors. Minnesota Press, 1998). Wolves of neighboring groups don’t 8 James A. Yost and Patricia M. Kelley, “Shot- hold back. David Mech and his col- guns, Blowguns, and Spears: The Analysis leagues studied packs in the glacial up- of Technological Ef½ciency,” in Raymond B. lands of Alaska’s Denali National Park, Hames and William T. Vickers, eds., Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians (New York: 6 Death rates in the twentieth century were Academic Press, 1983), 189–224. The recorded presented by Keeley, War Before Civilization. deaths include an unrecorded proportion of Carolyn Nordstrom, “Deadly Myths of Aggres- killings within villages, so these ½gures do not sion,” Aggressive Behavior 24 (1998): 147–159. correspond exactly to the wolf data.

30 Dædalus Fall 2004 Awa, with 16 percent of women and 30 ing the Nez Perce, Crow, and Shoshone. Killer percent of men (of 206 deaths) dying Lewis and Clark described the presence species from homicide; the Usurufa, with 12 per- there of “immence [sic] quantities of cent of women and 32 percent of men buffalo in every direction”;10 the herbi- (of 514 deaths); the Mae Enga, with vores bene½ted from the low human maybe 2 to 3 percent of women and 35 predation pressure resulting from the percent of men (of 261 deaths); and the dangers of hunting in these contested Huli, with 1 percent of women and 20 ranges. So the feared war zone became percent of men (of 769 deaths). a game sink. Territorial tension some- For hunter-gatherers, fewer data are times works the same way today. The available, but the picture is as expected Demilitarized Zone (dmz) separating from the annual kill rate. Homicides North and South Korea is so empty of occur, but at lower rates than among people that it has particularly high bio- horticultural farmers.9 There are the diversity, and supports large populations Aché of Paraguay, among whom homi- of rare and endangered species extinct cide has been responsible for the deaths on the rest of the Korean peninsula. of 14 percent of women and 15 percent (Conservationists should be worried of men (of 115 deaths); the Hiwi of Ven- about the prospect of peace. When peace ezuela, with 17 percent of women and 14 came to the Upper Missouri War Zone, percent of men (of 124 deaths); and the prey animals were hunted to extinction.) Agta of the Philippines, with 3 percent War zones occurred among hunter- of women and 14 percent of men (of 78 gatherers also. Anthropologist Bion deaths). Grif½n reports, for example, that the The point about these ½gures isn’t to Agta of the Philippines knew where the claim any particular numerical averages. danger lay. “Hunters are especially aware It’s merely to say that with chimpanzees, of the chance of illegal trespassers and wolves, and humans the big picture is assume that they may be bent on raid- consistent: in typical populations of ing,” Grif½n writes. “In the remotest these three species, it can be mortally forest hunting zones, where hunters dangerous to meet the neighbors. from more than one dialect group may That’s why they all have war zones. range, precautions are taken and one would seldom hunt alone.”11 War zones are the border areas where In Australia, expeditions outside the territories abut, danger lurks, and parties core of the territory were likewise rarely go. Low rates of foraging mean viewed as dangerous: “The red ochre that war zones can become lands of gathering expeditions . . . were normally plenty–rich in tempting resources. all-male parties, and although cordial The Upper Missouri War Zone, a cor- relationships between groups were ridor ½ve hundred kilometers long and 10 Paul S. Martin and Christine R. Szuter, two hundred forty kilometers wide, was “War Zones and Game Sinks in Lewis and a focal area for the intertribal aggression Clark’s West,” Conservation Biology 13 (1999): of numerous indigenous groups, includ- 36–45.

9 Bruce M. Knauft, “Violence and 11 P. Bion Grif½n, “Forager Resource and Land in ,” Current Anthropology 32 Use in the Humid Tropics: The Agta of North- (1991): 391–428, has stressed the evidence that eastern Luzon, the Philippines,” in Carmel rates of war are higher among horticulturalists Schrire, ed., Past and Present in Hunter-Gatherer than among hunter-gatherers. Studies (New York: Academic Press, 1984), 106.

Dædalus Fall 2004 31 Richard sought, ½ghting appears to have been a defend their ranges with chases when Wrangham on common hazard faced by traveling par- they meet neighbors. What makes a war human ties. One entire party, with the exception zone is not a territory, but the of nature of one man, is recorded as having been being victimized at its edge. ambushed and killed in about 1870, War zones also aren’t known among whilst in about 1874 all but one of a bonobos, or, for that matter, among group of 30 men were ‘entombed in the most primates or most mammals or excavations.’”12 most animals. In the great majority of Among chimpanzees, evidence of a species, territorial encounters involve game sink in war zones comes from the display, chases, and occasional grap- group size of their favorite prey species, pling, but not outright killing. There are red colobus monkeys. Groups averaged only a select few species whose territori- 46 percent smaller in the core of the ter- al boundaries are places of death and ritory than in the border area, according avoidance. The question is why this to primatologist Craig Stanford. He selection should include chimpanzees, attributed the difference to the lower wolves, and humans. hunting pressure in the border areas, where chimpanzees feared to go. A strong evolutionary rationale for Meanwhile, David Mech describes killing derives from the harsh logic of how except during periods of extreme natural selection. Every homicide shifts food shortage, the threat of encounter- the power balance in favor of the killers. ing hostile neighbors keeps packs of So the killers have an increased chance wolves out of border areas. White-tailed of outnumbering their opponents in deer therefore occur at particularly high future territorial battles, and therefore density in the zones of wolf-pack territo- of winning them. Bigger territories mean rial overlap. Mech believes that these more food, and therefore more babies. war-zone populations of deer are critical This unpleasant formula implies that for the long-term relationship between killing is favored by two conditions. It predator and prey, since they provide the pays whenever resource competition is stock for recolonizing the over-hunted intense, and whenever killing can be car- areas in the core of the wolf territories. ried out at low risk to the aggressors. Wolf war zones, in other words, provide All animals face resource competition. conservation areas rather in the style of In the wild, for example, female chim- the Korean dmz. panzees lose weight during poor seasons It’s not the abutment of territories and are often so short of food that they that makes a war zone. Redtail monkeys must wait for an abundant fruiting sea- in Kibale also live within territories, but son before they can conceive. All hunter- they do not kill members of neighboring gatherer populations show similar evi- communities and they do not avoid the dence of intermittent food scarcity, such territorial borders. They use the territory as reduced growth during poor seasons. fully, right up to the border, and merely Persistent food shortages suggest that a larger territory will always pay, and 12 The quotation is from R. G. Kimber, long-term data from Gombe con½rm it. “Hunter-Gatherer Demography: The Recent Past in Central Australia,” in Betty Meehan During two decades the territory of the and Neville White, eds., Hunter-Gatherer De- Kasekela chimpanzee community varied mography Past and Present (Sydney: University in size. Shifts in the balance of power of Sydney Press, 1990), 160–170. with neighboring communities may

32 Dædalus Fall 2004 have been responsible for these oscilla- wolves, the imbalances of power come Killer tions. When the territory was small, the entirely from their protean grouping species chimpanzees had inadequate food. Indi- patterns. For hunter-gatherers, the same viduals lost body weight and tended to applies, but there is an extra twist from travel in the small parties typical of peri- human inventiveness. For modern hu- ods of low food supply. Females then mans, imbalances of power come not had long intervals between births, and only from being able to form a larger offspring survival was low. When the subgroup than the enemy’s, but also territory was larger, everything changed. from striking the ½rst lethal blow– Male efforts at expanding the territory such as by throwing a spear, flaming a led to gains for both sexes. With a better hut, or flying an airplane into a building. food supply, all adults gained weight, Among chimpanzees, the most likely females reproduced faster, and the victims of homicide are adults found young survived better.13 alone or immediately abandoned by The Gombe study nicely shows the their friends after being cornered by importance of a larger territory. But it members of a hostile community. doesn’t show anything special about the Among wolves, the evidence is less di- killer species. Any territory-holding rect, but 90 percent of kills in Denali oc- group can be expected to fare better if its curred in winter. At that time, the proba- neighbors’ power declines, allowing its bility of a lone individual meeting a par- territory to expand. By the same process ty of at least three other wolves is forty seen in Gombe, a group of any species times higher than in the summer. that gets a larger territory can be expect- Support for the supposed importance ed to have improved food and better of power imbalances comes from the reproduction. This principle should species that don’t kill. Bonobos and apply as much to bonobos and redtail monkeys live in relatively stable groups, monkeys as to chimpanzees, wolves, and with individuals rarely in parties so humans. But bonobos and monkeys small that they might be overwhelmed don’t kill. by neighbors. Those species have diets So resource competition is a necessary that allow parties the luxury of perma- condition for war-zone killing, but it’s nent association. not enough on its own. The second con- But among humans, power imbalances dition is the suf½cient one. Killing must are routine in intercommunity conflict, be cheap. and the predominant tactic of war for The special feature of the killer species small-scale societies is unambiguous. is that when parties from neighboring It’s hit-and-run or ambush. Anthropolo- territories meet, there is sometimes an gist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown recorded the imbalance of power so great that one attitude of the Andaman Islanders, party can kill a victim without any hunter-gatherers living east of India. signi½cant risk of any of them getting “The whole art of ½ghting,” he wrote, hurt themselves. For chimpanzees and “was to come upon your enemies by sur- prise, kill one or two of them and then 13 Jennifer M. Williams, Anne E. Pusey, John retreat . . . . They would not venture to V. Carlis, B. P. Farm, and Jane Goodall, “Fe- attack the enemy’s camp unless they male Competition and Male Territorial Behav- were certain of taking it by surprise . . . . ior Influence Female Chimpanzees’ Ranging Patterns,” Animal Behaviour 63 (2002): 347– If they met with any serious resistance 360. or lost one of their own number, they

Dædalus Fall 2004 33 Richard would immediately retire. Though the cheap, kill. In any particular instance it Wrangham on aim of the attacking party was to kill the may or may not lead to a bigger territory, human men, it often happened that women or but from the perspective of natural se- nature children were killed.”14 lection, the speci½c case is less impor- Similar tactics have been described for tant than the average bene½t. The inte- hunter-gatherers around the world. In grating effect of selective pressures on Australia, Walbiri men who surprised emotional systems requires only that enemy camps were said to have killed or killing should lead to bene½ts suf½cient- driven off the enemy males, and to have ly often. Just as the ½rst male ½g wasp carried away any women they could ½nd. that emerges from pupation will imme- In the Arctic, by contrast, raiders would diately attempt to kill any other males he normally kill everyone, though they ½nds in the same ½g, so the defenders of might spare young girls. Raids typically territory bene½t by taking advantage of involved ½fteen to twenty men, and opportunity. The killers don’t have to could take ten days to complete.15 think through the logic. They may think That hunter-gatherers would have of their action as revenge, or placating raided each other may seem surprising the gods, or a rite of manhood–or they in view of the reputation of forager soci- may not think about it at all. They may eties like the Kalahari Bushmen for liv- do it because it’s exciting, as seems the ing peacefully. Scrutiny of early records case for chimpanzees. The rationale of contact with hunter-gatherers, how- doesn’t matter to natural selection.17 ever, shows widespread evidence of What matters, it seems, is that in fu- primitive violence, even in the Kalahari. ture battles the neighbors will have one And material culture supports the pic- less warrior. So those who killed will be- ture. Archaeologist Steven LeBlanc has come a little more powerful as a result. recently drawn attention to the shields of Eskimos that attest to the occurrence Why, then, do humans, chimpanzees, of battles. Australian Aborigines also and wolves share the unusual practice of had shields as well as weapons used ex- deliberately and frequently killing neigh- clusively for warfare, such as a hooked bors? In each species the violence makes boomerang and a heavy spear. Both in sense. Protean grouping patterns allow the Arctic and in Australia there is clear individuals to attack only when they historical evidence for a combination of have overwhelming power. Such tactical raids and battles.16 success allows them to kill safely and The principle that underlies the may- cheaply, and thereby win a likely in- hem is simple, then. When the killing is crease in resources over the succeeding months or years. Killing thus emerges as 14 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Island- a consequence of having territories, dis- ers: A Study in Social Anthropology (Cambridge: persed groups, and unpredictable power Cambridge University Press, 1948), 85. relations. These driving variables, in 15 Azar Gat, “The Human Motivational Com- turn, appear to result from ecological plex: Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of adaptations, whether to a scattered fruit Hunter-Gatherer Fighting, Part I: Primary supply or to the challenges of hunting Somatic and Reproductive Causes,” Anthropo- logical Quarterly 73 (2000): 20–34. 17 Klaus Reinhold, “Influence of Male Related- ness on Lethal Combat in Fig Wasps: A Theo- 16 Steven A. LeBlanc, Constant Battles (New retical Analysis,” Proceedings of the Royal Society York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003). of London B 270 (2003): 1171–1175.

34 Dædalus Fall 2004 vertebrate prey. The implication is that Killer because of our particular evolutionary species ecology, natural selection has favored in the brains of humans, chimpanzees, and wolves a tendency to take advantage of opportunities to kill enemies. This doesn’t condemn us to be violent in general. Indeed, within our communi- ties humans are markedly less violent than most other primates, and in some ways humans are specially peaceful. Nor does it mean that intergroup aggression is inevitable: rather, it predicts little vio- lence when power is balanced between neighboring communities. Nor, again, does it mean that gang attacks on mem- bers of other tribes or religions or clubs or countries are necessarily adaptive: in evolutionary terms, they may or may not be. Nor does it mean that women are incapable of violence, or are inherently less aggressive than men: it suggests in- stead why the circumstances that favor aggression are not identical for men and women. What it does imply, however, is that selection has favored a human tendency to identify enemies, draw moral divides, and exploit weaknesses pitilessly across boundaries. As a result, our species re- mains specially predisposed to certain types of violent emotion. That selection operated in the context of a hunter-gath- erer world that has all but disappeared. But if its legacy is that we are biological- ly prepared by natural selection to be killers, an understanding of the neural basis of intergroup violence should be a research priority.

Dædalus Fall 2004 35 Patrick Bateson

The origins of human differences

With increasing frequency the media is easy to forget, however, about all those report the discovery of genes for dis- other influences that a competent scien- tinct human characteristics, such as ath- tist contrives to keep constant or to play letic prowess or male promiscuity. Yet no systematic role. it is obvious that experience, education, Even if the debates are seen for what and culture make a big difference in how they are–irritating examples of advoca- people behave, whatever their genetic cy–is it not the case that complex hu- inheritance. Why is it that behavioral man behaviors have come from some- and psychological development are so where? In some instances, surely, they often explained in terms of the exclusive will be inborn and in other instances importance of one set of factors, either they will be acquired by experience. genetic or environmental? But the apparent good sense of this view Oversimpli½ed opinions may derive leaves out of account the ways in which from a style of advocacy that is common the inborn can be changed by experience in many academic debates. If Dr. Jones and the ways in which the gathering of has overstated her case, then Professor experience is itself inborn. Even so, it is Smith feels bound to redress the balance worth looking at some straightforward by overstating the counterargument. examples. The way scientists analyze complex pro- cesses further ampli½es the confusion. Studies of animal behavior do, indeed, When somebody has conducted a clever tell us that much complex behavior can experiment demonstrating an important develop without opportunities for prac- long-term influence on behavior, that tice. The European garden warblers that person has good reason to feel pleased. It have been hand-reared in cages never- theless become restless and attempt to fly south in the autumn, the time when Sir Patrick Bateson is a Fellow of the Royal Soci- their wild counterparts migrate in that ety of London and a professor of ethology at the direction. The warblers continue to be University of Cambridge. He is the author (with restless in their cages for about a couple Paul Martin) of “Design for a Life: How Behav- of months, the time it would take them ior and Personality Develop” (2000). to fly from Europe to their species’ win- tering grounds in Africa. A similar rest- © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts lessness during the following spring sim- & Sciences

36 Dædalus Fall 2004 ulates their return flight north. This twenty-four people, only one of whom The origins migratory response occurs despite the did not understand what emotion that of human differences birds’ rearing in social isolation, with no expression indicated. Such research as opportunities to learn when to fly, where well as his extensive correspondence to fly, or for how long. Cases like these with travellers and missionaries con- are marvels of developmental biology. vinced Darwin that humans from all They involve the construction of a ner- round the globe express the same emo- vous system that can express the full tion in the same way. Darwin concluded: complexity of the behavior. But the prin- “That the chief expressive actions, ex- ciples involved are no more dif½cult to hibited by man and by the lower ani- understand than those involved in the mals, are now innate or inherited–that construction of, say, a kidney. is, have not been learnt by the individ- Continuing with this general line of ual,–is admitted by every one.” argument, many aspects of human be- Subsequently, an enormous photo- havioral development recur in every- graphic archive of human expressions body’s life despite the shifting sands from different cultures at different of cultural change and the unique con- stages of economic development was tingencies of any one person’s life. Indi- formed. The similarities in the appear- vidual differences among humans seem ance of the smile or the raised eyebrows, small when any human is compared for example, are striking. The cross- with any chimpanzee. All humans have cultural agreement in the interpretation the capacity to acquire language, and the of complex facial expressions is also re- vast majority do. With few exceptions, markable. People agree not only about humans pass the same developmental which emotions are being expressed, but milestones as they grow up. Most chil- also about which expression of a partic- dren have started to walk by about eigh- ular emotion is the more intense. teen months after birth, have started to All of this might seem straightfor- talk by two years, and have reached sex- ward; the argument that some human ual maturity by their late teens. behavior is instinctive seems to be cor- Similarly, human facial expressions rect. However, the concept of instinct have characteristics that are widely dis- is riddled with confusion. For some, it tributed across cultures. The emotions means a distinctly organized system of of , fear, anger, and pleasure can behavioral patterns, such as those in- be easily deciphered in facial expressions volved in searching for and consuming in any part of the world. Toward the end food. For others, ‘instinct’ simply refers of his life, wrote The Ex- to behavior that is not learned, that is pression of the Emotions in Man and Ani- present at birth (the strict meaning of mals, a book that provided the stimulus ‘innate’), or that emerges at a particular for observational studies of animal and stage in the life cycle. Another sugges- human behavior that have continued in- tion is that ‘instinct’ refers to behavior to modern times. Darwin would show that, once developed, does not change, his friends and colleagues pictures of or to behavior that develops before it people expressing various emotions and serves any biological function, like some ask them, without further prompting, aspects of sexuality. At the same time, to describe the emotions. In one case some de½ne ‘instinct’ as those behav- he showed a picture of an old man with ioral patterns shared by all members of raised eyebrows and an open mouth to the species (or at least by members of

Dædalus Fall 2004 37 Patrick the same sex and age), while others de- cies’ evolutionary history may nonethe- Bateson on ½ne it as the behavioral difference be- less involve learning during the individ- human tween individuals caused by a genetic ual’s life span. For example, the strong nature difference. None of this would matter if social attachment that young birds and it were always the case that all examples mammals form to their mothers is clear- of supposed instinct had all the charac- ly adaptive and has presumably devel- teristics variously attributed to it. That, oped through evolution. And yet the unfortunately, is not the case; many ex- attachment process requires the young amples have some of the characteristics animal to learn the distinguishing fea- but not others. tures of its mother. An important point One aspect of the unitary concept of is that Darwinian selection, by acting on instinct that has unravelled on further mechanisms that regulate changes in be- inspection is the belief that learning havior in response to challenges from does not influence instincts once they the environment, can increase plasticity have developed. Learning modi½es many and behavioral diversity. cases of apparently unlearned behavioral In short, many behavioral patterns patterns after they have been used for have some, but not all, of the de½ning the ½rst time. Human babies who have characteristics of instinct, and the uni- been born blind, and consequently never tary concept breaks down under closer see a human face, nevertheless start to scrutiny. The various theoretical conno- smile at around ½ve weeks–the same tations of instinct–namely, that it is un- age as sighted babies. But while sighted learned, caused by a genetic difference, children learn to modify their smiles ac- adapted over the course of evolution, cording to their experience, producing unchanged throughout the life span, subtly different smiles that are charac- shared by all members of a species, and teristic of their particular culture, blind so on–are not merely different ways of children become less responsive and less describing the same thing. Even if a be- varied in their facial expressions. Experi- havioral pattern is found to have one di- ence can and does modify what started agnostic feature of instinct, it is certain- out as apparently unlearned behavior. ly not safe to assume that it will have all Conversely, some learned behavioral the other features as well. Perhaps for patterns are developmentally stable and that reason Darwin wisely refused to de- virtually immune to subsequent modi- ½ne ‘instinct.’ In The Origin of Species he ½cation. The songs some birds learn wrote: early in life may be extremely resistant An action, which we ourselves require to change once they have been acquired. experience to enable us to perform, when Similarly, modes in humans of perceiv- performed by an animal, more especially ing language and articulating particular by a very young one, without experience, sounds, once acquired, are extremely and when performed by many individuals dif½cult to change in adulthood. in the same way, without their knowing The idea that one meaning of instinct, for what purpose it is performed, is usual- ‘unlearned,’ is synonymous with anoth- ly said to be instinctive. But I could show er, namely, ‘adapted through evolution,’ that none of these characters are univer- also fails to stand up to scrutiny. The de- sal. A little dose of judgment or reason . . . velopment of a behavioral pattern that often comes into play, even with animals has been adapted for a particular biologi- low in the scale of nature. cal function during the course of a spe-

38 Dædalus Fall 2004 Should we be worried about the confu- In contrast to those processes ½ne- The origins sion with how terms are used? Only if tuned by experience, cleaning the body of human differences we suppose that we can easily divide be- is not generally something that requires havior into the two categories ‘innate’ special skills tailored to local conditions. and ‘learnt.’ Indeed, grooming among mammals has One of the triumphs of behavioral almost all the various de½ning character- biology in the latter part of the twentieth istics of the old-fashioned notion of in- century was to relate differences in mat- stinct. Rodent grooming is, for example, ing systems, parental behavior, foraging, a species-typical, stereotyped system of and many other aspects of adult behav- behavior that develops before it is of any ior to differences in ecology. A compa- use to the individual. rable coherence can be brought to the In other words, biologists expect varia- great variation in the ways in which tion in the way behavioral patterns and adult behavior can develop. In partic- their underlying structure develop. At- ular, the role of experience is likely to tempts to shoehorn each example into vary considerably from one behavioral one of the two categories are ridiculous. system to another. In predatory species, The muddled use of ‘instinct’ (and the successful capturing of fast-moving with it, ‘innate’ and ‘inborn’) does not prey requires considerable learning and mean that the expression of each be- practice. The osprey does not learn to havioral characteristic is, what Salman snatch trout from water overnight. Such Rushdie called in another context, a animals that rely upon highly sophisti- p2c2e–a process too complicated to cated predatory skills suffer high mortal- explain. Nor does it mean that such ex- ity rates among their young, and those pressions cannot be subject to evolution that survive are often unable to breed when critical environmental conditions for years. This is because they have to are stable from one generation to the acquire and hone their skills before next. And it certainly does not mean that they can capture enough prey to feed all adult behavior is totally dependent on offspring in addition to themselves. In the environment. What we must con- such cases, a combination of different clude is that if we want to understand developmental processes generates the developmental processes then we have highly tuned skills seen in the adult. no alternative but to study them. The developmental processes that make learning, like behavioral imprint- Plant and animal breeders know well ing, easier at the beginning of a sensitive that many of the characteristics that period are timed to correspond with matter to them are inherited. Long be- changes that the individual will encoun- fore genes were postulated and dna was ter as it develops under natural condi- discovered, breeders took this as a boun- tions. The processes that bring the sen- tiful fact of life, even though they had no sitive period to an end are often related idea how inheritance worked. To take to the gathering of crucial information, just one example, dogs have for many such as the physical appearance of the centuries been bred for their behavioral individual’s mother or close kin. In the characteristics as well as their appear- unpredictable real world, the age when ance. The sheepdog is especially sensi- the individual can acquire crucial knowl- tive to the commands of humans, wait- edge is variable; the design of the devel- ing until the shepherd gives it a signal to opmental process reflects that uncer- start herding the sheep. The pointer is tainty. especially attentive to the presence of Dædalus Fall 2004 39 Patrick certain game, stopping in its tracks Research into the inheritance of hu- Bateson on when it detects the smell of a species man behavior has been greatly helped human such as grouse. Valued behavioral char- by comparing genetically identical twins nature acteristics such as these are clearly in- with nonidentical twins. Identical (or herited and are quickly lost if breeds are monozygotic) twins are genetically iden- crossed with others. tical because they develop from the split- Humans may also reveal through their ting of a single fertilized egg; they are children how particular characteristics naturally occurring clones. Nonidentical are inherited. Two healthy parents from (or dizygotic) twins, in contrast, develop a part of the world where malaria is rife from two fertilized eggs. Consequently, may have a child who develops severe they are no more similar to each other anaemia. Both parents carry a gene that genetically than any two siblings born at has some effect on red blood cells, pro- different times. If identical twins are no tecting them against the malarial para- more alike than nonidentical twins in a site that enters those cells during part of given behavioral characteristic, then the its life cycle. However, a double dose of genetic influence on that characteristic this recessive gene leads to the red blood is presumably weak. Conversely, when cells collapsing from their normal disc identical twins are substantially more shape into strange sickle-like shapes. alike than nonidentical twins (or sib- The child who receives this genetic lega- lings) in a behavioral characteristic, then cy has sickle-cell anaemia. the mechanism of inheritance is likely Few behavioral characteristics are in- genetic. herited in as simple a fashion as sickle- Another way of exploring how genes cell anaemia, and when they are, the ef- influence behavior is to compare twins fects are usually damaging and perva- who have been reared apart with twins sive. A well-known case is the disabling who have been reared together. The disease phenylketonuria (pku). If a thought behind this approach is that child inherits two copies of a particular separation in early infancy removes the recessive gene from both parents, the influence of the shared environment, child cannot produce a crucial enzyme leaving only the inherited factors. The required to break down phenylalanine, thought is not wholly correct, however, an amino acid that is a normal compo- because even twins who are separated nent of the average diet. The resulting immediately after birth will have shared accumulation of phenylalanine in the a common environment for the ½rst body poisons the child’s developing crucial nine months after conception, brain and causes severe mental retarda- while they are together in their mother’s tion–unless the condition is diagnosed womb. This obvious truth can add to the and the child is given a special diet. dif½culties of sorting out the sources of Evidence for genetic influences on individual distinctiveness. Moreover, human behavior is usually indirect. It is being separated at birth does not pre- bound to be so, because naturally occur- clude the possibility that the different ring breeding experiments are rare, and environments in which the twins are deliberate breeding experiments in the raised may in fact have many important interest of genetic research would obvi- features in common. ously be prohibited in most societies. Nevertheless, the appearance, behav- However, the study of twins has cast ior, and personality of identical twins some light on the links between genes who have been reared apart are often and behavior. startlingly similar. In one documented 40 Dædalus Fall 2004 case, for example, a pair of twins had States to help people living in dif½cult The origins been separated early in life, one growing and impoverished conditions. The gov- of human differences up in California, the other in Germany. ernment program known as Head Start Yet when they met for the ½rst time in was designed to boost children’s intelli- thirty-½ve years, they both arrived wear- gence by giving them educational expe- ing virtually identical clothes and with rience before starting school. But the similarly clipped moustaches; both had program did not seem to have the sub- a habit of wrapping elastic bands around stantial and much hoped-for effects on their wrists; and both had the idiosyn- intelligence, as measured by iq. Chil- cratic habit of flushing lavatories before dren who had received the Head Start as well as after using them. experience displayed an initial modest Accounts such as these are sometimes boost in their iq scores, but these differ- greeted with skepticism, because it is ences soon evaporated after a few years. suspected that in the interest of a good The fashionable response was to dispar- story only the startling matches have age such well-meaning efforts to help been reported while the discrepant twins the disadvantaged young. have been ignored. Nevertheless, some Later research, however, has revealed properly conducted statistical surveys that some of the other effects of the have revealed that, on a range of mea- Head Start experience were long-lasting sures of personality, identical twins and of great social signi½cance–greater, who have been reared apart are more in fact, than boosting iq scores. Several like each other than nonidentical twins long-term follow-up studies of people also reared apart. When making such who had received preschool training comparisons, it does not matter wheth- under Head Start found they were dis- er, as has often been argued, the mea- tinctive in a variety of ways, perhaps the sures of behavioral characteristics are most important being that they were crude and relatively insensitive. The in- much more community-minded and less escapable conclusion is that some ob- likely to enter a life of crime. Head Start servable aspects of individual behavior produced lasting bene½ts for its partici- are influenced by inherited factors. pants and for society more generally, but not by raising raw iq scores. Evidence Even the most cursory glance at hu- for the long-term bene½ts of early educa- manity reveals the enormous impor- tional intervention has continued to ac- tance of each person’s experience, up- cumulate. Studies like these raise many bringing, and culture. Look at the aston- questions about how early experiences ishing variation among humans in lan- exert their effects, but they do at least guage, dietary habits, marriage customs, show how important such experiences child-care practices, clothing, religion, can be. architecture, art, and much else besides. Even relatively subtle differences in Nobody could seriously doubt the re- the way children are treated at an early markable human capacity for learning age can have lasting effects on how they from personal experience and learning behave years later. One study compared from others. the long-term effects of three different Early intervention can bene½t the dis- types of preschool teaching. In the ½rst advantaged child, but in ways that had type, three- and four-year-olds were not been fully anticipated. In the 1960s, given direct instruction, with the teach- great efforts were made in the United ers initiating the children’s activities in

Dædalus Fall 2004 41 Patrick a strict order; in the second, the teachers and often autistic, and their unusual gift Bateson on responded to activities initiated by the (whether it be for music, drawing, or human children; and in the third, known as mental arithmetic) becomes apparent at nature High/Scope, the teachers involved the an early age and is seldom improved by children in planning the activities, but practice. One typical individual could arranged the classroom and the daily recall and perform pieces of music with routine so the children could do things outstanding skill and almost perfect that were appropriate to their stage of pitch; he had poor verbal reasoning, but development. Striking differences were that was to some degree offset by high found between the children as they levels of concentration and memory. grew up. When followed up at the age Children who are good at music, on of twenty-three, the individuals who the other hand, also tend to be good at had been in the direct instruction group reading and to have a good sense of spa- were worse off in a variety of ways than tial relations. The main factors fostering those in the other two groups. In partic- the development of musical ability form ular, they were more likely to have been a predictable cast: a family background arrested on a criminal charge and more of music, practice (the more the better), likely to have received special help for practical and emotional support from emotional impairment. In comparison, parents and other adults, and a good re- the individuals who had received the lationship with the ½rst music teachers. more relaxed type of preschooling were Practice is especially important, and more likely to be living with spouses and attainment is strongly correlated with much more likely to have developed a effort. A rewarding encounter with an community spirit. inspirational teacher may lock the child into years of effort, while an unpleasant The importance of both genes and en- early experience may cause the child to vironment to the development of all ani- reject music, perhaps forever. Here, as mals, including humans, is obvious. This elsewhere, chance plays a role in shaping is true even for apparently simple phy- the individual’s development. sical characteristics–take myopia, or Research on identical and nonidenti- shortsightedness, for example. Myopia cal twins has shown that the shared fam- runs in families, suggesting that it is in- ily environment has a substantial influ- herited, but it is also affected by individ- ence on the development of musical ual experience. Both a parental history ability, whereas inherited factors exert of myopia and, to a lesser extent, the ex- only a modest effect. Genetically identi- perience of spending prolonged periods cal twins are only slightly more alike in studying close-up objects will predispose their musical ability than nonidentical a child to become shortsighted. twins or siblings. A study of more than A more interesting case is musical six hundred trainee and professional ability, about which strong and contra- musicians analyzed the origins of per- dictory views are held. Dissociation be- fect pitch, the ability to hear a tone and tween general intellectual ability and immediately identify the musical note musical ability is strongly suggested by without reference to any external com- the phenomenon of the musical idiot parison. Heritable factors appeared to savant–an individual with low intelli- play a role, as musicians with perfect gence but a single, outstanding talent for pitch were four times more likely than music. Such individuals are usually male other musicians to report having a rela-

42 Dædalus Fall 2004 tive with that skill. But the same study teristic is due to differences in their The origins also found that virtually all the musi- genes, and how much is due to differ- of human differences cians with perfect pitch had started ences in their environments? learning music by the age of six. Of The nature-nurture controversy ap- those who had started musical training peared at one time to have been resolved before the age of four, 40 percent had by what seemed like a neat solution to developed perfect pitch, whereas only 3 this question about where behavior percent of those who had started train- comes from. The suggested solution was ing after the age of nine possessed the provided by a measure called heritabili- ability. So early experience is also impor- ty. The concept of heritability is best il- tant. lustrated with an uncontroversial char- Like many other complex skills, mu- acteristic such as height, which clearly is sical ability develops over a prolonged influenced by both the individual’s fami- period; and the developmental process ly background (genetic influences) and does not suddenly stop at the end of nutrition (environmental influences). childhood. Expert pianists manage to The variation between individuals in maintain their high levels of musical height that is attributable to variation skill into old age despite the general in their genes may be expressed as a decline in their other faculties. They proportion of the total variation within achieve this through copious practice the population sampled. This index is throughout their adult life; the more fre- known as the heritability ratio. If people quent the practice, the smaller the age- differed in height solely because they related decline in musical skill. Practice differed genetically, the heritability of not only makes perfect, it maintains per- height would be 1.0; if, on the other fect. hand, variation in height arose entirely from individual differences in environ- Is it possible to calculate the relative mental factors such as nutrition, then contributions of genes and environment the heritability would be 0. to the development of behavioral pat- Calculating a single number to de- terns or psychological characteristics scribe the relative contributions of genes such as musical ability? Given the pas- and environment has obvious attrac- sion with which clever people have ar- tions. Estimates of heritability are of un- gued over the years that either the genes doubted value to animal breeders, for ex- or the environment are of crucial impor- ample. Given a standard set of environ- tance in development, it is not altogeth- mental conditions, the genetic strain to er surprising that the outcome of the which a pig belongs will predict its adult nature-nurture dispute has tended to body size better than other variables look like an insipid compromise be- such as the number of piglets in a sow’s tween the two extreme positions. In- litter. If the animal in question is a cow stead of asking whether behavior is and the breeder is interested in maxi- caused by genes or the environment, mizing its milk yield, then knowing that the question became: How much is due milk yield is highly heritable in a partic- to each? Within a single individual this ular strain of cows under standard rear- question cannot be answered, but it can ing conditions is important. be posed for a population of individuals Behind the deceptively plausible ratios as follows: How much of the variation lurk some fundamental problems. For a between individuals in a given charac- start, the heritability of any given char-

Dædalus Fall 2004 43 Patrick acteristic is not a ½xed and absolute clearly a fundamental property of being Bateson on quantity–tempted though many scien- human, and is one of the more obvious human tists have been to believe otherwise. Its biological differences between humans nature value depends on a number of variable and other great apes such as chimpan- factors, such as the particular population zees or gorillas. It obviously depends of individuals that has been sampled. heavily on genes, despite having a heri- For instance, if heights are measured tability of zero. A low heritability clearly only among people from affluent back- does not mean that development is unaf- grounds, then the total variation in fected by genes. height will be much smaller than if the If a population of individuals is sam- sample also includes people who are pled and the results show that one be- small because they have been under- havioral pattern has a higher heritability nourished. The heritability of height will than another, this merely indicates that consequently be larger in a population of the two behavioral patterns have devel- exclusively well-nourished people than oped in different ways. It does not mean it would be among people drawn from a that genes play a more important role in wider range of environments. Converse- the development of the behavioral pat- ly, if the heritability of height is based on tern with the higher heritability. Impor- a population with relatively similar tant environmental influences might genes–say, native Icelanders–then the have been relatively constant at the stage ½gure will be lower than if the popula- in development when the more heritable tion is genetically more heterogeneous; pattern would have been most strongly for example, if it includes both Iceland- affected by experience. ers and African Pygmies. Thus, attempts The most serious shortcoming of heri- to measure the relative contributions of tability estimates is that they rest on the genes and environment to a particular spurious assumption that genetic and characteristic are highly dependent on environmental influences are indepen- who is measured and under what condi- dent of one another and do not interact. tions. The calculation of heritability assumes Another problem with the heritability that the genetic and environmental ratio is that it says nothing about the contributions can simply be added to- ways in which genes and environment gether to obtain the total variation. In contribute to the biological and psycho- many cases this assumption is clearly logical processes involved in an individ- wrong. ual’s development. This point becomes One surprising conclusion to emerge obvious when considering the heritabili- from studies of identical twins is that ty of a characteristic such as ‘walking on twins reared apart are sometimes more two legs.’ Humans walk on less than two like each other than those reared togeth- legs only as a result of environmental er. To put it another way, rearing two influences such as war wounds, car acci- genetically identical individuals in the dents, disease, or exposure to terato- same environment can make them less genic toxins before birth. In other similar rather than more similar because words, all the variation within the hu- one of the twins is dominant to the oth- man population results from environ- er, entering the room ½rst and speaking mental influences, and consequently the for them both. This fact pleases neither heritability of walking on two legs is the extreme environmental determinist zero. And yet walking on two legs is nor the extreme genetic determinist.

44 Dædalus Fall 2004 The environmental determinist sup- ny scienti½c investigation of the ori- The origins A of human poses that twins reared apart must have gins of human behavioral differences differences different experiences and should there- eventually arrives at a conclusion that fore be more dissimilar in their behavior most nonscientists would probably than twins who grew up together in the have reached after only a few seconds’ same environment. The genetic deter- thought: genes and the environment minist does not expect to ½nd any be- both matter. How much each of them havioral differences between genetically matters de½es an easy answer, and we identical twins who have been reared to- have to accept that no simple formula gether. If they have had the same genes can solve that conundrum. We also have and the same environment, how can to wean ourselves away from the con- they be different? fused and utterly false idea that genes Siblings are less like each other than give rise to instincts and experience would be expected just by chance. The gives rise to acquired behavior. The an- child picks a niche for him or herself, not swer to the question of where knowl- on the basis of his own characteristics edge comes from will not emerge from but on what his siblings have done. Indi- the conventional opposition between vidual differences emerge because chil- nature and nurture. The answer requires dren are active agents in their own de- understanding of the biological and psy- velopment; children seek out their own chological processes that build a unique space. When Mary did well at art, her adult from a fertilized egg. younger sister Susan would not have As attention is focused on develop- anything to do with drawing or painting, ment of behavior, more and more will even though she would probably have be learned about the underlying process- been good at both. When Henry devel- es. My own view is that many of these oped a flair for history and languages, have regularities that will be amenable George inclined toward math and sci- to analysis. But it does not follow that as ence. Most parents with more than one these regularities are uncovered human child can tell such stories. behavior will become more predictable. Such interplay between siblings proba- To understand why, consider a rule- bly accounts for some of the influences governed game like chess. It is impossi- of birth order. Other things are also at ble to predict the course of a particular work, of course. Parents treat their suc- chess game from a knowledge of the cessive children differently–sometimes game’s rules. Chess players are con- deliberately, sometimes unwittingly. strained by the rules and the positions They often have a more taut relationship of the pieces, but they are also instru- with their ½rst child than with their mental in generating the positions to later-born children; they are usually which they must subsequently respond. more relaxed, positive, and con½dent The range of possible games is enor- with their subsequent children, and mous. The rules may be simple but the their preoccupation with every detail outcomes can be extremely complex. of their children’s behavior and appear- The adult human brain, on which its ance lessens. These examples emphasize owner’s behavior depends, has around how important it is that we look careful- one hundred thousand million (1011) ly at the transactions between the devel- neurons, each with hundreds or thou- oping child and the social and physical sands of connections to other neurons. A worlds in which he or she lives. diagram of even a tiny part of the brain’s

Dædalus Fall 2004 45 Patrick connections would look like an enor- rules influence the course of a life, but Bateson on mously complex version of a map of the they do not determine it. Like chess human New York subway system. The brain is players, children are active agents. They nature organized into subsystems, many of influence their environment and are in which are dedicated to different func- turn affected by what they have done. tions that may run separately but, if the Furthermore, children’s responses to behavior of the individual is not to be a new conditions will, like chess players’ mess, must be integrated with each oth- responses, be re½ned or embellished as er. The products of genes, the impact of children gather experience. Sometimes experience, and the resulting activities normal development of a particular abil- of neurons are all embedded in elaborate ity requires input from the environment networks. at a particular time; what happens next The idea that genes might be likened depends on the character of that input. to the blueprint of a building is hope- The upshot is that, despite their un- lessly misleading because the corre- derlying regularities, developmental spondences between plan and product processes seldom proceed in straight are not to be found. In a blueprint, the lines. Big changes in the environment mapping works both ways. In a ½nished may have no effect whatsoever, whereas house, the position of each room can be some small changes have big effects. The found on the blueprint, and the blue- only way to unravel this is to study what print indicates where every room will happens. be. This straightforward mapping is not true for genes and behavior, in either di- rection. The language of a gene for a par- ticular behavior pattern, so often used by scientists, is exceedingly muddling to the nonscientist (and, if the truth be told, to many scientists as well). This is because the phraseology seems to imply that the gene determines the characteris- tic of the behavior without anything else being important. What the scientists mean (or should mean) is that a genetic difference between two groups is associ- ated with a difference in behavior. They know perfectly well that other things are important and that, even in constant environmental conditions, the develop- mental outcome depends on the whole ‘gene team.’ Nevertheless, it is likely that order underlies even those learning processes that make people different from each other. Knowing something of the under- lying regularities in development does bring an understanding of what happens to the child as he or she grows up. The

46 Dædalus Fall 2004 Donald E. Brown

Human universals, human nature & human culture

Human universals–of which hun- and an inverse ratio between the fre- dreds have been identi½ed–consist of quency of use and the length of words; those features of culture, society, lan- in the social realm, universals include a guage, behavior, and mind that, so far as division of labor, social groups, age grad- the record has been examined, are found ing, the family, kinship systems, ethno- among all peoples known to ethnogra- centrism, play, exchange, cooperation, phy and history. After presenting some and reciprocity; in the behavioral realm, of the basic conceptions and problems universals include aggression, gestures, concerning such universals per se–their gossip, and facial expressions; in the kinds and causes and the methodologi- realm of the mind, universals include cal and disciplinary considerations that emotions, dichotomous thinking, wari- have shaped their study–I will explore ness around or fear of snakes, empathy, some of the issues in how human univer- and psychological defense mechanisms. sals relate to human nature and human Many universals do not fall neatly in- culture. to one or another of these conventional I will begin with some examples. In realms, but cut across them. Kinship ter- the cultural realm, human universals minologies (in English, the set of terms include myths, legends, daily routines, that includes ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ ‘brother,’ rules, concepts of luck and precedent, ‘sister,’ ‘cousin,’ etc.) are simultaneously body adornment, and the use and pro- social, cultural, and linguistic. The con- duction of tools; in the realm of lan- cept of property is social and cultural. guage, universals include grammar, pho- Revenge is both behavioral and social. nemes, polysemy, metonymy, antonyms, Lying and conversational turn-taking are simultaneously behavioral, social, and linguistic. Many behavioral univer- Donald E. Brown is professor emeritus of anthro- sals almost certainly have distinctive, pology at the University of California, Santa Bar- even dedicated, neural underpinnings, bara. His books include “Hierarchy, History, and and thus are universals of mind too. Human Nature: The Social Origins of Historical A distinction among universals that Consciousness” (1988) and “Human Universals” ½gures large in anthropological thought (1991). is that between ‘emic’ and ‘etic.’ These © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts words (derived from the linguistic terms & Sciences ‘phonemic’ and ‘phonetic’) distinguish

Dædalus Fall 2004 47 Donald E. features that are overtly or consciously er,’ ‘part/whole,’ etc.; everyone classi- Brown represented in a people’s own cultural ½es; everyone has likes and dislikes. on human conceptions from features that are pres- nature ent but not a part of the overt or con- It is important to distinguish between scious local cultural conceptions. Thus kinds of universals. The formally dis- every people has a language with gram- tinct kinds include absolute universals, mar, but not all peoples have an overt near universals, conditional universals, cultural representation of the idea of statistical universals, and universal grammar. Merely having grammar is an pools. etic fact. If it is culturally represented as The universals I listed at the start of well, then it is an emic fact too. Etically, this essay are absolute universals–they everyone has a blood type, but the cul- are found among all peoples known to tural practice of distinguishing between ethnography and history. A near univer- blood types (as in the case of those Jap- sal, by contrast, is one for which there anese beliefs that link blood type with are some few known exceptions or for marital compatibility) is far from uni- which there is reason to think there versal. Emic universals are probably might be some exceptions. Fire making much rarer than etic universals. and keeping domestic dogs are near uni- Many universals subdivide into yet versals, as there are good reports of a others. Thus tools are a universal, and very few peoples who used ½re but did so too are some general kinds of tools not know how to make it, or who did not (pounders, cutters, containers, etc.). The possess dogs. Many traits are described facial expression of emotion is a univer- as ‘universal or nearly universal’ to ex- sal, and so too are smiles, frowns, and press a note of caution (given the sam- other particular expressions. pling problems to be described below). While some universals are or seem to Thus the emphasis of percussion or be relatively simple, others are complex. deep-noted instruments and of the Ethnocentrism and romantic love are colors red, white, and black in rituals examples: both are best understood as around the world should probably be complexes or syndromes rather than described as ‘universal or nearly univer- simple traits or behaviors. sal.’ Many universals have a collective rath- A conditional universal (also called er than individual referent. Thus music an implicational universal) is an if-then and dance are found in all societies, but universal: if a particular condition is not all individuals dance or make music. met, then the trait in question always ac- Yet other universals are found in all companies it. Such universals are analo- (normal) individuals, although some- gous to the facultative adaptations of times only in one sex or the other or in evolutionary biology, of which callusing particular age ranges. Thus women ev- is an example: not all individuals have erywhere predominate in child-care and calluses, but if there is sustained friction on average are younger than their mates. on particular locations of the hand, say, Children everywhere acquire language then calluses develop. An example from with prodigious skill, but adults do not. culture of a conditional universal is that On the other hand, above the age of in- if there is a cultural preference for one fancy everyone employs gestures and hand over the other, then it will be the such elementary logical concepts as right hand that is preferred (as in West- ‘not,’ ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘kind of,’ ‘greater/less- ern culture, where the right hand is used

48 Dædalus Fall 2004 in greetings and taking oaths). It is the know the conditions in all societies, so Human rule or underlying causal mechanism any statement about universality is universals, human that is the real universal in such cases. based on some sort of sampling. In most nature & A statistical universal is one that may cases this sampling has not been rigor- human be far from absolutely universal but that ous. Furthermore, the precision with culture occurs in unrelated societies at a rate which a real or alleged universal has that seems well above chance. An exam- been described often leaves much to ple is the name different peoples give to be desired, in part because the original the pupil of the eye. In a surprisingly reports or descriptions were provided by large number of unrelated languages, it different observers, sometimes at widely is a term that refers to a little person; the spaced intervals in time. Thus the con- apparent explanation for this is the com- ½dence one can have in particular claims mon experience of seeing a small reflec- of universality is quite variable. Given tion of oneself in other people’s eyes. the costs involved in studying even a sin- Although it is something of a stretch to gle society, this range of problems will think of such phenomena as universals, persist. the explanation for them is drawn not However, it should be noted that a from cultural particularities but from sample as small as two societies–so long universal experience. as they are very different–can be highly A universal pool refers to those situa- suggestive. Thus one can view the docu- tions in which a limited set of options mentary ½lm First Contact and make ob- exhausts the possible variations from servations about what is common to two one society to another. The international highly diverse societies: one’s own mod- phonetic alphabet, which does not really ern society and a previously uncontacted cover all the possibilities, nonetheless highland New Guinean society. Austra- serves to express the idea: it consists of lian prospectors took the footage for this a ½nite possible set of speech sounds or documentary in the 1930s, when they sound contrasts, from which a selection were the ½rst outsiders to enter a high is found in each distinct language. An and isolated valley.2 The differences be- early-twentieth-century analysis of kin- tween the Australians and the isolated ship terminologies showed that a quite New Guineans are striking, and yet the small set of semantic contrasts accounts two groups also have a lot in common, for the differences in kin terms in all or much of which would be dif½cult to nearly all societies (a few further con- trace to cultural borrowing. trasts have been added since).1 Examples In spite of anthropology’s profession- of the semantic contrasts are sex, which al charge to study all cultures, which distinguishes ‘brother’ from ‘sister,’ uniquely quali½es the discipline to both ‘father’ from ‘mother,’ etc.; and genera- identify and verify universals, some an- tion, which distinguishes ‘son’ from thropological practices have not been ‘father,’ ‘father’ from ‘grandfather,’ etc. congenial to the study of universals. Notably, anthropological attention has There are severe methodological limi- been riveted more surely by differences tations on what can be known about uni- between societies than by their com- versals in general. No one can really 2 The making of this documentary is described 1 Alfred L. Kroeber, “Classi½catory Systems of in Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, First Con- Relationship,” Journal of the Royal Anthropologi- tact: New Guinea Highlanders Encounter the Out- cal Institute 39 (1909): 77–84. side World (New York: Penguin, 1987).

Dædalus Fall 2004 49 Donald E. monalities. Moreover, that attention has reflection of physical facts; and 3) the Brown on tended to be limited to surface or mani- operation, structure, and evolution of human fest universals, those readily available to the human mind. nature observation or readily expressed by their Some universals (the well-authenticat- informants. Innate universals have tend- ed examples are tool making, the use of ed to be neglected (in extreme cases, ½re, and cooking food) seem to have their existence was even denied). This existed in the very earliest human popu- neglect was to a large extent overt and lations and to have spread with humans principled, seeming to follow logically to all their subsequent habitats.3 from the view of culture that anthropol- As for the cultural reflection of physi- ogists held throughout much of the cal facts, I have already mentioned the twentieth century, a view that seemed case of terms for the pupil of the eye, as to be supported by exaggerated (and in well as the cultural preference for the some cases false) reports of the extraor- right hand, which probably reflects the dinary extent to which cultures both dif- observation that in all societies most fer from one another and yet decisively people are right-handed. I have also shape human behavior, a view that was mentioned kin terms, which everywhere construed to indicate that there must be reflect the relationships created through few, if any, universal features of the hu- sexual reproduction–parent-child, sib- man mind. As a result, the anthropologi- ling, and marital/mate relationships, as cal study of universals has been spotty at well as the various compounds of these best, uni½ed neither by theory nor by relationships. Kin terms often include sustained inquiry. There is thus ample more than, or sometimes partially omit, reason to suspect that a great many uni- what such relationships entail, but in versals have yet to be identi½ed. every language there is a substantial In contrast to anthropologists, psy- mapping of the locally named (emic) chologists have been much more open relationships onto the actual (etic) kin to the discovery of presumably universal relationships. In all these cases, the features of the human mind. But only ‘world out there,’ so to say, is reflected rarely have psychologists conducted in the cultural conceptions of each peo- their research outside the modernized ple–even though the reflections vary Western world, so the cross-cultural va- in many ways from one society to an- lidity of the numerous mental processes other. and traits they have identi½ed has often Finally, there are those universals been in doubt. Some cross-cultural re- whose causes lie more or less directly in search has indeed shown that psycholog- the nature of the human mind, or that ical phenomena that one might think are are features of the human mind. The lat- unaffected by cultural differences–the ter in turn trace causally to the evolu- of certain optical illusions, tionary past of humanity as a species. for example–are in fact not universal. These universals of mind require a more extended discussion. A relatively small number of causal processes or conditions appears to 3 It is sometimes suggested that there are some beliefs that have been with humans from the account for most if not all universals. earliest times not because they are obviously These processes or conditions are: 1) the useful, but because there was little or nothing diffusion of ancient, and generally very to expose their falsity and thus to hinder their useful, cultural traits; 2) the cultural spread.

50 Dædalus Fall 2004 Recalling what was said earlier about The concept of incest avoidance–a Human universals, disciplinary differences, it should be phenomenon now shown to be present human noted that those sociocultural anthro- in many animal species as well as hu- nature & pologists who are most quali½ed to doc- mans–is an evolution-minded rethink- human culture ument universals are not as a rule well ing of what had long been one of the quali½ed to explain them. By training, most frequently discussed and prototyp- most sociocultural anthropologists are ically cultural human universals: the neither psychologists nor biologists. But incest taboo. Similarly, most anthropolo- psychobiology and evolutionary psy- gists long recognized the sentiments chology surely are crucial in explaining generated by kinship and reciprocity as many innate universals (and in provid- universal, but they only received a sound ing guidance in the search for further theoretical understanding when evolu- such universals). The reasoning is sim- tionary biologists illuminated their cru- ple: whatever is constant through all hu- cial role in providing solutions to the man societies must be due to something Darwinian puzzle of how altruism could that goes with people wherever they go; evolve. that would certainly include human na- The determination and causal expla- ture–and psychobiology and evolution- nation of innate universals, predicted or ary psychology are the tools for under- illuminated by evolutionary theory, is standing human nature. probably the most active area in the Examples of universals of psyche or study of universals at present. But a pur- mind that have been identi½ed through suit of causation in the other direction broad cross-cultural studies are dichot- is vigorously underway too: since it fol- omization or binary discriminations, lows that features of human nature must emotions, classi½cation, elementary provide a continuous and pervasive logical concepts, psychological defense structuring of human thought and activ- mechanisms, ethnocentrism or in-group ity–and hence of society, culture, and bias, and reciprocity as a mechanism for history, however much variation they bonding individuals to one another. exhibit–the ½ndings of psychobiology Among the universals formulated and evolutionary psychology have clear more recently (and more tentatively) in implications for sociocultural particulars the light of psychological-evolutionary too. In the next section I will discuss propositions are a social-cheater-detect- analysis that involves partitioning or ing mechanism, a mental mechanism for breaking down sociocultural particulars thinking about ‘human kinds,’ and a into the universal elements of which facial-template-constructing mecha- they are compounds. nism that averages the facial features in the observable population as a baseline In turning now to culture in relation to calibration from which optimums of universals, I will ignore those universals attractiveness for each sex and age are that presumably are cultural (such as the calculated. Among the apparent projec- ancient and useful inventions and the tions from the latter mechanism is a cultural reflections) and will focus in- preference in males for skin colors in stead on those that are or may be innate females that are lighter than the observ- universals. Hereinafter, ‘universals’ will able average (because in the past relative refer to those only. lightness of skin correlated with female Anthropologists usually de½ne culture fecundity). in terms that distinguish it from nature,

Dædalus Fall 2004 51 Donald E. often in radical contrast: culture versus fects. The set of mental mechanisms Brown on nature. De½nitions of culture generally that comprise the human mind, and that human stress patterns of behavior, thought, feel- are thus fundamental to human nature, nature ing, and artifact that are passed on extra- were designed by natural selection to somatically from individual to individ- solve particular problems that were re- ual, group to group, generation to gener- current in our evolutionary past and that ation–meaning patterns that are not in are presumably ½nite in number. How- our genes, patterns that must be learned. ever, a mechanism designed to discharge In this vein, culture has often been asso- a particular function may have side ef- ciated with variability, indeterminacy, fects or by-products. Thus, the shape of arbitrariness–all in contrast to the ½xity the outer ear was designed to gather of nature. In extreme views, there is vir- sound waves but may also be used to tually no human nature: culture is the support glasses or pencils. The anthro- overwhelming determinant of human pologist Lawrence Hirschfeld has pro- behavior, and can be studied with little posed, on the basis of experimental evi- or no attention to the human mind. dence, that there is a mechanism in the Other de½nitions of culture correctly human mind dedicated to processing acknowledge a continuous intermixing information on human types, such as of culture with nature. The philosopher- kin types, the sexes, and occupational anthropologist David Bidney, for exam- types.5 While this mechanism must have ple, argued that culture should, at least evolved in conditions where racial dif- in part, be understood “as the dynamic ferentiation was rarely if ever perceived process and product of the self-cultiva- (due to the short distances our Stone tion of human nature.”4 Others speak of Age ancestors could have traveled), it culture within nature–that is, as a prod- has left the human mind effectively ‘pre- uct of human nature. Some see culture pared’ to think about races in particular as a control or correction of certain fea- ways. Thus racial thinking has flourished tures of human nature. Yet others see in recent times because it ‘parasitizes’ a culture as an extension of the human mechanism that was designed for other mind and body. purposes. There is good reason to distinguish the Human mental mechanisms are cultural in human affairs–but in almost numerous and their effects–which pre- everything that humans do it is as useful sumably include a great many emergent to insist on either culture or nature as the properties stemming from the interac- source as it is to insist that water is either tion of the various individual mecha- hydrogen or oxygen. nisms–are either potentially in½nite or But how can the constants of human in½nitely divisible. In spite of the in½nity nature be reconciled with the manifest of possible behavioral effects, the mech- variability of cultures or, for that matter, anisms leave traces of their existence: with the manifest variability of human some are relatively obvious (as in the behavior? Let me give ½ve answers. uniformity of smiles and frowns), some First, in any discussion of human possess enough observable irregularity nature a particularly crucial distinction to fuel the nature-nurture debates (as must be made between functions and ef- with many sex differences), and some 5 Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, Race in the Making: 4 David Bidney, “Human Nature and the Cul- Cognition, Culture, and the Child’s Construction of tural Process,” American Anthropologist 49 Human Kinds (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, (1947): 387. 1996).

52 Dædalus Fall 2004 reveal themselves only through unusual from one population to another. In this Human universals, observational situations (as in extensive context it is important to note that re- human cross-cultural comparison or in psycho- cent human environments, in almost all nature & logical experimentation). At any rate, parts of the world, present many condi- human culture the range of effects that may become tions that are quite unlike those that pre- culturally patterned is thus large. vailed over the long period in which Second, many mental mechanisms human nature evolved. Many modern motivate us toward goals (mating, in- behaviors–epidemic obesity in environ- gesting food, etc.), which we may meet ments rich in processed foods comes to through a potentially in½nite variety of mind as an example–may have their means. While the many means are ob- analogues more in the bizarre behaviors servable, the few goals must be inferred. of animals in zoos than in what the same The range of means that may become animals do in their natural habitats. culturally patterned is, again, large. Clearly, local environments account for Third, some mental mechanisms in- many of what are seen as cultural dis- volve calibration to environing condi- tinctions between one society and an- tions. The resulting behaviors are vari- other. able by design, though the underlying In sum, observable variation in behav- mechanism is unitary. These variable re- ior or culture is entirely compatible with sponses may well appear to be cultural. a panhuman design of the mind (bar- For example, as mentioned earlier, there ring, of course, sex and age differences is evidence to suggest that humans have that are equally likely to reflect evolu- an evolved mechanism for detecting and tionary design). preferring faces that are projections from the average of what one sees. Since Finally, let us return to the notion that that average may vary from one popula- innate human universals continuously tion to another, the resulting standards and pervasively structure human cul- of beauty would vary too, and this could ture. To the extent that this is so, we easily be interpreted as cultural differ- should be able to do a sort of back engi- ence. neering on features of society or culture Fourth, many adaptations may in that allows us to break them down into some circumstances conflict with each their component elements and to trace other, so that the resulting behaviors are their roots back to the aspects of human compromises. Purely local conditions nature that gave rise to them. What is may favor compromises in one direction the alternative, for example, to conclud- rather than another. Various peoples ing that writing, the printing press, the thus ignore the pangs of hunger and telegraph, the telephone, and the word thirst for a time, in order to maintain processor are extensions or augmenta- the approval of their fasting fellows. tions of speech? Fifth, as wondrously precise as genetic And what would be the alternative replication is, the genes that program explanation for literally millions of the structure and operation of our minds songs, poems, stories, and works of art, and bodies do so in interaction with the from many parts of the world and over genes’ environment, which can and does long periods of time, that celebrate the vary. This, in turn, results in structures attractions between men and women– and operations that differ in varying de- except the mind’s preoccupation with grees from one individual to another and the topic? Perhaps the entire cosmetics

Dædalus Fall 2004 53 Donald E. industry flows from the same cause. Brown on Ronald Hyam, a historian of colonial- human ism, has even argued that the sexual nature drive was as potent a motivator of colo- nialism as was economics.6 The virulent nationalisms and racisms of modern times may well be ‘hypertrophies’ of an ethnocentrism that for many millennia played itself out on a much smaller scale. What I believe was one of anthropolo- gy’s great achievements–an assembly of information about where and when cul- tural inventions arose around the world –appeared in Ralph Linton’s mid-centu- ry book on culture history, The Tree of Culture.7 Missing there, however, were the roots of that tree in human nature. The task of tracing those roots–in liter- ature, the arts, history, and human af- fairs in general–is now well begun. We can look forward to the time when a great many cultural features are traced beyond the time and place of their in- vention to the speci½c features of human nature that gave rise to them. The study of human universals will be an impor- tant component of that task.8

6 Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815 –1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (Lon- don: B. T. Batsford, 1976). See also Hyam, Em- pire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Man- chester: University of Manchester Press, 1990).

7 Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955).

8 This paper has bene½ted from comments by . References for the assertions made here may be found in Donald E. Brown, Human Universals (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991); Brown, “Human Nature and History,” History and Theory 38 (4) (1999): 138–157; Brown, “Human Universals and Their Impli- cations,” in Neil Roughley, ed., Being Humans: Anthropological Universality and Particularity in Transdisciplinary Perspectives (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 156–174.

54 Dædalus Fall 2004 Jonathan Haidt & Craig Joseph

Intuitive ethics: how innately prepared intuitions generate culturally variable virtues

Strangeness is fascinating. Medieval ments that arise in nearly all of them– maps embellished with fantastical for example, reciprocity, loyalty, respect beasts, sixteenth-century wonder cham- for (some) authority, limits on physical bers ½lled with natural and technological harm, and regulation of eating and sexu- marvels, even late-twentieth-century su- ality. What are we to make of this pat- permarket tabloids–all attest to the hu- tern of similarity within profound differ- man fascination with things that violate ence? Social scientists have traditionally our basic ideas about reality. The study taken two approaches. of morality and culture is therefore an The empiricist approach posits that intrinsically fascinating topic. People moral knowledge, moral beliefs, moral have created moralities as divergent action, and all the other stuff of moral- as those of Nazis and Quakers, head- ity are learned in childhood. There is hunters and Jains. And yet, when we no moral faculty or moral anything else look closely at the daily lives of people built into the human mind, although in divergent cultures, we can ½nd ele- there may be some innate learning mechanisms that enable the acquisition of later knowledge. To the extent that Jonathan Haidt is associate professor of social there are similarities across cultures, psychology at the University of Virginia. His re- they arise because all cultures face simi- search focuses on morality and emotion and how lar problems (e.g., how to divide power they vary across cultures. He is currently studying and resources, care for children, and re- the positive moral emotions, such as awe, admira- solve disputes) for which they have often tion, and moral elevation. In 2001 he was award- developed similar solutions. ed the Templeton Prize in . The nativist approach, on the other hand, holds that knowledge about such Craig Joseph is a postdoctoral research associate issues as fairness, harm, and respect for in the Committee on Human Development at the authority has been built into the human . His research focuses on the mind by evolution. All children who are of moral functioning and the raised in a reasonable environment will virtues, the psychology of political violence, and come to develop these ideas, even if they the adaptation of Muslim communities to life in are not taught by adults. To the extent the United States. that there are differences across cultures, © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts they arise because of local variation in & Sciences the implementation of universal moral

Dædalus Fall 2004 55 Jonathan knowledge (e.g., should relations among tionary psychologists, in contrast, work Haidt & siblings be guided by rank and respect mostly in the space between psychologi- Craig Joseph for elders, or by equality and reciproci- cal and biological levels of analysis. Hu- on ty?). man brains are obviously products of human We would like to take the opportunity natural selection, adapted to solve prob- nature afforded by this Dædalus issue on hu- lems that faced our hominid ancestors man nature to work through one aspect for millions of years. Since infant brains of the idea that morality is both innate hardly vary across cultures and races, it and learned. We are not going to offer a is reasonable to suppose that many psy- wishy-washy, split-the-difference ap- chological facts (e.g., emotions, motiva- proach. Rather, we will present a modi- tions, and ways of processing social in- ½ed nativist view that we believe fully formation) are part of the factory-in- respects the depth and importance of stalled equipment that evolution built cultural variation in morality. We will into us to solve those recurrent prob- do this by focusing attention on a here- lems. tofore ignored link: the link between in- So how can we get those working tuitions, especially a subset of intuitions down from sociological facts to connect that we argue are innate in important with those working up from biological respects, and virtues, which by and large facts? Where exactly should we drive are social constructions. the golden spike to link the two ap- We propose that human beings come proaches? The meeting point must equipped with an intuitive ethics, an in- be somewhere in the territory of psy- nate preparedness to feel flashes of ap- chology, and we suggest that the exact proval or disapproval toward certain pat- spot is the intuitions. Intuitions are the terns of events involving other human judgments, solutions, and ideas that pop beings. The four patterns for which we into consciousness without our being believe the evidence is best are those sur- aware of the mental processes that led to rounding suffering, hierarchy, reciproci- them. When you suddenly know the an- ty, and purity. These intuitions under- swer to a problem you’ve been mulling, gird the moral systems that cultures de- or when you know that you like some- velop, including their understandings one but can’t tell why, your knowledge of virtues and character. By recognizing is intuitive. Moral intuitions are a sub- that cultures build incommensurable class of intuitions, in which feelings of moralities on top of a foundation of approval or disapproval pop into aware- shared intuitions, we can develop new ness as we see or hear about something approaches to moral education and to someone did, or as we consider choices the moral conflicts that divide our di- for ourselves.1 verse society. Intuitions arise because the mind is composed of two distinct processing Anthropologists often begin with so- systems. Most of cognition can be re- ciological facts and then try to work ferred to as the intuitive, or automatic, down one level of analysis to psycholo- gy. Laws, customs, rituals, and norms 1 For more on moral intuition, see Jonathan obviously vary, and from that variation Haidt, “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral it is reasonable to conclude that many Judgment,” 108 (2001): 814 psychological facts, such as beliefs, val- –834; James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New ues, feelings, and habits, vary too. Evolu- York: Free Press, 1993).

56 Dædalus Fall 2004 system. The human mind, like animal of dilemmas changed over the years of Intuitive minds, does most of its work by auto- childhood and . ethics: how innately matic pattern matching and distributed Yet recent research in social psycholo- prepared processing. Our visual system, for exam- gy suggests that the responses to such intuitions generate ple, makes thousands of interpretations dilemmas mostly emerge from the intu- culturally each second, without any conscious ef- itive system: people have quick gut feel- variable fort or even awareness. It does this by ings that come into consciousness as virtues relying in part on built-in processing soon as a situation is presented to them. shortcuts, or (e.g., the as- Most decide within a second or two sumption that lines continue behind ob- whether Heinz should steal the drug. stacles that block parts of them), which Then when asked to explain their judg- are integrated with learned knowledge ments, people search for supporting ar- about the things in one’s visible world. guments and justi½cations using the rea- Analogously, many psychologists now soning system.3 As with the visual sys- believe that most social cognition occurs tem, we can’t know how we came to see rapidly, automatically, and effortlessly– something; we can only know that we in a word, intuitively–as our minds ap- see it. If you focus on the reasons people praise the people we encounter on such give for their judgments, you are study- features as attractiveness, threat, gender, ing the rational tail that got wagged by and status. The mind accomplishes this the emotional dog. by relying in part on heuristics, which We propose that intuition is a fertile are then integrated with learned facts but under-studied construct for research about the social world. on morality. It is here that we can ½nd a But human minds are unlike other ani- small number of basic units that might mal minds in having a well-developed underlie a great diversity of cultural second system in which processing oc- products. Analogous units comprise curs slowly, deliberately, and fully within our perceptual systems. Three kinds of conscious awareness. When you think in receptors in the skin (for pressure, tem- words or reason through a problem or perature, and pain) work together to work backward from a goal to your pres- give us our varied experiences of touch. ent position, you are using the reason- Five kinds of receptors on the tongue ing, or controlled, system. Most psycho- (for salt, sweet, bitter, sour, and, oddly, logical research on morality has looked glutamate) work together with our sense at deliberative moral reasoning, in part of smell to give us a great variety of gus- because it is so accessible. All you have tatory experiences. Might there be a few to do is ask someone, as Lawrence Kohl- different kinds of social receptors that berg did, “Do you think that Heinz form the foundation of our highly elab- should break into the pharmacy to steal orated and culturally diverse moral the drug to save his wife’s life?”2 Kohl- sense? berg developed a comprehensive ac- count of moral development by looking What can evolution put into a mind, at how people’s answers to these sorts and how does it put it there? Some have

2 , “Stage and Sequence: 3 See Haidt, “The Emotional Dog”; Richard E. The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to So- Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson, “Telling cialization,” in David A. Goslin, ed., Handbook More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on of Socialization Theory and Research (Chicago: Mental Processes,” Psychological Review 84 Rand McNally, 1969). (1977): 231–259.

Dædalus Fall 2004 57 Jonathan argued that the evolutionary process has ing blocks of morality that are visible Haidt & created innate knowledge of various in other primates.7 We began by simply Craig 4 Joseph kinds. For example, infants appear to listing the major kinds of social situa- on have hard-wired knowledge of faces and tions these ½ve authors said people (or human nature sweet tastes, because their brains come chimpanzees) react to with a clear evalu- equipped with cells and circuits that rec- ation as positive or negative. We then ognize them. But our more complex abil- tallied the number of ‘votes’ each item ities are often better described as a ‘pre- got, that is, the number of authors, out paredness’ to learn something. For ex- of the ½ve, who referred to it directly. ample, humans are born with few hard- The winners, showing up in all ½ve wired fears, but we come prepared to ac- works, were suffering/compassion, reci- quire certain fears easily (e.g., of snakes, procity/fairness, and hierarchy/respect. spiders, mice, open spaces), and cultures It seems that in all human cultures, in- vary in the degree to which they rein- dividuals often react with flashes of feel- force or oppose such fears. On the other ing linked to moral intuitions when they hand, it is very dif½cult to create a fear perceive certain events in their social of flowers, or even of such dangerous worlds: when they see others (particu- things as knives and ½re, because evolu- larly young others) suffering, and others tion did not ‘prepare’ our minds to learn causing that suffering; when they see such associations. others cheat or fail to repay favors; and So what moral intuitions might the when they see others who are disrespect- mind be prepared to develop? What are ful or who do not behave in a manner the patterns in the social world to which be½tting their status in the group. With human beings might easily come to react chimpanzees, these reactions occur with approval or disapproval? There is mostly in the individual that is directly more than one way to answer these harmed. The hallmark of human morali- questions; in this essay we take what ty is third-party concern: person A can might be called a meta-empirical ap- get angry at person B for what she did to proach, surveying works by a variety of person C. In fact, people love to exercise social scientists to locate a common core their third-party moral intuitions so of moral values, concerns, and issues. much that they pay money to see and We focused on ½ve works–two that hear stories about ½ctional strangers aim to describe what is universal,5 two who do bad things to each other. that describe what is culturally vari- The best way to understand our argu- able,6 and one that describes the build- ment is to begin with the notion of long- 4 For reviews see Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (New York: Viking, 2002); Jerome Barkow, Le- Cultural Replications,” Journal of Personality da Cosmides, and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted and 58 (1990): 878–891; Rich- Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation ard A. Shweder et al., “The ‘Big Three’ of Mo- of Culture (New York: Oxford, 1992). rality (Autonomy, Community, and Divinity) and the ‘Big Three’ Explanations of Suffering,” 5 Donald E. Brown, Human Universals (Phila- in Allan M. Brandt and , eds., Mo- delphia: Temple University Press, 1991); Alan P. rality and Health (New York: Routledge, 1997), Fiske, Structures of Social Life (New York: Free 119–169. Press, 1991). 7 Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of 6 Shalom H. Schwartz and Wolfgang Bilsky, Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals “Toward a Theory of the Universal Content (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and Structure of Values: Extensions and Cross- 1996).

58 Dædalus Fall 2004 Table 1 Intuitive Four moral modules and the emotions and virtues associated with them ethics: how innately prepared Suffering Hierarchy Reciprocity Purity intuitions generate Proper domain Suffering and Physical size and Cheating vs. cooper- People with diseases culturally (original triggers) vulnerability of strength, domination, ation in joint ven- or parasites, waste variable virtues one’s children and protection tures, food sharing products

Actual domain Baby seals, cartoon Bosses, gods Marital ½delity, Taboo ideas (modern examples) characters broken vending (communism, machines racism)

Characteristic Compassion Resentment vs. Anger/guilt vs. Disgust emotions respect/awe gratitude

Relevant virtues Kindness, Obedience, deference, Fairness, justice, Cleanliness, purity, compassion loyalty trustworthiness chastity standing adaptive challenges, and then particularly primates, reap the bene½ts to scan down each of the columns in ta- of cooperating with non-kin. Individuals ble 1. For example, the prolonged depen- who felt bad when they cheated, and dence characteristic of primates, espe- who were motivated to get revenge cially humans, made it necessary, or at when they were cheated, were able to least bene½cial, for mothers to detect engage successfully in more non-zero- signs of suffering and distress in their sum games with others.9 offspring. Mothers who were good at A useful set of terms for analyzing the detecting such signals went on to rear ways in which such abilities get built more surviving offspring, and over time into minds comes from recent research a communication system developed in into the modularity of mental function- which children’s stylized distress signals ing.10 An evolved cognitive module is a triggered maternal aid. Psychological preparation for hierarchy evolved to 9 See Robert L. Trivers, “The Evolution of Re- ciprocal Altruism,” Quarterly Review of Biology help animals living in social groups 46 (1971): 35–57; Robert Wright, NonZero: The make the most of their relative abilities Logic of Human Destiny (New York: Vintage, to dominate others. Given the unequal 2000). distribution of strength, skill, and luck, those individuals who had the right 10 Modularity was ½rst proposed for perceptu- al processes by Jerry Fodor, emotional reactions to play along suc- (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, 1983). However, cessfully and work their way up through more recent modularity theorists argue that the ranks did better than those who re- more flexible and only partially modularized fused to play a subordinate role or who cognitive systems play a role in most areas of failed to handle the perks of power higher cognition. See and Law- 8 rence A. Hirschfeld, “The Cognitive Founda- gracefully. Similarly, a readiness for tions of Cultural Stability and Diversity,” reciprocity evolved to help animals, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8 (2004): 40–46; , Adaptive Thinking: Rationality 8 Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics (New in the Real World (Oxford: Oxford University York: Harper & Row, 1982). Press, 2002).

Dædalus Fall 2004 59 Jonathan processing system that was designed to in most cases our moral modules are Haidt & triggered by minor events, by gossip, by Craig handle problems or opportunities that Joseph presented themselves for many genera- things we read in the newspaper, and we on tions in the ancestral environment of a do not truly get angry, or feel compas- human sion; we just feel small flashes of nature species. Modules are little bits of input- output programming, ways of enabling approval or disapproval. fast and automatic responses to speci½c For the three sets of moral intuitions environmental triggers. In this respect, we have examined so far, the persistent modules behave very much like what adaptive challenge is a social challenge. cognitive psychologists call heuristics, But there is an odd corner of moral life, shortcuts or rules of thumb that we of- odd at least for modern Westerners, who ten apply to get an approximate solution tend to think of morality as strictly con- quickly (and usually intuitively). cerned with how we treat other people. One useful distinction in the modular- That corner is the profound moraliza- ity literature is that between the proper tion of the body and bodily activities, and actual domains of a module. The such as menstruation, eating, bathing, proper domain is the set of speci½c sce- sex, and the handling of corpses. A great narios or stimuli that the module was deal of the moral law of Judaism, Hindu- evolved to handle. In the case of a suffer- ism, Islam, and many traditional socie- ing/compassion module, the proper ties is explicitly concerned with regulat- domain is the sight of one’s own child ing purity and pollution. showing the stereotypical signs of dis- Based on our research and that of oth- tress or fear. The proper domain may ers, we propose that culturally wide- have extended to distress shown by all spread concerns with purity and pollu- kin as well. The actual domain, in con- tion can be traced to a purity module trast, is the set of all things in the world evolved to deal with the adaptive chal- that now happen to trigger the module. lenges of life in a world full of dangerous This includes the suffering of other peo- microbes and parasites. The proper do- ple’s children, starving adults seen on main of the purity module is the set of television, images of baby seals being things that were associated with these clubbed to death, and our pet dogs that dangers in our evolutionary history, droop, mope, whine, and break our things like rotting corpses, excrement, hearts as we prepare to go off to work and scavenger animals. Such things, each morning. and people who come into contact with The concept of modules is helpful for them, trigger a fast, automatic feeling of thinking about moral intuitions. One disgust. Over time, this purity module possibility is that moral intuitions are and its affective output have been elabo- the output of a small set of modules. rated by many cultures into sets of rules, When a module takes the conduct or sometimes quite elaborate, regulating a character of another person as its input great many bodily functions and prac- and then emits a feeling of approval or tices, including diet and hygiene. Once disapproval, that output is a moral intu- norms were in place for such practices, ition. In strong cases, each of these mor- violations of those norms produced neg- al modules triggers a full-fledged emo- ative affective flashes, that is, moral tion: suffering triggers compassion; ar- intuitions.11 rogant behavior by subordinates triggers 11 For the complete story of how the actual do- contempt; cheating triggers anger. But main of disgust expanded into the social world,

60 Dædalus Fall 2004 Purity and pollution were important philosophical and psychological think- Intuitive ethics: how ideas in Europe from antiquity through ing about morality, namely, the area of innately the Victorian age, but they began to fade virtue theory. prepared as the twentieth century replaced them Virtue theorists are a contentious lot, intuitions generate with an increasingly medical and utili- but most would agree at least that vir- culturally tarian understanding of hygiene and an tues are characteristics of a person that variable increasing emphasis on personal liberty are morally praiseworthy. Virtues are virtues and privacy in regard to bodily matters. therefore traits as John Dewey conceived However, even contemporary American them–as dynamic patternings of per- college students, when we interview ception, emotion, judgment, and ac- them in our studies of moral judgment, tion.12 Virtues are social skills. To pos- will confess to feeling flashes of disgust sess a virtue is to have disciplined one’s and disapproval when asked about viola- faculties so they are fully and properly tions of purity taboos. Stories about eat- responsive to one’s local sociomoral ing one’s dead pet dog, about harmless context. To be kind, for example, is to cases of cannibalism, or even about ho- have a perceptual sensitivity to certain mosexuality may elicit feelings of dis- features of situations, including those gust, which the students attempt, often having to do with the well-being of comically, to justify afterward. The intu- others, and to be sensitive such that ition is produced by the module, but the those features have an appropriate culture does not support a purity-based impact on one’s and oth- morality anymore (at least for liberal er responses. To be courageous is to college students), so the students are left have a different kind of sensitivity and to struggle with the reasoning system to well-formedness of response; to be explain a judgment produced by the in- patient, still another. tuitive system. Virtues, on this understanding, are closely connected to the intuitive sys- Thus far, we have argued two points: tem. A virtuous person is one who has that much of mature moral functioning the proper automatic reactions to ethi- is intuitive rather than deliberative; and cally relevant events and states of affairs, that among our moral intuitions are a for example, another person’s suffering, small number that are primitive and in- an unfair distribution of a good, a dan- nate, or at least innately prepared. In ad- gerous but necessary mission. Part of the dition to reflecting persistent adaptive appeal of virtue theory has always been tasks in the human evolutionary past, that it sees morality as embodied in the these prepared intuitions influence mor- very structure of the self, not merely as al development and functioning by con- one of the activities of the self. Even Ar- straining our moral attention and laying istotle supposed that in developing the the foundation for the development of virtues we acquire a second nature, a re- other moral concepts. We will now link ½nement of our basic nature, an alter- these observations to another area of ation of our automatic responses. see Paul Rozin, Jonathan Haidt, and Clark R. 12 John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: McCauley, “Disgust,” in Michael Lewis and An Introduction to Social Psychology (New York: Jeanette M. Haviland-Jones, eds., Handbook of Holt, 1922). See also Paul M. Churchland, “To- Emotions, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, ward a Cognitive Neurobiology of the Moral 2000), 637–653. Virtues,” Topoi 17 (1998): 83–96.

Dædalus Fall 2004 61 Jonathan One of the crucial tenets of virtue the- then, moral maturity is a matter of Haidt & Craig ory is that the virtues are acquired achieving a comprehensive attunement Joseph inductively, that is, through the acqui- to the world, a set of highly sophisticat- on sition, mostly in childhood but also ed sensitivities embodied in the individ- human nature throughout the life course, of many ual virtues. Of course, reasoning and de- examples of a virtue in practice. Often liberation play important roles in this these examples come from the child’s conception as well; indeed, part of being everyday experience of construing, re- a virtuous person is being able to reason sponding, and getting feedback, but they in the right way about dif½cult situa- also come from the stories that permeate tions. But virtue theory is nevertheless the culture. Each of these examples con- a departure from theories of morality tains information about a number of as- that see deliberation as the basic moral pects of the situation, including the the psychological activity. protagonists’ motivations, the protago- nists’ state of being (suffering, disabled, We believe that virtue theories are the hostile, rich, etc.), the categorization of most psychologically sound approach to the situation, and the evaluation of the morality. Such theories ½t more neatly outcome offered by more experienced with what we know about moral devel- others. Only over time will the moral opment, judgment, and behavior than learner recognize what information is do theories that focus on moral reason- important to retain and what can be ing or on the acceptance of high-level safely disregarded. moral principles such as justice. But a As philosophers and cognitive scien- fundamental problem with many virtue tists have recently been arguing, with theories is they assume that virtues are respect both to morality and to cogni- learned exclusively from environmental tion more generally, this kind of learning inputs. They implicitly endorse the old cannot be replaced with top-down learn- behaviorist notion that if we could just ing, such as the acceptance of a rule or set up our environment properly, we principle and the deduction of speci½c could inculcate any virtue imaginable, responses from it. Interestingly, this as- even virtues such as ‘love all people pect of virtue theory shows Aristotle to equally’ and ‘be deferential to those have been a forerunner of the current who are smaller, younger, or weaker application of the neural network theory than you.’ Yet one of the deathblows to of morality that is being developed by behaviorism was the demonstration that Paul Churchland, Andy Clark, and oth- animals have constraints on learning: ers.13 In this model, the mind, like the some pairings of stimuli and responses brain itself, is a network that gets tuned are so heavily prepared that the animal up gradually by experience. With train- can learn them on a single training trial, ing, the mind does a progressively better while other associations go against the job of recognizing important patterns of animal’s nature and cannot be learned input and of responding with the appro- in thousands of trials. Virtue theories priate patterns of output. would thus be improved if they took For those who emphasize the impor- account of the kinds of virtues that ‘½t’ tance of virtues in moral functioning, with the human mind and of the kinds 13 See Larry May, Marilyn Friedman, and that do not. Virtues are indeed cultural Andy Clark, eds., Mind and Morals (Cambridge, achievements, but they are cultural Mass.: mit Press, 1997). achievements built on and partly con-

62 Dædalus Fall 2004 strained by deeply rooted preparedness- of affect when certain patterns are en- Intuitive ethics: how es to construe and respond to the social countered in the social world. A great innately world in particular ways. deal of cultural learning is required to prepared Aristotle himself recognized the con- respond to the actual domain that a par- intuitions generate straining effect of human beings’ em- ticular culture has created, but it may culturally bodied and situated nature on ethical take little or no learning to recognize variable experience. As Martha Nussbaum points cases at the heart of the proper domain virtues out, Aristotle de½ned virtues by refer- for each module (e.g., seeing the facial ence to universal features of human and bodily signals of distress in a child beings and their environments that or seeing a large male display signs of combine to de½ne spheres of human dominance and threat while staring experience in which we make normative down at you). appraisals of our own and others’ con- These flashes are the building blocks duct14–not unlike what above we called that make it easy for children to develop persistent adaptive challenges. Aristo- certain virtues and virtue concepts. For tle’s and Nussbaum’s approach is also a example, when we try to teach our chil- nativist one, albeit one that locates the dren virtues of kindness and compas- innate moral content in both the organ- sion, we commonly use stories about ism and the environment. Our four mean people who lack those virtues. modules of intuitive ethics are in a While hearing such stories children sense a pursuit of this Aristotelian feel sympathy for the victim and con- project. Like Aristotle, we are seeking demnation for the perpetrator. Adults a deeper structure to our moral func- cannot create such flashes out of thin tioning, though in the form of a smaller air; they can only put children into situ- number of phenomena that are located ations in which these flashes are likely more in the organism than in the envi- to happen. We should emphasize that a ronment. flash of intuition is not a virtue. But it is an essential tool in the construction of a Let us now link our account of moral virtue. intuitions with this account of virtues. Of course, it is possible to teach chil- Briefly, we propose that the human mind dren to be cruel to certain classes of peo- comes equipped with at least the four ple, but how would adults accomplish modules we describe above.15 These such training? Most likely by exploiting modules provide little more than flashes other moral modules. Racism, for exam- ple, can be taught by invoking the purity 14 Martha C. Nussbaum, “Non-Relative Vir- tues: An Aristotelian Approach,” in Martha C. module and triggering flashes of disgust Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, eds., The Quality at the ‘dirtiness’ of certain groups, or by of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, invoking the reciprocity module and 1993). triggering flashes of anger at the cheat- ing ways of a particular group (Hitler 15 There are probably many others. The best candidate for a ½fth might be an ‘ingroup’ mod- used both strategies against Jews). In ule whose proper domain is the boundaries of a this way, cultures can create variable co-residing kin group, and whose actual domain actual domains that are much broader now includes all the ethnic groups, teams, and than the universal proper domains for hobbyist gatherings that contribute to modern each module. identities. To the extent that people feel a bond of trust or loyalty toward strangers, the opera- A second way in which cultures vary is tion of a such an ingroup module seems likely. in their relative use of the four modules.

Dædalus Fall 2004 63 Jonathan In our own research we have found that ferent appropriate behaviors and Haidt & Craig American Muslims and American politi- responses. Joseph cal conservatives value virtues of kind- A fourth source of cultural variation is on ness, respect for authority, fairness, and the complex interactions that virtues can human nature spiritual purity. American liberals, how- generate, forming what one might call ever, rely more heavily on virtues rooted virtue complexes, which express a great in the suffering module (liberals have a deal of a society’s conception of human much keener ability to detect victimiza- nature and moral character. One excel- tion) and the reciprocity module (virtues lent example comes from Reynold A. of equality, rights, and fairness). For lib- Nicholson’s Literary History of the Arabs, erals, the conservative virtues of hierar- a masterful survey of pre-Islamic and chy and order seem too closely related to Islamic Arab culture. One of the moral oppression, and the conservative virtues concepts elucidated by Nicholson is that of purity seem to have too often been of hamasa, which is often glossed simply used to exclude or morally taint whole as ‘valor.’ Nicholson, however, de½nes it groups (e.g., blacks, homosexuals, sexu- this way: “‘Hamasa’ denotes the virtues ally active women).16 most highly prized by the Arabs–brav- A third way in which cultures diverge ery in battle, patience in misfortune, is in their assignment of very different persistence in revenge, protection of meanings and intuitive underpinnings to the weak and de½ance of the strong.”17 particular virtues. Take, for example, the There is no necessary connection be- virtue of loyalty. Certainly there is a dif- tween these qualities; one could imagine ference between loyalty to peers and someone brave in battle and protective friends on the one hand (that is, loyalty of the weak, but impatient in misfortune grounded in reciprocity intuitions), and and inclined to bide his time when chal- loyalty to chiefs, generals, and other su- lenged by someone stronger. But the periors (that is, loyalty in the context of point is that the Arabs do not imagine hierarchy), even though both have much this set of traits, or at least they do not in common. Similarly, the virtue of hon- award it their ultimate praise. Even if or can be incarnated as integrity (in reci- some virtues tend to go together across procity), as chivalry or masculine honor cultures, the virtue complexes that each more generally (in hierarchy), or as culture generates are likely to be unique. chastity or feminine honor (in purity). And temperance is one thing in the con- On the account we have sketched, text of reciprocity, where it may be es- morality is innate (as a small set of sential for the flourishing of the group modules) and socially constructed (as in conditions of scarcity, and something sets of interlocking virtues). It is cogni- quite different in the context of purity, tive (intuitions are pattern-recognition where it is often construed as a means of systems) and it is emotional (intuitions enlightenment or spiritual development. often launch moral emotions). But In each of these cases, different moral above all, morality is important to peo- underpinnings provide the virtue with ple in their daily lives, and to societies different eliciting conditions and dif- that seem forever to lament the declin- ing morals of today’s youth. We will 16 For a compatible and much more compre- hensive treatment see George Lakoff, Moral Pol- 17 Reynold A. Nicholson, A Literary History of itics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t the Arabs (Cambridge: Cambridge University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Press, 1930), 79.

64 Dædalus Fall 2004 therefore close with suggestions for diversity originates in political diversity. Intuitive On such currently divisive issues as gay ethics: how using intuitive ethics in moral education innately and in dealing with moral diversity. marriage, therapeutic cloning, and stem prepared Moral education, on our account, is cell research, liberals focus on promot- intuitions generate a matter of linking up the innate intu- ing individual welfare and individual culturally itions and virtues already learned with rights. Conservatives understand these variable a skill that one wants to encourage. Par- arguments, but they have a more multi- virtues ents and educators should therefore rec- vocal moral life, drawing on a wider set ognize the limits of the ‘direct route’ to of moral intuitions.18 They also have to moral education. It is helpful to espouse integrate their deeply intuitive aversion rules and principles, but only as an to ‘playing God’ and their more ½nely adjunct to more indirect approaches, honed and valued sense of disgust. Leon which include immersing children in Kass, President Bush’s bioethics advisor, environments that are rich in stories and for instance, bases his critique of human examples that adults interpret with emo- cloning in part on the fact that it offends tion. Those stories and examples should and repulses many people. He grants trigger the innate moral modules, if pos- that disgust is not by itself an argument, sible, and link them to broader virtues but he suggests that there is a form of and principles. Another indirect ap- wisdom in repugnance. “Shallow are proach involves arranging environments the souls that have forgotten how to so that messages about what is good and shudder,” he wrote.19 bad are consistent across sources (par- So how can we all get along in a moral- ents, teachers, television, movies, after- ly diverse society? The ½rst step is sim- school activities, etc.). Conservative par- ply to recognize that all sides in the de- ents who homeschool their children, bate are morally motivated. We tend to limit what they can watch on television, assume the worst about our opponents, and read to them from William Ben- to regard them as perfectly villainous. nett’s Book of Virtues are therefore likely But when liberals assume that conserva- to be successful in tuning up their chil- tives are motivated by little more than dren’s moral-perceptual systems in the hatred and bigotry, they show about as desired ways. Liberal parents who try much psychological insight as President not to ‘impose their morality’ on their Bush’s statement that the 9/11 hijackers children, by contrast, may well be disap- did what they did because they “hate our pointed by the results. Depriving chil- freedom.” Only when moral motives dren of frequent moral feedback, includ- are acknowledged can intelligent dis- ing displays of the parent’s moral emo- course begin. tions, or exposing them to many con- The second step is to try to frame ap- flicting messages, may deprive the intu- peals in language that may trigger new itive system of the experiences it needs intuitions on the other side. For exam- to properly tune up. If virtues are social ple, conservatives tend to value social skills, then moral education should be a order and stability; a concerted effort to comprehensive and sustained training show that gay marriage is about order regimen with regular feedback. and stability, that it’s about helping peo- Moral diversity, on our account, re- sults from differences in moral educa- 18 Lakoff, Moral Politics. tion and enculturation. As we suggested 19 Leon Kass, “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” above, one of the main sources of moral New Republic, 2 June 1997, 17–26.

Dædalus Fall 2004 65 Jonathan ple to form life-long commitments that Haidt & Craig will often create stability for children, Joseph may be more effective in changing hearts on and minds than the familiar arguments human nature about rights and fairness. It is our hope that a fuller understand- ing of the links between virtues and intuitions will lead to greater tolerance and respect–between liberals and con- servatives, between people of different nations, and, perhaps in the far distant future, between nativists and empiri- cists.

66 Dædalus Fall 2004 Vernon L. Smith

Human nature: an economic perspective

Fruitful social science must be very largely stitutes self-interest by observing hu- a study of what is not. mans in a variety of contexts than we –F. A. Hayek, Rules and Order have to teach using models based on tra- ditional assumptions about self-interest. This is because my half-century involve- An economist writing on the topic of ment in the development of experimen- human nature is surely expected to talk tal economics long ago revolutionized about decision making by narrowly self- the way I think about economics. Mar- interested rational agents. These agents ket and other group decision-making are assumed to choose among all possi- experiments have deepened my under- ble options the one that maximizes their standing and respect for the power of expected gain, de½ned variously as utili- human beings to create institutions that ty, pro½t, income, wealth, and so on, de- enable them to discover ingenious new pending upon the standard model in- ways to pursue and satisfy their inter- voked. Moreover, ceteris paribus, the par- ests. This creative process is neither de- ticular context of the decision is irrele- liberate nor consciously visible to the vant in the standard model. participants. But I will not be ful½lling such a sim- From an economist’s point of view, the plistic expectation; neither am I going to most compelling feature of human na- claim that people are not motivated by ture is sociality. It has been our species’ self-interest. In fact, on balance, I believe capacity for social exchange that has en- we have more to learn about what con- abled task specialization and the produc- tion above bare subsistence that has sup- Vernon L. Smith, professor of economics and law ported investment in the creation and at George Mason University, won the Nobel Prize utilization of knowledge. As can be seen in Economics in 2002. A Fellow of the American in the ethnographic record, in daily life, Academy since 1991, he has authored or coau- and in laboratory experiments, whether thored nine books and more than two hundred it is goods or favors that are exchanged, and ½fty articles on capital theory, ½nance, natu- exchange promises gains that humans ral resource economics, and experimental eco- seek relentlessly in all social interac- nomics. His most recent collection of papers is tions. Focusing on narrow, easily mod- “Bargaining and Market Behavior” (2000). eled, a priori conceptions of self-inter- est distracts us from this underlying © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts truth. & Sciences

Dædalus Fall 2004 67 Vernon L. Intellectually we economists have in take deliberate action to do good for oth- Smith many ways outgrown our roots in the ers. on human Scottish Enlightenment. We have far As Mandeville so ef½ciently stated it, nature more technical knowledge of the econo- “The worst of all the multitude did my than Adam Smith did. But while our something for the common good.”2 understanding of economics has grown Many contemporary scholars have mis- more sophisticated, we have abandoned, takenly reversed Mandeville’s proposi- forgotten, and failed to build upon some tion, arguing that the sssm requires, of Smith’s most signi½cant insights. As I justi½es, and promotes sel½sh behavior. shall endeavor to explain, this failure has That exclusively sel½sh behavior can been costly in diluting and blunting our yield bene½ts to others through ex- understanding of the foundations of our change in no sense allows us to conclude sociality. that the existence of social exchange and The good news, however, is that the its key role in increasing welfare necessi- insights of the Scottish intellectual tradi- tates such sel½sh behavior. That a (self- tion have reemerged in the study of mo- ish behavior in exchange) implies b tivated human behavior using the meth- (wealth bene½ts via specialization and ods of experimental economics, and in a markets) says nothing about whether or wide variety of applications of this tech- not b implies a. nology to the design of new resource- Cultures with evolved markets have management problems in the ½eld. This enormously expanded resource special- renaissance in research has enabled the ization and have created commensurate earlier traditions to be explored and ex- gains from exchange, and are wealthier tended with contemporary tools of in- than those that have not.3 This supports quiry, and promises to deepen our un- Smith’s fundamental two-part theorem derstanding of human sociality. that wealth is derived from specializa- tion–the division of labor–which in Adam Smith did not champion the turn is limited by the extent of the mar- standard socioeconomic science model ket. Thus, we have: sssm ( ) based on the self-interest as- exchange  specialization  wealth. sumption as it is used today by most economists. In Smith’s view, each indi- By Smith’s account, “This division vidual de½ned and pursued his own in- of labor . . . is not originally the effect terest in his own way. Indeed, Smith has of any human wisdom, which foresees been badly and repeatedly mischaracter- and intends that general opulence to ized with the title ‘economic man.’1 This which it gives occasion. It is the neces- label ignores his overriding moral con- sary, though very slow and gradual, con- cerns; it may prevent us from appreciat- sequence of a certain propensity in hu- ing the nuances of the key proposition man nature which has in view no such articulated by Smith and almost all the extensive utility; the propensity to truck, other Scottish philosophers: to do good for others does not require individuals to 2 See Bernard Mandeville’s poem, “The Grumbling Hive: or Knaves Turned Honest” 1 Cf F. A. Hayek, “Adam Smith (1723–1790): (1705), quoted in Hayek, “Adam Smith,” 82. His Message in Today’s Language,” in The Trend of Economic Thinking: Essays on Political Econo- 3 Gerald W. Scully, “The Institutional Frame- mists and Economic History (Chicago: University work and Economic Development,” Journal of of Chicago Press, 1991), 120. Political Economy 96 (3) (1988): 652–662.

68 Dædalus Fall 2004 barter, and exchange one thing for gains they enjoy from ordinary market Human another.”4 transactions prevent market exchange nature: an economic Individuals can use their increased from promoting specialization and cre- perspective wealth for consumption, investment, or ating wealth. gifts to the poor, the symphony, or the David Hume, Adam Smith’s Scottish Smithsonian. Markets economize on neighbor, was concerned with the limits the need for virtue, but they do not elim- of reason, the bounds on human under- inate it–indeed, markets depend on a standing, and with moderating the exag- modicum of virtuous behavior, if they gerated claims of Cartesian rationalists. are to avoid heavy monitoring and en- As F. A. Hayek has put it, “Descartes forcement costs. If monitored and exter- contended that all the useful human in- nally enforced rights can never cover stitutions were and ought to be [a] delib- every margin of decision, then–con- erate creation of conscious reason . . . a trary to the notion that markets depend capacity of the mind to arrive at the on sel½shness–opportunism in all rela- truth by a deductive process.”6 To tional contracting and exchange across Hume, by contrast, rationality was a time is a cost, not a bene½t, in achieving phenomenon that reason discovers in long-term value from trade. An ideology emergent institutions: “the rules of mo- of honesty means that people choose to rality . . . are not conclusions of reason.”7 play the game of trade rather than steal, Smith developed this concept of emer- although property crimes may well pay gent self-organizing order for econom- the rational lawbreaker.5 Nor does peo- ics. In this methodology, truth is discov- ple’s altruistic behavior in dispersing the ered in the form of the intelligence em- 4 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and bodied in rules and traditions that have Causes of the Wealth of Nations , ed. R. H. Camp- formed, inscrutably, out of the ancient bell and A. S. Skinner (Indianapolis: Liberty history of human social interactions. Fund, 1981), 20. Thus, when Smith uses the This is the antithesis of the anthropo- metaphor of the invisible hand, he is referring centric belief that if an observed social to the essential insight that people in markets achieve ends that are not part of their inten- mechanism like reciprocity or language tion; i.e., people achieve more ef½cient arrange- is functional, then somebody, some- ments induced by the specialization-exchange where, somehow must have invented it. nexus than is possible without that nexus. The I am not saying, however, that we can more common, inappropriate, interpretation do without a constructive sense of ra- is illustrated in the following quotation from tionality. Indeed, we employ rational Joseph Stiglitz (“Information and the Change in the Paradigm in Economics,” in Les Prix tools to formulate the hypotheses used Nobel, The Nobel Prizes 2001 [Stockholm: The to interpret observations alleged to arise Nobel Foundation, 2002], 472): “The argument from an emergent order. For example: of Adam Smith . . . that free markets led to ef½- individual families initially providing for cient outcomes, ‘as if by an invisible hand,’ has all their own consumption discover that played a central role in these [information eco- nomics] debates . . . . The set of ideas that I will they can gain by trading some of their present here undermines Smith’s theory and bumper corn crop for hogs to add to view of government that rested on it. They have suggested that the reason that the hand may be 6 F. A. Hayek, Studies in Philosophy, Politics and invisible is that it is simply not there–or at Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago least that it is palsied.” Press, 1967), 85.

5 Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in 7 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981). (London: Penguin Classics, 1985), vol. 2, 235.

Dædalus Fall 2004 69 Vernon L. their herd; from this experience they The common lawyer Sir Edward Coke Smith on learn that they can transform corn into championed seventeenth-century social human hogs more cheaply through trade than norms as law commanding higher au- nature through home production. As more and thority than the king. Remarkably, these more people specialize either in corn or forces prevailed, paving the way for the hogs and trade in this manner, the com- rule of law in England, which would be- munity becomes wealthier through come so essential to the development of greater individual wealth. This dynamic the American liberal social order. What could be a form of Smith’s “very slow allowed the rule of ‘natural’ or ‘found’ and gradual” process through which law to prevail in England “was the deep- people create unintended opulence and ly entrenched tradition of a common law then choose how to utilize that opu- that was not conceived as the product of lence. anyone’s will but rather as a barrier to all The durability of ancient Judeo-Chris- power, including that of the king–a tra- tian norms of social stability and the rule dition which Edward Coke was to de- of common law in England are dif½cult fend against King James I and Francis to fathom without the concept of an Bacon.”10 emergent evolutionary cultural order. The early lawgivers did not make the law According to David Hume, there are they presumed to give; they observed just “three fundamental laws of human social traditions, norms, and informal nature, that of the stability of possession, of rules and gave voice to them, as God’s, its transference by consent, and of the per- or natural, law: formance of promises. ’Tis on the strict observance of those three laws, that the all early “law-giving” consisted in efforts peace and security of human society en- to record and make known a law that was tirely depend; nor is there any possibili- conceived as unalterably given. A “legisla- ty of establishing a good correspondence tor” might endeavor to purge the law of among men, where these are neglected.” supposed corruptions, or to restore it to its If only we could have had a more widely pristine purity, but it was not thought that distributed appreciation of these princi- he could make new law . . . . But if nobody ples, and some operating knowledge of had the power or intention to change the how to implement them, in the rush to law . . . this does not mean that law did not liberalize the former Soviet Union. continue to develop.8 Hume’s insight is the foundation for I believe that Hayek’s interpretation ap- both personal exchange, based on small- plies well to what one ½nds in the ½rst group reciprocity, and impersonal ex- written law, Ur-Nammur’s Code. The change, through markets. Central to both Sumerian clay tablets containing laws kinds of exchange is what economic the- inscribed in cuneiform script that ap- b c peared by 2050 . . reflected the social mer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man’s Recorded History norms and practices already described (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania in Sumerian proverbs and fables.9 Press, 1981), 51–59, 116–131.

8 F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 10 Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, 85, 167, 1, Rules and Order (Chicago: University of 173–174. For a thoughtful examination and cri- Chicago Press, 1973), 81. tique of Hayek’s arguments, see Ronald Ha- mowy, “F. A. Hayek and the Common Law,” 9 Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Su- Cato Journal 23 (2) (Fall 2003): 241–264.

70 Dædalus Fall 2004 orists have traditionally called property Property rights mean that, one, if I Human nature: rights. As I use the term, a property right plant corn, then I have the right to har- an economic is a guarantee allowing actions to occur vest the yield of that corn, and therefore perspective within the opportunities and constraints the right to prevent an unauthorized de½ned by the right. Such human rights passerby from harvesting it; and, two, need have nothing to do with property if I use some of the income from the in the sense of land or physical assets. sale of that harvest to invest in more We automatically look to the state as the land, then I have the right to plant and guarantor against reprisal when rights harvest from that additional land. To be are exercised, but we also know that the ‘propertied’ is to have accumulated. To state can often be as much a part of the accumulate is to not consume all that my problem as of its solution. labor, and previous savings-investment, In any case, property rights predate has produced. This allows my accumula- nation-states. This is because social ex- tion to remain at work in society at large change within stateless tribes, and trade and for all others to bene½t from my between such tribes, predates the agri- capital investment. This is the basis for cultural revolution. Both social exchange all net wealth accumulation in society. and trade implicitly recognize mutual There can be no other basis. If there is any consensual rights to act when engaged abridgement of my right to so harvest in voluntarily and spontaneously. But and accumulate, then there is a direct how is it possible for property rights to abridgement of the right of all others to emerge without an external enforcement enjoy the bene½ts of my accumulation authority? Repeated exchange: if you and to a corresponding reduction in gather or grow grain, I husband goats, their poverty. and we trade our surpluses, then we each We should all love rich people, be- have a stake in the other’s rights to terri- cause they consume such a small per- tory and in a common emergent incen- centage of their accumulation, leaving tive to band together in defending those almost all of it to work in the economy rights. and make the rest of us better off. But Some political activists juxtapose rich or not, there are solid reasons why property rights and human rights as if it is good economics to love thy neigh- they were mutually exclusive phenome- bor as thyself: each of us bene½ts na. Those activists are sadly confused. through exchange from the utilization Property is that over which an individual of specialized knowledge possessed by human, or association of humans, exer- others. cises some recognized and sanctioned speci½c priority of action with respect to Since the pioneering work of Boas other humans. Only humans, not prop- over a century ago, the study of extant erty, can be recognized by a community hunter-gatherer tribal societies has as allowed to act without reprisal from made plain the sophistication and diver- others. Moreover, such rights must have sity of property rights throughout hu- stability over time if they are to enable man history. Of the hundreds of exam- production. ples that could be cited, I want to quote The essence of property rights is the one of my favorites, from Peter Freu- claim to the product of one’s own labor chen’s Book of the Eskimos. As you read it, and to the further productive yield gen- keep in mind Hume’s laws of human erated by the savings from that product. nature.

Dædalus Fall 2004 71 Vernon L. “A [polar] bear is so constructed that it this is the key condition–share equally Smith does not like to have spears in it,” say the on or more flexibly in the remaining rev- human [Inuit] Eskimos. As if to prove what they enue. nature say, the bear–as they run right up to the These deep ethical principles surface beast with their incredible courage and in laboratory experiments showing that hurl their puny weapons at it–takes the when there is no way to differentiate in- spears that have lodged deeply in its flesh dividual contributions, people support and breaks them as if they were match- the equal outcome rule. When contribu- sticks. tions can be differentiated, people tend . . . According to custom, all the hunters to prefer a rule that rewards in propor- present are to get parts in the quarry, in tion to individual contributions–more this case both of the meat and skin. There to those who sacri½ce more for the are three pairs of trousers in a bearskin. If group. The literature developing these there are more than three hunters present, social-psychological mainsprings of our the ones who threw their spears last will humanity goes back at least to George C. usually be generous enough to leave their Homans’s 1967 The Nature of Social Sci- parts of the skin to the others. The hunter ence, and has been widely examined and who ½xed his spear ½rst in the bear gets replicated in experiments. The point the upper part. That is the ½nest part, for that I cannot overemphasize is that we it includes the forelegs with the long mane are all a collage of the norms and rules hairs that are so much desired to border of human exchange, and that the rules women’s kamiks [boots] with. –which we do not observe consciously, . . . So the hunter measures with his whip and of whose work in enabling social handle from the neck down, and marks stability we are unaware–in turn de- the length of his own thighs on the skin pend upon context. and cuts off at that mark. The next hunter does likewise with the next piece, and the Imagine, now, that you have been re- third one gets the rest.11 cruited to our economics laboratory for In terms of social exchange and its an experiment. When you arrive, you are economic function (I do not deny, but paid $5 for appearing at the scheduled cannot here consider, other important time and place. You are escorted to a functions), I want to note that the Inuit computer terminal in a large room with ‘½rst harpoon’ property right norm is an roughly forty terminals, each at a work incentive rule that rewards the greater desk with partially enclosed sides to fa- risk and cost of being the ½rst to har- cilitate privacy. Others arrive and, when poon this incredibly dangerous prey. It all are seated, everyone reads through is an equal opportunity rule, not an the instructions on the monitor. You equal outcome rule, that evolved from are randomly paired with one other person whose identity you will never ancient prehistory. Any member of the 12 hunting team is free to go ½rst, pay the know. risk cost, and collect the higher revenue. 12 Sometimes two-person interactions similar All others, however, whose contribu- to this are conducted ‘double blind,’ meaning tions cannot be differentiated–and that the experimenter can never know who made what decisions. Introducing double-blind 11 Peter Freuchen, Book of the Eskimos (Cleve- procedures is a way of changing social distance land: World Publishing Company, 1961), by removing the experimenter and all others 53–54. from knowledge of the subjects’ decisions.

72 Dædalus Fall 2004 A sequential move procedure for two of persons 1 pass to their matched per- Human nature: persons is displayed on your computer son 2, and some two-thirds or more of an economic screen. In the experiment you will be persons 2 cooperate. For example, in perspective designated either as a person 1 or a per- one version, person 1 can choose ($10, son 2. If you are a person 1, you move $10) or pass to person 2, who chooses ½rst. You choose between two alterna- between ($15, $25) and ($0, $40). You tives: $20 for yourself and $20 for person might think that few will pass to person 2, or you can pass the decision on to per- 2, since it is in their interest to take the son 2. If you do not pass, the experiment $40. In fact, half of the undergraduate is over and you will each be paid $20. If subjects pass to person 2, and 75 percent you pass to person 2, he or she has two reciprocate with ($15, $25). Incidentally, alternatives: $25 for each ($25, $25) or the same fraction of graduate students $15 for person 1 and $30 for person 2 ($15, choose to pass if they are persons 1, and $30). All this is done privately to protect nearly as many, 67 percent, reciprocate. anonymity. Hence, cooperation can survive training If each is a narrowly self-interested in economics and game theory.14 ‘economic man,’ i.e., always chooses the larger of two amounts of money for Why do these experiments reveal so him or herself, and each believes that the much cooperation? other is similarly motivated, then per- Hypothesis I: people are altruistic; son 1 will look ahead in the decision se- they like to give money even to people quence and see that if he passes to per- they do not know and will never be able son 2, she will elect the outcome ($15, to identify. $30). Thus, person 1 will ‘rationally’ Hypothesis II: people tend to recip- choose to opt out with ($20, $20). This rocate; they like to ‘return the favor’ is the proffered equilibrium of the for- when others make choices that bene½t mal game when it is played once be- them. tween players who are strangers with How can we test, that is, discriminate, no history or future. between these two hypothetical expla- What do we observe? Among ½fty- nations? The reciprocity argument takes four subjects (twenty-seven pairs) re- into account that person 2 sees that per- cruited from the general undergraduate son 1 gave up the outcome ($20, $20). population, 63 percent of persons 1 pass Suppose therefore that we do the same to their matched person 2, while 37 per- experiment, except that we eliminate the cent choose the predicted equilibrium option in which person 1 may choose the ($20, $20). Of the persons 2 with the op- predicted equilibrium, and instead re- portunity to make a choice, 65 percent quire him to cede the choice to person 2. elect to cooperate ($25, $25), while 35 Economically, this means he incurs no percent choose to defect ($15, $30).13 opportunity cost; psychologically, this We have data from many of these trust means his ‘trust’ is now involuntary. game experiments with different payoff Then the entire game task reduces sim- outcomes; typically, about half or more ply to person 2 choosing between ($25,

13 Kevin A. McCabe, Mary Rigdon, and Ver- 14 Kevin A. McCabe and Vernon L. Smith, “A non L. Smith, “Positive Reciprocity and Inten- Comparison of Naïve and Sophisticated Subject tions in Trust Games,” Journal of Economic Be- Behavior with Game Theoretic Predictions,” havior and Organization 52 (October 2003): Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 267–275. (7) (2000): 3777–3781.

Dædalus Fall 2004 73 Vernon L. $25) and ($15, $30). Hypothesis I predicts fold increase, from other people. Kindness Smith is the parent of kindness.15 on no difference between the choices made by persons 2 in the ‘voluntary trust’ and human Most of my career has been devoted to nature ‘involuntary trust’ games. Hypothesis II, the experimental study of market and however, predicts that more persons 2 other exchange mechanisms with at will choose to maximize their own least four subjects. In one simple experi- reward. ment there were twenty-two subjects– Hypothesis II seems to be con½rmed ten buyers and twelve sellers.16 Privately experimentally. In twenty-seven pairs of each buyer was assigned a value, and subjects, all of whose persons 1 must each seller a cost. Unknown to everyone, involuntarily trust persons 2, we observe the demand schedule, de½ned by the set that only 33 percent of persons 2 choose of all buyers’ values ordered from high- the predicted equilibrium ($25, $25). In est to lowest, ran from $3.70 to $3.10. the voluntary trust case, person 2 implic- Also unknown to all, the supply sched- itly sees that person 1 has performed an ule, de½ned by the set of sellers’ costs action that enables person 2 to make him ordered from lowest to highest, ran from or herself better off, but also to ‘return $0.20 to $3.80. These schedules inter- the favor.’ In the involuntary case, no sected at a uniform clearing price of such interpretation of an implicit con- $3.40 and at a corresponding volume of tract is evident. nine units traded. Buyers earned a pro½t We interpret this behavior as driven given by the difference between their by the human propensity to engage in value and the purchase price from some exchange–in this context, personal ex- seller. Sellers earned a pro½t given by the change. What we learn from the experi- difference between their unit private ments is that this propensity is so strong cost and the price received. No subject that it survives anonymity in half or knew the de½ning economic environ- more of the participants in single-play ment, so each had to function entirely protocols; in repeat interaction, over 90 with only two pieces of information: the percent of the subjects are able to sustain personal private value (or cost); and the cooperative outcomes. public information generated by the Adam Smith would hardly have been open outcry of buyers’ bids and sellers’ surprised by these results: asking prices in a version of the trading Of all the persons . . . whom nature points mechanism known as the double auc- out for our peculiar bene½cence, there are tion–a two-sided generalization of the none to whom it seems more properly di- ancient progressive buyer-bid auction, rected than to those whose bene½cence we dating back to the Babylonians of 500 have ourselves already experienced. Na- b.c. and still used by auction houses to ture, . . . which formed men for their mutu- al kindness, so necessary for their happi- 15 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments ness, renders every man the peculiar ob- (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1976), 225. Notice ject of kindness, to the persons to whom that Smith is talking about reciprocity, but he himself has been kind . . . . No benevo- without using this word from our time. Then lent man ever lost altogether the fruits of he proceeds to talk about reputation formation and positive cultural responses. his benevolence. If he does not always gather them from the persons from whom 16 Vernon L. Smith, Papers in Experimental Eco- he ought to have gathered them, he sel- nomics (Cambridge: Cambridge University dom fails to gather them, and with a ten- Press, 1991).

74 Dædalus Fall 2004 vend collectables, tobacco, wool, and gate the dispersed private information Human nature: other commodities. possessed by their participants. The re- an economic All subjects hear (or see, in computer- sults are robust to variations in the sub- perspective based electronic auctions) the bids and ject pool, and many cross-cultural com- acceptances that yield the serial contract parisons have been made. prices. The competitive equilibrium clearing price and volume of trades, and Although Adam Smith recognized the their particular realization in this exam- phenomenon that we call reciprocity, he ple ($3.40, 9), are of course unknown to never realized that the personal senti- the subjects. Yet these simple markets ments he described in his ½rst book were converge across repeat trading periods a form of exchange functionally like the to approximately the ruling equilibrium markets whose consequences he spelled within two to ½ve periods (depending out so eloquently in his second book. He upon the thickness of the markets, the apparently did not see the unity between number of participants, and the parame- the two works based on a broader uni- ters of the supply/demand environ- versal conception of the “propensity to ment). The subjects deny, if asked, that truck, barter, and exchange.”18 any kind of quantitative model can pre- It was Hayek who saw clearly the ten- dict their ½nal price tendencies. They sion between the two orders of exchange also deny that each could be doing as and the cultural dangers that each posed well for him or herself as possible, given for the other: the restraining effects of what all others are doing. Yet these are precisely the we must constantly adjust our lives, our properties of the equilibrium to which thoughts and our emotions, in order to they have just converged in repeat inter- live simultaneously within different kinds action. The results have been replicated of orders according to different rules. If in many hundreds of experiments with a we were to apply the unmodi½ed, un- variety of different supply and demand curbed rules of the . . . small band or troop, schedules. These equilibrium observa- or . . . our families . . . to the [extended order tions also have been extended to far of cooperation through markets], as our more complex interdependent multiple- instincts and sentimental yearnings often commodity markets in which the costs make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet in one market depend upon the volume if we were to always apply the rules of the 17 extended order to our more intimate and price in the others. 19 These laboratory experiments have es- groupings, we would crush them. tablished that markets ef½ciently aggre- ics,” Grand Hotel Saltsjobaden, December 17 Arlington Williams, Vernon L. Smith, and 4–6, 2001. The effects of using different trad- John O. Ledyard, “Simultaneous Trading in ing institutions have also been extensively Two Competitive Markets,” manuscript (Bloo- explored; see Smith, Papers in Experimental mington: Indiana University Department of Economics. Economics, 1986); Arlington Williams, Vernon L. Smith, John O. Ledyard, and Steven Gjerstad, 18 See Vernon L. Smith, “The Two Faces of “Concurrent Trading in Two Experimental Adam Smith,” Southern Economic Associa- Markets with Demand Interdependence,” Jour- tion Distinguished Guest Lecture, Southern nal of Economic Theory 16 (2000): 511–528; Economic Journal 65 (1) (July 1998): 1–19. Charles Plott, “Equilibrium, Equilibration, In- formation and Multiple Markets: From Basic 19 F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (Chicago: Science to Institutional Design,” Nobel Sympo- University of Chicago Press, 1988), 18. The sium, “Behavioral and Experimental Econom- italics are Hayek’s.

Dædalus Fall 2004 75 Vernon L. Here is my interpretation of the prob- Hence, the understanding that can stem Smith on lem of living within two “kinds of or- from experiments that probe behavior in human ders according to different rules”: In arrangements that do not exist. nature the world of personal social exchange, If undeveloped economies based on which all of us live in no matter how personal exchange and local trade are to deeply involved we might be in special- grow wealth, the trust that supports pro- ization and markets, our experience is ductivity among people well known to that good comes from deliberate acts of each other must somehow be transferred good–sharing, kindness, and reciproci- to institutions that enable exchange and ty. “I owe you one” is a common human specialization to be extended to vast net- expression across many languages. works of strangers. One still must give in By contrast, the work that markets do order to receive through that extended and the unintended good we accomplish order, exactly as in traditional societies, through them is completely foreign to but through the intermediary of mone- our direct personal experience. There- tary and ½nancial institutions that dis- fore, it seems to us that we ought always connect individuals from the pervasive to be able to intervene, introduce con- bonds that traditionally held them in trols, and make them work for a greater mutual trust, respect, and dignity. Tak- good. But failing proof of ef½cacy, any ing is no longer plainly related to giving, such policy can so easily not result in and the rules of the market that bene½t improvement, and can yield unintended all by deepening specialization may con- consequences that make things worse. front, clash, and destroy the old con- Thus, restrictions that keep jobs from nectedness without making visible the being exported prevent domestic ½rms productively superior replacement con- from lowering cost to meet competition; nections. ½rms slip toward bankruptcy and the jobs are lost anyway, postponing the natural predilection of the economy to direct resources into new industries. Yesterday’s old economy jobs are arti½- cially retained by policy restrictions, blocking the channeling of funds into creating tomorrow’s new jobs and wealth. Political lobbies emerge from those wanting to protect their past; no lobbies emerge from those who will cre- ate the new products, technologies, and jobs–for they are part of what is not. If unintended outcomes are not plain- ly visible as part of our experience and are thus identi½ed as the result of our constructivist interventions, we fail to learn the great harm we have done. The value of all that is must derive from that which is not, from that which could have been. Understanding what is requires understanding what might have been.

76 Dædalus Fall 2004 Jerome Kagan

The uniquely human in human nature

We can describe an object by listing its such a comparative posture here and features, as manufacturers do when they describe seven psychological features provide a description of the parts of an that are either restricted to or enhanced assembly-required crib; or by compar- in humans compared with our closest ing the object with one from a related relatives, the chimpanzees. Four are of category, as parents do when they tell the ½rst category; the other three are their child that a zebra has stripes but quantitative enhancements on chim- a horse does not. Most answers to the panzee talents. question What is human nature? adopt The distinct psychological qualities this second strategy when they nominate of Homo sapiens are traceable to genetic the features that are either uniquely hu- changes that permitted the founder cells man or that are quantitative enhance- that become mature neurons to continue ments on the properties of apes. I adopt to divide for an extra seventy-two hours. Those additional cell divisions signi½- cantly expanded the size of the human Jerome Kagan, a Fellow of the American Acade- cortex and contributed to the novel cog- my since 1968 and chair of the Academy’s Com- nitive, emotional, and motor skills that mittee on Publications and Public Relations, is emerge in humans over the course of Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of development. Psychology and former codirector of the Mind- However, some scientists remain inex- Brain-Behavior Initiative at Harvard University. plicably resistant to acknowledging that His research has addressed cognitive and emotion- any human quality is unique. When a al development in children, with a special concern linguist claims that only humans have a for the role of the temperament in personality and language with a grammar, a scientist will in understanding of the moral emotions. His most reply that chimpanzees can be taught to recent book is “The Long Shadow of Tempera- communicate with pieces of plastic. Jane ment” (2004, written with Nancy Snidman). Goodall’s discovery that chimpanzees Some ideas in this essay were drawn from a use tools is celebrated because of its im- forthcoming book, “A Young Mind in a Grow- plication that my use of a hammer to ing Brain” (written with Norbert Herschkowitz), hang my granddaughter’s recent artwork to be published next year. on the wall is not fundamentally differ- ent from a chimpanzee’s use of a twig to © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts ferret out termites. But the modern syn- & Sciences

Dædalus Fall 2004 77 Jerome thesis in evolutionary biology does not tion of the adult’s gaze, indicating that Kagan demand that every feature that belongs they assume the adult is looking at the on human to a particular family, genus, or species place where the toy rests. Such an in- nature has a homologous structure or function ferential ability is necessary for feeling in a related taxon. empathy with another. The two-year-old who hears her mother scream in pain as Human and chimpanzee infants are she catches her hand in a closing door very similar to each other at the end of associates the scream with her memory the ½rst year. Both species locomote, of past painful experiences, relates the attend to unexpected or unfamiliar latter to the perception of distress in events, and remember where an attrac- the parent, and then announces with tive object disappeared ten seconds ear- her face and posture an empathic con- lier. However, only twenty-four months cern for the victim. The child may even later, children have diverged permanent- run to her mother to offer a reassuring ly from their primate relatives because embrace. maturational changes in the brain, in- Although chimpanzees occasionally formed by experience, have permitted track the gaze of another animal and ap- the development of four uniquely hu- pear to be able to infer that another can- man qualities. Children now infer varied not see a piece of food hidden behind a thoughts and feelings in others; use a barrier, they do not understand that an- symbolic language with a grammar and other animal intends to share informa- semantic categories for events that share tion with them. Chimpanzees watching no physical features (for example: milk, a human adult perform simple actions mother, and pink rabbits); understand with a tool and objects focus their at- the concepts of good, bad, right, and tention on the objects rather than the wrong, as well as experience a distinct adult’s movements, because they fail to feeling when they contemplate or vio- infer that the person’s manipulations are late an acquired prohibition; and be- guided by an intention and a plan. No come consciously aware of some of pair of juvenile or adult chimps would their intentions and feelings.1 I now throw a small ball back and forth be- consider these four functions in more tween them, because they are incapable detail. of appreciating that a partner intends to engage in a reciprocally cooperative act 1 that has no implication for the gaining The ability to infer the intentions, evalu- of food or protection. Every two-year- ations, and feelings of others is evident old child makes this simple assumption in an experiment where an adult hides automatically. a toy under one of three covers behind Humans feel uncertain when they in- a barrier so that the child cannot see fer that another person might harbor where the toy is hidden. If, after remov- undesirable thoughts about them; chim- ing the barrier, the adult directs her gaze panzees feel uncertain when they antici- toward the toy’s location, two-year-olds, pate actions another animal might direct but not one-year-olds, reach in the direc- at them. Doubt over whether another will regard one as dumb, disloyal, or 1 Jerome Kagan, The Second Year: The Emergence deviant is qualitatively different from of Self-Awareness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard doubt over whether another animal is University Press, 1981). about to attack, dominate, or seize a

78 Dædalus Fall 2004 piece of fruit. A major event in human their parent say “spider” as the latter The evolution was the replacement of a vig- points to an unfamiliar dark object on uniquely human in ilant posture toward the potentially top of a sandpile assume that the word human threatening actions of another with refers to the entire insect and not to its nature worry over the possible opinions of location, odd-looking appendages, or the another. sandpile. (The philosopher Willard van Orman Quine, who failed to acknowl- 2 edge this bias, wondered what a visitor Although apes can be taught, with con- to a foreign land would conclude about siderable training, to treat pieces of plas- the meaning of an unfamiliar word tic as symbolic of objects, no chimpan- when he heard a native say “Gavagai” zee comes close to the linguistic ability as a rabbit sprinted across the grass.) of the average four-year-old who uses A second bias is the assumption that language to represent abstract ideas. a word probably refers to a category of One four-year-old, on noting that her similar objects, rather than to the specif- dresses were closely packed in her closet, ic entity that is perceived. A child who said to her mother, “My dresses are hears the parent say “Look at the squir- friends.” The capacity to infer another’s rel” assumes that all objects with similar intention is exploited in the acquisition features have the same name. The third of language, for when a parent speaks to bias tempts young children to assume the child, the latter assumes the former initially that each object has only one intends to communicate information name. If three-year-olds hear an unfa- about the world. The acquisition of miliar word (for example, ‘goox’) in the semantic networks permits the inven- presence of both a cup and an unfamiliar tion of symbolic similarities among very object, they assume that the word must different physical events. Chimpanzees apply to the latter object. A student and children can detect a crescent shape baby-sitter reported that our three-year- shared by a slice of lemon and a new old daughter was puzzled when the stu- moon, but only the latter detect the sym- dent announced that she was planning bolic features shared by a cookie, a smil- to be a mother and a doctor. Fortunately, ing face, a pink sunset, and a curved geo- this third bias is tamed before children metric ½gure because of words that link enter school. these events in a semantic network for The universal emergence of language the concept ‘pleasing.’ in children with a healthy central nerv- The Ellen Markman has ous system exploits cognitive talents suggested that children begin the learn- that serve other purposes. These talents ing of language with the advantage of include selective attention to adults, three biologically based biases.2 The ½rst detection of low-level correlations be- is the assumption that when an adult tween events, sensitivity to physically speaks a word in the presence of an ob- distinct sounds (for example, the sound ject, the word probably applies to the ‘s’ at the end of a word to represent the whole object. Two-year-olds hearing English plural), the assumption that adults speaking to them are trying to 2 Ellen Markman, “Constraints on Word communicate information, and, ½nally, Learning,” in Megan R. Gunnar and Michael the ability to detect and invent similari- P. Maratsos, eds., Modularity and Constraints in Language and Cognition (Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erl- ties between the concepts that name baum Associates, 1992), 59–102. events as different as a fly and a tree.

Dædalus Fall 2004 79 Jerome Detection of consistency, as well as nyms also create dissonance (for exam- Kagan on inconsistency, in the semantic networks ple, “dogs are vegetables”). No current human that comprise a belief system is a salient explanation of this phenomenon is satis- nature human quality. It is not obvious why de- fying. tection of inconsistency among one’s Nonetheless, poets take advantage semantic networks evokes a subtle but of this property of mind, for they often nonetheless uncomfortable feeling. use semantic inconsistency to surprise Members of each language community readers in order to achieve an aesthetic have learned the transitional probabili- effect. Consider, for instance, the follow- ties between words in narratives, as well ing word pairs from the ½rst ½ve lines as the differential strengths of associa- of T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land”: tions between and among words. Most April-cruellest; Lilacs-dead; Memory- Americans expect the word ‘ago’ to fol- desire; Dull-spring; Winter-warm. The low ‘years,’ and respond with ‘moon’ ½nal verse of Dylan Thomas’s poem “If when asked to report the ½rst word they I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love” con- think of when they hear the word ‘sun.’ tains three perfect examples: Fear-apple; A violation of either probability elicits a Bad-Spring; Thistle-kiss. distinct brain response and a feeling that psychologists call cognitive dissonance. 3 This may be one reason why magicians Although Enlightenment commentators in ancient Greece used unfamiliar com- nominated language as the feature that binations of words in their incantations. best separated humans from animals, Use of the counterfactual in sentences the ancients thought that morality en- (“If the sun were to die tomorrow . . . ”) joyed that function. The author(s) of mutes the dissonance and allows the the tree of knowledge allegory in Gene- person to consider the possible conse- sis understood, long before Plato and quences of a low-probability event. It is Hume, that humans are distinguished by unlikely that chimpanzees imagine im- an obsessive concern with good and bad probable events, although this claim re- events and spend most of each day try- quires more proof. ing to gather evidence that af½rms their Some might argue that the uncertainty membership in the former category. created by cognitive dissonance is an in- Every human society has semantic herent property of the brain, analogous concepts for the ideas of good, bad, to the fact that dissonant musical chords right, and wrong, and most humans ex- produce an evoked potential in the perience a changed feeling when they cochlear nucleus that is distinctly differ- contemplate, or commit, a behavior that ent from that produced by consonant violates a standard they regard as proper. chords. The dissonant melodies provoke The anthropologist George Murdock four-month-old infants to turn away, once composed a list of sixty-seven fea- often with a facial expression of disgust. tures present in all cultures. Almost half A second view is that the uncertainty is of the features are ethical rules describ- built on early experiences of seeing that ing activities that ought or ought not an object cannot be simultaneously big to be displayed. “Know thyself” and and small, up and down, light and dark, “Nothing in excess,” statements in- or inside and outside a container. How- scribed at the oracle in Delphi, are ex- ever, this account does not explain why amples of two of the moral imperatives statements that do not contain anto- included in that list.

80 Dædalus Fall 2004 The argument that moral standards by the seventh or eighth year, motivates The uniquely derive from sensory pleasure and the re- humans to attain ideal forms. The ability human in duction of pain cannot explain why peo- to imagine the perfect parent, scientist, human ple become angry when they see strang- or friend requires a brain/mind that can nature ers violate standards they believe are generate cognitive representations of morally proper. Such acts provoke ob- what might be possible. Apes and hu- servers to question the correctness of mans create representations of experi- their moral commitments. Because these ences that are psychological averages beliefs are central to each day’s deci- of actual encounters. But only humans sions, their violation, even by a stranger, possess conceptions of the most perfect threatens the rational foundation of form for a particular class of experi- each observer’s conduct. No ape would ences. show signs of anger upon seeing an un- Although an understanding of right familiar animal take food from another, and wrong and a feeling of uncertainty as long as the victim was not a genetic over violating moral standards are pres- relative. ent by the third year, humans require The primatologist Frans de Waal tries an additional ten to twelve years before to persuade readers with anecdotes of they will feel morally obligated to hold a chimpanzee behavior that these animals consistent set of ethical beliefs. Adoles- possess rules and punish those who cents, but not ½ve-year-olds, wonder break them.3 De Waal concedes, howev- about their place in society, make plans er, that he has never seen a guilty chim- for the future, and integrate memories of panzee. It is unlikely he will ever see one, childhood with their current experience because guilt requires an agent to know in order to understand their life circum- that a voluntary act that could have been stances. suppressed has hurt another. Guilt re- quires the ability to reflect on a past ac- 4 tion that injured another in some way, to An acute consciousness of one’s feelings, realize that the behavior could have been intentions, and properties is a fourth inhibited, and to appreciate that the self unique quality of Homo sapiens. The was the cause of the ethical violation. term ‘consciousness’ probably does not Guilt is not a possible state for chim- name a unitary phenomenon, because panzees. the speci½c quality of consciousness, The extensive semantic networks for and its biological foundations, varies the concepts of ethical propriety and im- with the nature of the mental activity. propriety have three branches. One re- Moment-to-moment changes in sensa- fers to the actions that violate communi- tion that originate, for example, in the ty standards for appropriate behaviors taste of chocolate or the smell of per- that presumably apply to everyone. A fume, and which need not involve lan- second entails the ethical obligations guage, comprise one category. A special linked to the particular social categories area of prefrontal cortex that receives to which one’s self belongs (for example, sensory information represents one of most grandmothers believe they should the material bases for this form of con- be affectionate with their grandchil- sciousness, which we might call sensory dren). The third branch, which emerges awareness. 3 Frans de Waal, Good Natured (Cambridge, A second form, awareness of proper- Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). ties, is a consciousness of one’s physical

Dædalus Fall 2004 81 Jerome features, beliefs, talents, personality duce an adult action because they are Kagan on traits, moods, and social categories. The aware of having violated an adult expec- human awareness of being politically conserva- tation. By the third birthday, children nature tive, Methodist, and shy, for example, describe what they are doing as they are requires activation of a part of the cor- doing it because they are aware of their tex different from the circuits activated intentions. And by the fourth birthday, by the awareness of a toothache. The children regularly integrate the present awareness that one is about to imple- moment with their recollections of the ment or suppress an action, which re- past and begin to impose the interpreta- quires still another brain circuit, is a tions that Gazzaniga regards as an essen- third form of consciousness. The neuro- tial function of consciousness. Chim- scientist Michael Gazzaniga believes panzees might be aware of the taste of that a fourth form is the interpretation particular fruits, and of the patterns of of one’s feelings, , and ac- light and shadow on the forest floor, tions through the construction of a co- but it is unlikely they possess forms of herent explanation of the state of con- consciousness beyond the sensory. No sciousness at the moment. primatologist claims that apes reflect on Some might argue that even though their age or wonder whether they will be these phenomena recruit different brain able to control the number of offspring circuits, they share a common feature they will bring into the world. and therefore constitute a single pro- The combination of semantic net- cess. For example, a common set of hand works, an appreciation of right and muscles is used to pick up a cup, brush wrong, and conscious awareness of one’s teeth, or sign a check. Those who properties of self leads inevitably to believe in multiple forms of conscious- categorizations of self that have strong ness would claim that because the pro½le evaluative connotations. All adolescents of brain activity and the subjective state have learned semantic categories for are distinct for each form, it is reason- their gender, family name, and develop- able to reject the assertion of a single mental stage. Some add categories for state of awareness. A consciousness of their clan, caste, religion, or region of the smell of smoke from a bedroom, of residence. More important, all are aware a well-constructed argument, and of of the behaviors appropriate for each of the ½nger movements while playing the these categories, and feel obligated to piano are easily differentiated, both psy- maintain semantic consistency between chologically and neurobiologically. the features that de½ne the category, on Further, the four forms of conscious- the one hand, and their thoughts and ness may not have evolved at the same behaviors, on the other. Adolescent time, for they do not emerge simultane- boys assume they should not wear girls’ ously in the individual. The earliest signs clothes even if they have never done so, of awareness of sensory events appear in have never been punished for such ac- the ½rst year, before children are aware tions, nor have seen others criticized for of their symbolic features. It is not until this behavior. the second birthday that children smile The assignment of self to class, ethnic, following completion of a dif½cult task national, and religious semantic cate- because they are aware of having at- gories has a profound influence on hu- tained a goal, or lower their head in em- man emotions and behaviors. The writer barrassment when they cannot repro- Michael MacDonald, born to a very poor

82 Dædalus Fall 2004 Boston family, remembers in a memoir er, is de½ned by a particular social rela- The uniquely feeling proud of his Irish heritage when tionship between the self and another, human in his neighborhood resisted the judicial and includes the categories ‘friend,’ human decision to bus school children from ‘son,’ ‘daughter,’ ‘parent,’ ‘brother,’ and nature South Boston in the service of racial ‘sister.’ The ethical obligations linked to integration. Humans can feel shame, these categories (usually loyalty, affec- anxiety, or guilt if they think the com- tion, honesty, and nurture) are attached munity regards their family or any one to speci½c others. The social category of their social categories as possessing ‘friend,’ for example, applies to a speci½c undesirable qualities. Many adults born peer; hence, the obligations appropriate to Holocaust victims after 1945 carry a for one friend might differ from those burden of guilt or shame because of the appropriate for a different playmate. If a horrible atrocities experienced by their friend happens to be cautious much of parents. Many Americans felt a vicarious the time, a child will feel obligated to shame for their national category when dominate the dyad; but the same child they learned that American soldiers may feel obliged to display deference to a were destroying the homes of innocent different friend who likes to be dominat- Vietnamese. ing. The moral power of the self’s social Egalitarian societies try to award categories derives from the fact that the greater signi½cance to the ethical direc- child’s initial words are for observable tives tied to relational categories because objects and events that have stable, es- nominal ones imply differential status sential features. All objects called dogs and privilege. In order to derive pride should bark and have fur; if they do not, from a relational category, the individual they are less than ideal dogs. Thus, when must implement the obligatory actions. children learn the terms for social cate- Egalitarian societies want their members gories like ‘girl,’ ‘boy,’ ‘Palestinian,’ or to feel virtuous because of their achieve- ‘Hispanic,’ they are prepared to believe ments or benevolent behaviors toward that these words, too, name a set of in- others, not because they are members herent psychological characteristics be- of a particular group. longing to those in the category. Chil- Americans complain about the obvi- dren feel obligated to be loyal to the fea- ous increase in materialism in our socie- tures that de½ne the categories to which ty over the last half century. I suspect they belong, and experience as much that one important reason for the obses- cognitive dissonance if they stray from sion with accumulating clothes, cars, those obligations as they would if they homes, and winter cruises is that the hu- saw an animal without fur that never man moral sense requires knowing that barked that was called a dog. some actions, and the symbolic prizes There are two types of social cate- they may lead to, imply that one is more gories. Nominal categories, like gender virtuous than another. Meanwhile, our and stage of development, have relative- society’s desire to honor an egalitarian ly ½xed features and appear early in de- ethos requires a denial of special privi- velopment. The ethical obligations at- lege to some categories that, in earlier tached to these categories are not linked centuries, were more automatic sources to a speci½c other person and apply of virtue. Nineteenth-century white across a broad array of contexts. The Christian males whose fathers and second class of categories, acquired lat- grandfathers attended college could

Dædalus Fall 2004 83 Jerome reassure themselves of their virtue by seconds in a process called working Kagan on simply reminding themselves of their memory. Chimps possess a working human membership in this quartet of cate- memory, but its capacity is more limited. nature gories. The ethic of egalitarianism, on The ability to manipulate several ideas the other hand, denies the prize of self- simultaneously on the stage of working satisfaction to any nominal category. memory often leads to the detection of Every American must attain his or her novel relations among mental structures daily supply of virtue through personal or to an insight that reorganizes current accomplishments, through perfecting a understanding. Semantic networks were talent, establishing a relationship, or reshuffled when nineteenth-century acquiring status or wealth. Because gain- readers of Darwin’s Origin of Species be- ing wealth, which most believe requires gan to entertain the notion that humans effort and talent, seems to be a possibili- probably evolved from a primate ances- ty for most citizens, it has become a pri- tor. The automatic reshuffling of old as- mary symbol of virtue in contemporary sumptions permits one to avoid the un- America. If a person cannot use gender, easiness that follows recognition of a skin color, ethnicity, family pedigree, or logical inconsistency in related beliefs. occupation as a sign of worth, one of the few remaining symbols is the accumula- 6 tion of property. No goal as glittering as The human attraction to new experi- equality of dignity can be had without a ences also expands a primate compe- price. tence. Chimpanzees seek new fruits to eat, new places to rest, and new mating Humans, in addition, display three partners, but humans spend more time abilities that are quantitative enhance- than any other animal looking for unfa- ments on chimpanzee talents, rather miliar events that can be comprehended than unique characteristics: humans and new skills that can be mastered. No have a greater capacity to recall the past other primate would risk survival, and a and imagine the future, to seek novelty, curtailment of reproductive ½tness, by and to separate survival from inclusive climbing Mount Everest, parachuting ½tness. from a plane, or swimming across the English Channel. 5 The desire for and the ability to adapt Although apes can remember the past to novel conditions is due, in part, to the and anticipate the future, humans ex- structure of the human brain. The amyg- pand both timelines to distant horizons. dala, a small, almond-shaped structure Sixty-year-olds can recall their ½rst day with several neuronal clusters tucked in- at school and can anticipate what might side the temporal lobe, is an important occur two decades in the future when se- site responsive to unexpected or unfa- nility is imminent. There is no evidence, miliar events. When such experiences at least at present, that chimps sitting occur, excited neurons in the central nu- quietly on the forest floor can anticipate cleus of the amygdala send messages to or recollect events several decades be- bodily targets that lead to changes in fore or after the current moment. heart rate and body posture. Over the Human adults who hear a seven digit millions of years of evolution from telephone number for the ½rst time can mouse to human, the central nucleus be- hold it in awareness for as long as thirty came smaller. As a result, humans are

84 Dædalus Fall 2004 less likely than chimpanzees to become biological concept of inclusive ½tness, a The uniquely immobile or to experience a racing heart relative property, is de½ned by the repro- human in when they encounter an unfamiliar ductive success of each agent and all her human member of their species. When a mam- genetic relatives, compared with the suc- nature malian species is domesticated, not only cess of a related strain or species in the does the central nucleus become smaller, same ecological setting. but the snout (nose, mouth, and mandi- Survival to reproductive maturity is ble) becomes flatter because of the ac- usually positively correlated with inclu- tions of genes that control the migration sive ½tness in every species. But the in- and ½nal functions of a small necklace of vention of inexpensive, effective contra- cells, called the neural crest, that appears ceptives has allowed many human cou- during the ½rst six weeks following con- ples to limit the size of their family or, in ception. The human face is considerably some cases, to have no children at all. In- flatter than the face of a chimpanzee. creasing numbers of European, North The suggestion that humans are do- American, and Japanese couples are re- mesticated apes may strike some readers stricting the size of their families in or- as absurd, given the daily media an- der to gain signs of virtue through per- nouncements of murder, rape, and tor- sonal accomplishment, education, en- ture committed within our species. But hanced social status, and new sensory these cruelties, although horri½c, are delights. This decision is inconsistent statistically infrequent anomalies. If with the biological demand to maxi- one could sit atop Mount Olympus and mize inclusive ½tness. The historical count the number of acts of kindness, events of the past twenty thousand nurture, honesty, cooperation, civility, years created social conditions in eco- and affection, as well as the number of nomically developed societies that hostile, rude, dishonest, aggressive, or placed the almost conscious desire to violent behaviors that occurred across regard oneself as virtuous in competi- the world each day, the value of the for- tion with the silent, unconscious bio- mer would always be larger than that logical urge for inclusive ½tness. of the latter–a fact that is not true for The genome of contemporary hu- chimpanzees. mans is essentially the same as that of Still, the balance, even for human our founding ancestors. But the ½rst beings, may be shifting–not because modern humans, who appeared be- our species is innately vicious, but rather tween one hundred and one hundred because of the assumption, greatly rein- ½fty thousand years ago in a warm ecol- forced in modern societies after the sev- ogy, and whose social organization con- enteenth century, that one should only sisted of foraging bands of thirty to ½fty pursue individual rather than collective individuals, many of whom were geneti- goals. cally related, were cooperative with and loyal to their group.4 Successful adapta- 7 tion demanded the suppression of exces- This brings us to a ½nal quality, admit- sive competition, sel½shness, and self- tedly more controversial, that distin- aggrandizement. guishes humans from apes. We are the Even though the ½rst humans were only species that, during some historical perfectly capable of self-interest, un- eras, can dissociate survival to reproduc- 4 Peter Bogucki, The Origins of Human Society tive maturity from inclusive ½tness. The (Walden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999).

Dædalus Fall 2004 85 Jerome checked displays of this intention would pare Brontë with Bellow or Beckett. A Kagan on have provoked rejection, exile, or, in short story in The New Yorker in 2003 de- human some cases, murder. The gradual re- scribes a loving husband who, having nature placement of resource sharing and sup- reluctantly agreed to his wife’s request pression of an exuberant celebration of to perform euthanasia because of her the self with their opposites over the painful cancer, leaves her bedroom after past twenty thousand years required a the act, goes downstairs, and has sex number of events, but, especially, the with her best friend. The editors of the receding of the glaciers, which enabled magazine would not have published this the establishment of agriculture and the story if they thought their readers would growth of cities; and, more recently, dis- have found it offensive. I suspect that the tant communication through books, ra- editors of a comparable publication in dio, television, and the Internet; inex- Beijing or Cairo would not have accepted pensive and ef½cient forms of transpor- this story. tation and contraception; and the belief, Even though improved nutrition, pota- partially a product of science, that an ble water, ef½cient disposal of sewage, ethic demanding kindness, honesty, and and modern medicine have permitted a loyalty to non-kin could not be defend- longevity twice as long as the life span ed, on biological grounds, as having an a enjoyed by the foragers, survival is only priori validity. one component of inclusive ½tness; the In many parts of the industrialized number of healthy offspring is the more world these events have created a social important feature. History exploited the ambience characterized by geographical competences of self-awareness and a and psychological isolation from parents moral sense to allow some humans to and siblings; awareness of the economic dissociate survival from inclusive ½tness. circumstances of millions of strangers in Although Adam Smith believed that so- distant places; a larger status differential ciety would prosper if each individual within and among populations and, pursued his own interests ½rst, he was therefore, greater uncertainty over one’s equally certain that each person’s natu- relative status; decreased likelihood of ral concern for the opinions of others punishment for disloyalty to one’s pri- would effectively restrain unbridled self- mary groups; control of fertility; and the interest. Smith could not have imagined, legal protection of infants, children, and two hundred years after he wrote The the elderly with serious physical impedi- Wealth of Nations, that large numbers of ments. These characteristics are incon- humans would live in cities with mil- sistent with the original human tenden- lions of strangers to whom they were in- cy to place the vitality and potency of the different. Few chimpanzees could sur- group ahead of the psychological satis- vive under such conditions. factions of the individual. Most adults must bend their ethics a Celebrated novelists, poets, and play- little to permit the behaviors that the wrights are able to articulate the domi- shape of their social structure requires. nant moods within their societies. Con- If they resist, they can become vulnera- temporary Western writers who enjoy ble to corrosive tensions. A majority of the respect of discerning readers regular- North Americans and Europeans, and ly depict loneliness, sadness, cynicism, especially those who live and work in and lack of loyalty to lover, spouse, child, metropolitan areas, deal with strangers employer, aging parent, or nation–com- whom they suspect will lie, exploit them,

86 Dædalus Fall 2004 block access at crowded intersections, ture, humans need not feel ashamed of The uniquely and push ahead in long queues. Each in- their narcissism. However, anyone with human in dividual must rationalize a ready access a modest knowledge of animal behavior human to anger in order to resist exploitation and minimal inferential skill could ½nd nature and to protect property and dignity. examples of animal behavior that sup- Television plays dramatize how easily port almost any ethical message. Those rage can well up to force otherwise rea- who wish to sanctify marriage can point sonable people to behave in ways they to the pair-bonding of gibbons; those will regret, even though the characters who think in½delity is more natural can are usually forgiven if their intentions nominate chimpanzees. If one believes were not irredeemably evil. In order to that people are naturally sociable, cite rationalize the blizzard of cruelty, greed, baboons; if one thinks humans are soli- rudeness, and dishonesty, many have tary, focus on orangutans. If one wants come to believe that it is not always pos- mothers to care for their infants, rhesus sible, and probably not adaptive, to exert monkeys are the model; if one prefers continuous control over anger, cupidity, the father to be the primary caretaker, rivalry, and jealousy. Belief in this ra- point to titi monkeys. If one is certain tionalization mutes guilt and dilutes a that men should dominate harems of sense of personal responsibility for beautiful women, cite elephant seals; if harshly competitive attitudes that might one believes women should be in posi- hurt another. I suspect that the televi- tions of dominance, describe elephants. sion series The Sopranos owes its popular- Nature has enough diversity to ½t almost ity to the fact that most viewers will feel any ethical taste. morally arrogant because they are less Humans are sel½sh and generous, mean than the members of the Soprano aloof and empathic, hateful and loving, family. dishonest and honest, disloyal and loyal, The belief that anger, self-interest, cruel and kind, arrogant and humble; and competitiveness should not be sup- but most feel a little guilt over an exces- pressed because they are natural emo- sive display of the ½rst member of each tions has advantages in a society where a of these seven pairs. This feeling is un- large number of strangers must compete comfortable, and we are eager to have it for a small number of positions of digni- ameliorated. Confession or psychothera- ty, status, and economic security. Under py is effective for some, and it is likely these conditions, it seems rational to be that many adults feel better when they self-interested, and irrational to be too read that their less social urges are natu- cooperative, too loyal, or too altruistic. ral consequences of their phylogenetic history. The currently high status of the A rash of books published over the last biological sciences has made it possible twenty years claims that unconflicted for students of evolution to serve as sel½shness is to be expected given our therapists to the community. evolutionary history.5 After pointing to The psychological differences be- examples of self-interest in many animal tween the ½rst humans and contempo- species, these books imply that because rary members of our species are suf½- this motive is present throughout na- ciently dramatic to motivate a curiosity over whether the current motive hierar- 5 David P. Barash, Whisperings Within (London: chy of the latter group is a biologically Penguin, 1979). prepared propensity that has a natural

Dædalus Fall 2004 87 Jerome priority, or one demanded by the special Kagan on conditions history has created. human Most young monkeys in natural set- nature tings play with other monkeys. But rhesus monkey infants that have been taken from their mother early in life and placed with an inanimate wire ob- ject will sit crouched in a corner of a cage away from their peers.6 The capacity to crouch alone in a corner is inherent in the rhesus monkey genome, but actual- ization of that pro½le requires very un- usual and unnatural conditions. Thus, it is relevant to wonder whether the cur- rent prevalence of unconflicted self- interest in many industrialized soci- eties, like the rhesus monkey’s solitary crouched posture, must overcome a bio- logically stronger urge to be a loyal, co- operative, and trusting member of a sta- ble group that provides protection from external threat. Most species that violate their salient natural propensities risk a loss in inclu- sive ½tness. A warning may be hiding in this biological fact.

6 Harry F. Harlow and Margaret K. Harlow, “Social Deprivation in Monkeys,” Scienti½c American 207 (1962): 136–146.

88 Dædalus Fall 2004 Matt Ridley

The dna behind human nature: gene expression and the role of experience

The idiosyncrasies of one person can- wisdom was con½dently repeated as not be human nature, nor can a feature truth by scientists, journalists, and com- of human behavior that is merely typi- mentators: there were a hundred thou- cal of many animals, such as hunger. sand genes in the human genome, about Human nature must be the product of half of which were unique to the brain. a uniquely human, but near species- So widely was this ‘fact’ disseminated universal, combination of dna se- that it is hard now to discern its original quences suitably refracted through typ- source.1 But it was about as wrong as a ically human environmental experi- scienti½c assertion can be. We now know ences. that human beings have approximately Those sequences do not have to be twenty-½ve thousand genes (humiliat- only genes. Indeed, recent evidence sug- ingly, that is ½fteen thousand less than a gests that regulatory sequences, rather rice plant has); that most are expressed than coding sequences, may be the best in both the brain and the body; and that place to search for ‘human nature dna.’ very few indeed, perhaps none, are As Steven Pinker has pointed out, it is a unique to the human species. Not only historical accident, and the source of do mice also have twenty-½ve thousand much confusion, that genes are equated genes, but they have essentially the same with the genome by lay people but strict- twenty-½ve thousand. ly de½ned as protein-coding regions by Yet mice are not men. Something must molecular biologists. be different. The sequencing of genomes Right up until the sequencing of the has suggested a new hypothesis: that an- human genome, a piece of conventional imal evolution usually works not by in- venting new protein-coding genes (this appears to be commoner in plants), but Matt Ridley is the author of “The Red Queen: by altering the timing, intensity, and lo- Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature” (1993), cation of the expression of preexisting “The Origins of Virtue” (1996), “Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters” 1 See, for example, J. Madeleine Nash, “Fertile (1999), and “Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Expe- Minds,” Time 149 (5) (3 February 1997): “There dna rience, and What Makes Us Human” (2003). are only 100,000 genes in human . Even though half these genes–some 50,000–appear to be dedicated to constructing and maintain- © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts ing the nervous system.” & Sciences

Dædalus Fall 2004 89 Matt Ridley genes.2 For instance, the Hoxc8 gene es- in typical human behavior. This has an on human sentially tells a developing fetus where to unexpected bonus for scientists interest- nature grow a thorax with ribs. Hoxc8 is turned ed in human nature. It means that the on farther back in a chicken than in a discovery of a gene’s function in an ani- mouse, giving a chicken a longer neck. mal will almost certainly lead directly to It is turned on throughout the body of a the discovery of the same gene’s func- python, which is almost all thorax. Yet it tion in a human being. As our knowl- is essentially the same gene: equivalent edge of the genes that affect behavior is Hox genes can be swapped between ani- deepened by experiments in mice, as mal species and still work. Somewhere well as in dogs and other species with in each species’ dna are sequences that behaviorally distinct breeds, that knowl- cause slightly different tissue-speci½c edge will quickly and inevitably improve expression of Hoxc8.3 our understanding of human behavior, A literary analogy is helpful. Any two too. Of course, there will be differences, novels, say, David Copper½eld and The but discovering these differences will Catcher in the Rye, are written using itself be both easy and instructive. roughly the same set of words. Some Likewise, the source of genetic vari- words appear in one but not the other– ability in human nature among individ- ‘caul’ and ‘pettish’ appear in Dickens; ual people will be found mainly in se- ‘crap’ and ‘elevator’ appear in Salinger– quence differences that affect gene ex- but they are very few. The difference be- pression. It has been known since the tween the books’ plots lies in the order work of Jacques Monod and François and pattern of the words, not in the Jacob in the late 1950s that a gene is ex- words themselves. The difference be- pressed, or transcribed into messenger tween a man and a mouse lies in the or- rna, by the binding of a protein called a der and pattern of gene expression. And transcription factor to a promoter, a spe- that difference is achieved by variations cial sequence of bases usually found im- in the regulatory sequences of the ge- mediately upstream of the gene itself. nome (hereafter referred to as promot- Furthermore, a gene may be switched ers), of which more shortly. off by the binding of another protein to In this context, the genes that lie be- another sequence nearby. In some cases, hind human nature are universal to more than one protein must bind to the mammals, possibly to all animals, but dna before a gene is expressed, and the the pattern and timing of their expres- regulatory sequences may be spread out sion during normal development results over long stretches of dna–even longer than the gene itself. For example, the 2 Sean B. Carroll, “Endless Forms: The Evolu- ‘eve’ gene in fruit flies, whose job is to tion of Gene Regulation and Morphological control other genes during development, Diversity,” Cell 101 (6) (2000): 577–580. is switched on at least ten separate times 3 Heinz-Georg Belting, Cooduvalli S. Shashi- during development, and it has eight kant, and Frank H. Ruddle, “Modi½cation of separate regulatory sequences attached Expression and Cis-Regulation of Hoxc8 in the to it, three upstream of the gene and ½ve Evolution of Diverged Axial Morphology,” Pro- downstream. Each of these sequences ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95 (5) requires ten to ½fteen proteins to attach (1998): 2355–2360; Martin J. Cohn and Cheryll Tickle, “Developmental Basis of Limblessness to it to switch on expression of the eve and Axial Patterning in Snakes,” Nature 399 gene, and together they cover thousands (1999): 474–479. of letters of dna text. In different tis-

90 Dædalus Fall 2004 sues, different promoters and enhancers nature, because what it determines The dna (distant or downstream switches) are depends on what the organism experi- behind 4 human often used to express the gene. ences, and yet it is human nature to have nature This implies that many, perhaps most, a responsive creb gene that enables us of the interesting differences between a to learn.6 human being and a mouse, or between one human being and another, will be The twenty-½ve thousand genes in a found in the sequence of bases in pro- mammalian genome, played like a great moters, rather than in protein-coding piano by their many thousand promot- genes. Intriguingly, this hypothesis ers, and probably able to express at least opens the door for cultural and environ- three times as many proteins through al- mental influence, because the ef½cient ternative splicing, are amply capable of binding of transcription factors, and encoding a subtle and complex human therefore the expression of genes, can in nature throughout the tissues of a hun- some cases be altered by factors extrinsic dred-trillion-cell body, even without to the organism–by, in a word, experi- supposing a role for experience. There ence. Steroid hormones, for example, is no reason to assume that the ‘higher’ once they have formed a complex with and more peculiarly human faculties their receptors, act as transcription fac- such as intelligence, language, and social tors, activating or suppressing the ex- empathy are less influenced by genes pression of genes. So elevation of corti- than are features we normally think of sol–following the sensory detection of as more primitive, such as aggression or a stressful experience–can alter gene ex- hunger. pression, particularly in the immune sys- Here follow three genes that distin- tem. It indirectly reduces expression of guish human beings from other animals, Interleukin-2 and turns down the activi- not by their existence, but by their se- ty, number, and life span of lympho- quence–in either the coding or the reg- cytes.5 ulatory region–and by their pattern of Even more strikingly, it is now clear expression. The ½rst bears on intelli- that a genetic mechanism underlies the gence, the second on language learning, very un-hereditary process of forming the third on pair-bond formation–all new memories by associative learning. ‘higher’ human faculties. Such learning in flies, mice, and people The ½rst gene concerns the place consists mainly of changes in the expres- where human anatomy meets human sion of creb genes in response to expe- nature: brain structure. Having an un- rience. These changes result in shifts in usually large brain for its body size is the strength of particular synaptic con- characteristic of the human being. If the nections between neurons–and these gene expression theory is correct, this shifts are the manifestation of new feature should result from the differen- memories. It is clearly misleading to call tial expression or activity of a gene or the creb gene a determinant of human genes in human beings. One candidate 4 Mark Ptashne and Alexander Gann, Genes gene is already known, thanks to the and Signals (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold study by Geoffrey Woods and colleagues Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2002). 6 Josh Dubnau and Tim Tully, “Gene Discov- 5 Paul R. Martin, The Sickening Mind: Brain, Be- ery in Drosophila: New Insights for Learning haviour, Immunity and Disease (London: Harper- and Memory,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 21 Collins, 1997). (1998): 407–444.

Dædalus Fall 2004 91 Matt Ridley of inherited microcephaly in a group of make primates brainier than other on human inbreeding Kashmiri immigrants in mammals, but not to make human nature Bradford, England. Microcephaly is the beings brainier than other primates. development of a small but otherwise The search for the source of that differ- normal brain. ence has now turned to other genes af- Four separate mutations in the same fecting brain size. Yet the aspm story gene were found to be one cause of the serves as a strong reminder of just how condition. The gene, ½rst isolated in simple it might be for a species to ac- drosophila, is called aspm, for abnor- quire an increased brain size merely by mal spindle protein. Found on chromo- lengthening one gene with extra copies some 1, it is a gene that varies consider- of a motif. In this case, the change is ably in length between species, produc- not in a promoter but in the gene itself, ing a protein that is 1,186 amino acids resulting in a more active protein from long in nematode worms; 1,861 in fruit a longer gene. flies; 3,123 in mice; and 3,477 in human beings. This elongation is caused mainly The second gene affecting higher hu- by extra repetitions of a 75-base-pair man function concerns language. Hu- calmodulin-binding motif, which is man beings are not just chimpanzees repeated seventy-four times in human with bigger brains; they also have quali- beings, sixty-one in mice, twenty-four tatively different natures. Some differ- in flies, and twice in nematodes. (The ences of degree between human beings motif, by a happy accident, is called the and all other mammals are so wide that iq motif, after the ½rst two letters of its they qualify as differences in kind. One amino acid sequence, isoleucine and glu- such is language. The human capacity tamine.) It appears that the longer the for learning languages shows all the hall- protein, the more effective it is at assist- marks of an instinct underpinned by ing mitosis in neuronal stem cells in the genes: it emerges unbidden and shows developing brain. Since stem cells multi- universal similarities in all people. ply only for a set period during develop- Once again, the study of people with ment, faster mitosis will yield more neu- linguistic defects has led to insights into rons and a bigger brain.7 which genes are especially important in aspm is not in itself suf½cient to ex- differentiating human language skills plain the expansion in human brain size from other primates’ communication over the past ½ve million years, because talents. By examining an extended fami- all higher primates have approximately ly in which speech and language de½cits the same number of iq repeats in the are plainly inherited as a dominant al- gene.8 The gene may have altered to lele, Simon Fisher and Cecilia Lai found a candidate gene, called , on chro- 7 Jacquelyn Bond, Emma Roberts, Ganesh H. mosome 7.9 Other cases now con½rm Mochida, Daniel J. Hampshire, Sheila Scott, foxp Jonathan M. Askham, Kelly Springell, Meera that lack of a functional form of 2 Mahadevan, Yanick J. Crow, Alexander F. seems to impair learning that uses senso- Markham, Christopher A. Walsh, and C. Geof- ry feedback to alter the circuitry in the frey Woods, “aspm Is a Major Determinant of brain to lay down new sequences of Cerebral Cortical Size,” Nature Genetics 32 (2) (2002): 316–320. 9 Cecilia S. L. Lai, Simon E. Fisher, et al., “A Forkhead-Domain Gene is Mutated in a Severe 8 C. Geoffrey Woods, personal communica- Speech and Language Disorder,” Nature 413 tion, March 2004. (2001): 519–523.

92 Dædalus Fall 2004 orofacial gestures and new memories hundred thirty thousand years ago, the The dna behind thereof. time when long-distance trade was de½- human How might foxp2 do this? Fox, or nitely established.11 Some small band of nature forkhead box, genes are transcription African human beings apparently took factors whose job seems to be to activate over the world starting at this time, and or repress transcription of other genes. we are all their descendants. They are universal to animals and fungi. Of course, there is no direct evidence In mammals, which have at least forty that foxp2 was anything other than a Fox genes, foxp2 shows remarkably fortunate bystander at this revolution, little variation between species. Of 136 and even if it did play a role, it has plenty nucleotide substitutions in the gene of other functions in the body besides between chimpanzee and mouse, only facilitating language–it is expressed in one alters the amino acid sequence of the lung, for example. But it is also ex- the protein; the rest are synonymous. pressed during early development in Since the common human-chimp ances- those parts of the brain crucial to tor, however, there have been two speech. People with mutated foxp2 amino-acid-altering changes, making genes show under-activation of Broca’s the human foxp2 protein stand out speech area when engaged in linguistic from all other mammal versions so far tasks, implying that some de½ciency in studied. And all but a very few human the structure of that part of the brain re- beings have identical versions of sulted from that mutation.12 foxp2.10 Birds have a FoxP2 gene that is surpris- Moreover, a study by Svante Pääbo ingly similar to that of mammals, given and colleagues of the number and pat- the evolutionary distance between the tern of silent substitutions in noncoding two classes, which suggests extreme dna nearby seems to show that the two conservation or convergent evolution.13 mutations were involved in a selective This gene (and another, FoxP1) is ex- sweep about two hundred thousand pressed especially strongly in male song- years ago, during which they elbowed birds in the striatal nucleus known as aside all other versions of the gene, pre- Area X–part of the ‘song circuit.’ For sumably as a result of natural selection. instance, expression here rises during This date is intriguing because it does the period when young zebra ½nches not predate by much the Upper Pale- learn their songs and during the season olithic Revolution in Africa and, there- when adult canary songs become unsta- fore, possibly the beginning of symbolic 11 Sally McBrearty and Alison S. Brooks, “The communication and modern language, Revolution That Wasn’t: A New Interpretation according to physical anthropologists. of the Origin of Modern Human Behaviour,” After a million years of technological Journal of Human Evolution 39 (2000): 453–563. stasis, there was sudden and cumulative cultural change–new tools, artifacts, 12 Gary F. Marcus and Simon E. Fisher, “foxp2 in Focus: What Can Genes Tell Us pigments, trade–some time before one About Speech and Language?” Trends in Cog- nitive Sciences 7 (2003): 257–262. 10 Wolfgang Enard, Molly Przeworski, Simon E. Fisher, Cecilia S. L. Lai, Victor Wiebe, Ta- 13 Note that the current convention is to ex- kashi Kitano, Anthony P. Monaco, and Svante press the names of human genes in uppercase Pääbo, “Molecular Evolution of foxp2, a Gene letters, mouse genes in lowercase letters, and Involved in Speech and Language,” Nature 418 bird genes in a mixture of the two. This absurd (2002): 869–872. system cannot last.

Dædalus Fall 2004 93 Matt Ridley ble. Both these results hint that FoxP2 genes can affect ‘higher’ behavioral traits on human expression is somehow vital to the laying in predictable ways, is well supported. nature down of new vocal procedures in birds’ brains.14 The third gene that affects a human Assuming human foxp2 does alter trait concerns love. One way in which the development of Broca’s area in such human beings differ markedly from a way as to facilitate the learning of lan- their closest evolutionary relatives, the guage, there is an obvious problem. The chimp and the bonobo, is in habitually ½rst human being with a modern foxp2, forming long-term pair bonds. These are somewhere in Africa two hundred thou- so intrinsic to human nature that they sand years ago, would have been in the form even in libertarian communes that same ½x as Victor of Aveyron, Kaspar expressly try to outlaw them. Of course Hauser of Nuremberg, or Genie of Los not all human beings form long-term or Angeles–children reared largely in iso- exclusive pair bonds, but human beings lation from spoken language until their show all the hallmarks of a long-bonding teens and who thus missed the critical species: sexual jealousy, paternal care, period when the brain is most open to sexual division of labor, etc. Chimpan- language learning. He or she would have zees and bonobos, on the other hand, developed little of his or her full linguis- maintain only brief pair bonds that do tic potential. However, once there were not last longer than the estrus period of several children with the new gene, a the female, if that.15 sort of bootstrapping might have been In this respect, human beings resem- possible as they practiced their language ble prairie voles and chimpanzees re- skills among themselves; something semble montane voles, two equally similar happened in Nicaragua in 1979 closely related species that also differ when deaf children were suddenly in mating systems. The control of pair- brought together in one school and bonding in voles is now well understood. spontaneously developed their own Cre- In both sexes in both species of vole, sex- ole sign language. Then each generation ual intercourse stimulates the release of would have added to the complexity, and the small peptide hormones oxytocin within a few generations this chattering and vasopressin in the brain. Injecting group of people would have been capa- the hormones into the brain brings on ble of feats of planning and organization pairing behavior in prairie voles but not foreign to their fellow human beings. in montane voles. Increasing the expres- I repeat: it is highly implausible that sion of the receptor genes also makes changes in foxp2 alone made language prairie voles quicker to form pair possible. Rather, it was probably one bonds.16 of many genetic changes that helped improve the emerging communication 15 Matt Ridley, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evo- skills of proto-people. But the principle, lution of Human Nature (New York: Penguin, that species-wide changes in single 1995).

14 Sebastian Haesler, Kazuhiro Wada, A. 16 Expressing the prairie-vole version of the Nshdejan, Edward E. Morrisey, Thierry Lints, gene in a mouse markedly increases its social- Eric D. Jarvis, and Constance Scharff, “FoxP2 af½liation behavior. See Thomas R. Insel and Expression in Avian Vocal Learners and Non- Larry J. Young, “The Neurobiology of Attach- Learners,” Journal of Neuroscience 24 (2004): ment,” Nature Reviews in Neuroscience 2 (2001): 3164–3175. 129–136.

94 Dædalus Fall 2004 Receptors for these hormones are dis- genes’ at all would have been astonish- The dna behind tributed differently in the brains of the ing, not to say heretical, but people such human two species. In prairie voles, the recep- as Benson Ginsburg working with mice nature tors are found in the nucleus acumbens and Seymour Benzer with flies soon es- (oxytocin) and the ventral pallidum (va- tablished that behavioral mutants could sopressin). These brain areas contain a be produced just as easily as anatomical dopamine system that is responsible for mutants. The unexpected similarity of addictive behavior. A prairie vole there- human and animal genomes has now fore becomes ‘socially addicted’ to its made it possible to study in other spe- mate following sex. A montane vole does cies the evolution of genes relevant to not. Likewise, when human beings who , language, and love. are in love are asked to contemplate a The development of behavior, in other picture of their beloved, the area of the words, proves to be just as amenable to brain that is active is a dopamine region genetic reductionism as anatomy and implicated in cocaine addiction.17 physiology. The different distribution of the recep- Human nature, however, is not identi- tors is in turn caused by the presence (in cal in all people, and much of that diver- prairie voles) or absence (in montane sity in behavior is a consequence of the voles) of a long segment of highly repeti- fact that we are not clones. Studies of tive dna text in the promoter upstream identical and fraternal twins raised of the gene. Inserting this text into the apart, but in similar social settings, have promoter of a promiscuous vole species unambiguously revealed that different essentially monogamizes the rodent.18 people have different personalities large- Human beings also have a repetitive seg- ly because they have different genes, ment in this region, though it is shorter rather than because they have different than that in prairie voles. As of this writ- upbringings. However, these studies, ing, the equivalent region of the chim- which prove so powerful in showing the panzee genome has not yet been looked influence of genes, have been largely in- at. I predict it will be shorter than the capable of shedding light on precisely human one. which genes influence personality. From the other end of the telescope, however, These three cases illustrate very graphi- genetic differences among individuals cally that it is possible to isolate genes are emerging that correlate with differ- that have disproportionate influence on ences in how people behave. The hay- behavior, and to do so in features rele- stack is revealing its ½rst few needles. vant to ‘higher’ human nature, such as One example is the gene on chromo- intelligence, language, and love. In the some 11 for a protein called brain- 1960s, the idea of ½nding ‘behavior derived neurotrophic factor (bdnf). The gene spells out the recipe for a pro- 17 Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki, “The Neu- ral Basis of Romantic Love,” NeuroReport 11 tein that acts as a sort of fertilizer in the (2000): 3829–3834. brain, encouraging the growth of neu- rons, and that probably does much else 18 Miranda M. Lim, Zuoxin Wang, Daniel E. besides. In most people, the 192nd letter Olazabal, Xianghui Ren, Ernest F. Terwilliger, in the gene is G, but in about one-quar- and Larry J. Young, “Enhanced Partner Prefer- A ence in a Promiscuous Species by Manipulating ter of people it is . This causes a slightly the Expression of a Single Gene,” Nature 429 different protein to be built–with me- (6993) (2004): 754–757. thionine instead of valine at the 66th

Dædalus Fall 2004 95 Matt Ridley (out of 247) codon. Since everybody has essarily produce similar personalities in on human two copies of each gene, there are three two different people, whereas the same nature kinds of people in the world: those with genome often does. A possible explana- two methionines in their bdnfs, those tion of this surprising result is that genes with two valines, and those with one of do not decide personality directly, but each. Personality questionnaires reveal they do decide how an individual will re- that, at least in one population, the met- spond to a particular upbringing. Hard mets are noticeably less neurotic than evidence for this hypothesis is now be- the val-mets, who are in turn noticeably ginning to accumulate. Perhaps the best less neurotic than the val-vals.19 example is the study of childhood mal- However, this kind of single-nucle- treatment and genotype in a New Zea- otide polymorphism (snp), while fre- land cohort. quently found to cause rare hereditary In a study of 442 young men from diseases, is proving to be the exception Dunedin born in the year 1972–1973, rather than the rule in the study of nor- Terrie Mof½tt and her colleagues found mal human variation. It is much com- evidence that an abusive upbringing moner to ½nd a polymorphism that con- does predispose a boy to later antisocial sists of different lengths of sequences of behavior (including getting into trouble promoters upstream of genes. To return with the law), but much more strongly if to the vasopressin receptor gene, for in- the boy has a particular genotype: a low- stance, it appears that the repetitive box activity version of the monoamine oxi- in the promoter is highly variable in dase A gene on the X chromosome. In length in wild prairie voles. Its length the promoter upstream of the gene there ranges from 350 to 550 base pairs in a is a 30-base pair phrase repeated three, typical sample of the rodents. Likewise, three and a half, four, or ½ve times. in a sample of 150 human beings, there Those genes with three or ½ve repeats were seventeen different lengths of the are much less active than those with equivalent box next to the same gene. It three and a half or four repeats. About is perhaps too simplistic, and possibly one-third of men have low-activity ver- unethical, to ask if those people with sions of the gene (women, having two X longer boxes generally form more lasting chromosomes, present a more compli- pair bonds. But note that divorce rates cated picture). The low-activity allele show surprisingly high heritability in itself does not appear to cause antisocial studies of twins raised apart.20 behavior, nor does childhood maltreat- Meanwhile, the study of twins shows ment alone, but together they have a that the same upbringing does not nec- marked effect.21 The correlation between parental 19 Srijan Sen, Randolph M. Nesse, Scott F. abuse and antisocial behavior in the Stoltenberg, Sheng Li, Lillian Gleiberman, Dunedin study cannot be assumed to be Aravinda Chakravarti, Alan B. Weder, and Mar- git Burmeister, “A bdnf Coding Variant Is As- causal. It may be that another undiscov- sociated with the neo Personality Inventory ered gene causes both the abuse and the Domain Neuroticism, a Risk Factor for Depres- antisocial behavior in combination with sion,” Neuropsychopharmacology 28 (2003): 397–401. 21 Avshalom Caspi, Joseph McClay, Terrie E. Mof½tt, Jonathan Mill, Judy Martin, Ian W. 20 Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Craig, Alan Taylor, and Richie Poulton, “Role of Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (Lon- Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreat- don: Bloomsbury, 1998). ed Children,” Science 297 (2002): 851–854.

96 Dædalus Fall 2004 the low-activity mao-a gene. A long his- versity in the human population is start- The dna behind tory of fallacious assumption teaches ing to be explained at least as much by human us to be cautious before presuming that variations in the number of repeats of a nature parents cause effects in children by genetic phrase in the regulatory region their actions rather than by passing on of the gene as by single-nucleotide poly- genes.22 morphisms. The phrase may be two or This precaution, however, does not three letters long (as in the case of the apply to a similar result in another gene. vasopressin receptor), twenty-two let- Again using the Dunedin cohort, Mof½tt ters long (5-htt serotonin transporter found that a functional polymorphism gene), thirty letters long (monoamine in the promoter region of the serotonin oxidase gene), or seventy-½ve letters transporter (5-htt) gene affects the long (aspm gene). Varying the number way people react to stressful life events. of repeats of a phrase has a much subtler Stressful life events are less likely than effect on gene function than does chang- abusive treatment to be even indirectly ing a single nucleotide in a codon, which caused by genes. People with one or two tends to shut the gene down. It seems to copies of the short allele of the 5-htt be the principal way in which natural promoter showed more symptoms of selection alters the intensity, and per- depression following at least three haps the pattern, of gene expression. stressful life events than people with Nor is this phenomenon con½ned to two copies of the long allele.23 the regulatory regions of the genome. Considering that genes influence de- At least six neurological diseases are pression by altering people’s ability to now known to be caused by excessively cope with life events, can anybody doubt long polyglutamine runs–most notably that the genes that influence personality Huntington’s disease, whose severity and intelligence work this way–that depends on the number of repeats of a they are genes for responding differen- three-letter phrase (cag) in the gene for tially to experience? A person with high the huntingtin protein. intelligence is a person whose genes en- able him to react ef½ciently to the expe- Precisely how does a gene open the or- rience of learning. A person with an ath- ganism to experience? A nice example letic talent is one whose genes enable of how, paradoxically, the capacity for her to respond easily to practice and nurture can be genetically programmed training. comes from features that show critical, Notice, in passing, how important the or sensitive, periods in development. length of, rather than the sequence of, a There are many features of animal and promoter often proves to be. This is a human behavior that are sensitive to en- general principle that is emerging from vironmental influences only during a many studies of gene function. The di- limited period in youth. Language learn- 22 Harris, The Nurture Assumption. ing is one. Filial imprinting in birds is another. The best-studied case, however, 23 Avshalom Caspi, Karen Sugden, Terrie E. is that of ocular dominance, or the sort- Mof½tt, Alan Taylor, Ian W. Craig, HonaLee ing of cells in layer 4c of the visual cortex Harrington, Joseph McClay, Jonathan Mill, into those that take their signal from the Judy Martin, Antony Braithwaite, and Richie Poulton, “Influence of Life Stress on Depres- right eye and those that take it from the sion: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5- left. Ocular dominance emerges in re- htt Gene,” Science 301 (2003): 291–293. sponse to experience soon after a mam-

Dædalus Fall 2004 97 Matt Ridley mal’s eyes ½rst open and is thereafter channels on the television, to sit on the on human irreversible. Experiments have revealed john reading, and to be incapable of ex- nature that the gene for a protein called gad65 pressing affection over the telephone must be switched on for the sorting to (the me-2 gene). It was a joke that ex- occur, and that another protein, bdnf, posed not only the absurdity of men, but brings the sorting to an end. Genetically also the absurdity of speci½c genes for modi½ed mice with no gad65 gene nev- speci½c behaviors–the old Daltonian, er enter the critical period; those with particulate, ‘blueprint’ model of a ge- overactive bdnf genes close down the nome, in which one gene corresponds to critical period prematurely.24 one attribute of behavior. Genes are not, Both genes regulate the activity of of course, like that. As Pat Bateson has gaba, a neurotransmitter that has also argued, they act more like recipes than been shown to be vital to ½lial imprint- blueprints. Attributes of an organism no ing in chicks. This ½nding hints at a gen- more map directly to single genes than eral genetic mechanism, based in gaba- pieces of a cake map directly to lines in a ergic neurons, for opening the organ- recipe: they are the product of a transac- ism’s brain to calibration by experience tion between many genes and the envi- during a narrow window in infancy. If ronment in which they ½nd themselves. individuals’ critical periods differ in Nonetheless, it was widely assumed length or openness, this may be because in the heyday of the blank slate in the they differ in sequences of promoters 1950s–1970s that speci½cally behavioral attached to gaba-related genes. These mutations would not be found, and that variations, in turn, would produce a dif- therefore behavior would remain a ferent pattern of learning in different in- p2c2e (a process too complicated to dividuals. Thus, even the acquired dif- explain), at least in genetic terms. The ferences between people in skills and studies of twins raised apart, and the interests might be partly caused by se- discoveries of dna sequence changes quence differences at promoter sites. that cause predictable changes in behav- A good tennis player is the product of ior, even in ‘higher’ behavior, demolish much practice, but the ability to bene½t this assumption. The magnitude of that from practice could prove to be innate. paradigm shift has yet to dawn on many Nurture, in that sense, is a form of social and even biological scientists. nature. A different hypothesis is needed if we are to reconcile the evident fact that There was an old joke, ½rst told by Jane there is an innate human nature with the Gitschier, that we would one day be able equally evident feeling that experience to ½nd out where on the Y chromosome molds individual lives. That hypothesis, lie the male tendencies to flip between I suggest, must hold that human nature is speci½ed in species-typical dna se- 24 Z. Josh Huang, Alfredo Kirkwood, Tom- maso Pizzorusso, Vittorio Porciatti, Bernardo quences, that many of those sequences Morales, Mark F. Bear, Lamberto Maffei, and determine the expression rather than the Susumu Tonegawa, “bdnf Regulates the Matu- protein product of genes, and that the ration of Inhibition and the Critical Period of expression of many of these sequences is Plasticity in Mouse Visual Cortex,” Cell 98 actually ‘designed’ (by natural selection) (1999): 739–755; Michela Fagiolini and Takao to be affected or calibrated by expected K. Hensch, “Inhibitory Threshold for Critical- Period Activation in Primary Visual Cortex,” kinds of environmental experience. Nature 404 (2000): 183–186.

98 Dædalus Fall 2004 Poem by Geoffrey Hill

Improvisations for Hart Crane Thou canst read nothing except through appetite.

1

Super-ego crash-meshed idiot-savant. And what háve you. This has to be the show-stopper. Stay put. Slumming for rum and rumba, dumb Rimbaud, he the sortilegist, visionary on parole, floor-walker watching space, the candy man, artiste of neon, traf½c’s orator, gaunt cantilevers engined by the dawn of prophecy. A sight to see itself: he, swinger with the saints in mission belfries, broken and randy zooming on the toll, love-death by elocution a close thing. Publish his name, exile’s remittancer, prodigal who reclaimed us brought to book.

Dædalus Fall 2004 99 2

The Stars-and-Stripes looks best when it’s unfurled stiff as a board on a declaiming wind under a cobalt sky; the National Guard at stand-to, half-cock weaponry; the Chief’s advisers, unsexed white and black, good with binoculars and shown to be so; their photo-faces lit with simple purpose, their public selves the sanctum, the arcane; their privacy the clamor of events; the keys of war bestowed like a small heirloom of sentimental value to the clan. Poets are unstable, least to be trusted with scripts of grand arraignment. All in all you screwed us, Hart, you and your zany epic.

100 Dædalus Fall 2004 3

Unwise these thoughts high-spanned. A shade too much Library of America, liberty safe on the list, shiny-electric-gated, noble its new-old mansions. Heave him in bounced for some lethal kind of bunkum test, my self-accusing bard: naked bacardi and sailors. Straight sex mothered him all the while he threw up. I’m yours, I said, reckless, twizzling the ever-fuzzy dial to get Roosevelt. Admit, though, we had plunged before that ½rst term, faithful old depression working us all the way. What derelicts we must have been, ripped off by infancy. Thou canst grasp nothing except through appetite.

Geoffrey Hill is University Professor and professor of literature and religion at Boston University. His most recent collections of poetry are “The Triumph of Love” (1998), “Speech! Speech!” (2000), and “The Orchards of Syon” (2002). He has been a Fellow of the American Academy since 1996.

© 2004 by Geoffrey Hill

Dædalus Fall 2004 101 Fiction by Victor LaValle

I left my heart in Skaftafell

He was meek, homicidal, wore a long yes there was, certi½ably, undeniably, scarf tied once around his neck as must someone sitting behind them, then slid have been the style for trolls that year. I their chairs so far back I had a headrest never saw him board the bus, but it may against my gullet. This happened so have been in Varmahlid, though I can’t much. Even when I asked, slapped, be sure since I slept so much in Iceland. tapped, or pushed their seats they only I was there at summer’s end, meaning gave that stare the French invented to August. Most folks in their twenties had paralyze the dumb. already scamped cross-country in July so Luckily the Icelanders liked me, even I found myself with the elderly wander- with being an American, because I was ers. On trails I passed couples catching shy. Firm, polite, and quiet, a perfect breath and rubbing each other’s knees personality for these reserved Northern through waterproof pants. The Ger- Europeans. Many times I was told so. mans regarded me with tacky detach- –Don’t take this the wrong way, one ment, snubbing me while wearing girl in a candy shop said to me, but I bright red boots and brighter orange explained to my coworker that here, ½- parkas. I tried not to feel hurt by their nally, is an American who isn’t boring. disdain, told myself it was like being Being loud and asking so many boring expelled from clown college, but you questions! can guess how much it really bothered Most Icelanders used English skillful- me. ly, but it was a quirk of speech that they Also, I had the amazing misfortune of said boring when they meant frustrating. sitting behind French people on every Like,–This knot in my shoe is so bor- plane and bus. Minutes into a ride a pair, ing! Or,–I can’t reach my girlfriend, this woman and man, brazenly checked that connection is boring! I heard it like that many times. So this was me: an American, not bor- Victor LaValle is the author of the short story col- ing, black, and alone in Iceland. lection “Slapboxing with Jesus” (1999), winner of the pen Open Book Award, and the novel “The pen Being both a troll and a smoker he Ecstatic” (2002), a finalist for the /Faulkner had little lousy teeth. When his mouth Award. He teaches writing at Mills College. opened it was hard to distinguish them from his lips. Everything fed into a gen- © 2004 by Victor LaValle

102 Dædalus Fall 2004 eral maw. Once, he lit up right on the according to reports. In a town called I left my heart in bus just as we left Akureyri so the driver Vik there are three spires said to be trolls Skaftafell stopped, walked down the aisle, and ex- who were caught in sunlight and trans- plained that those were the old ways and formed to stone as they tried to drag a he could no longer smoke everywhere he three-masted ship ashore. They’re six pleased. Many places yes, but not here. stories high. I sat farther back, but we all heard the My troll was man-sized. He wore one warning. There were thirty-one of us beige sweater the whole time though he riding the bus, mostly couples. No one paid his checks from a fold of green and else was going alone, but me and the purple bills kept tied in a big red hand- monster. kerchief. Wherever I got off, he got off. I’d describe myself as a nosy person I’d see him walking around towns at because I can’t turn away when someone night, moving with a predatory hunch, gets in trouble. There’s a level of deco- hands in his pockets and holding out the rum I can’t manage so I, but not only I, sides of his jacket as he moved so that watched the troll stub his cigarette out, when a wind got in there the fabric ex- though he tried to smoke again after panded and he grew wings. we’d seen a waterfall called Godafoss, Waterfall of the Gods. So named be- I didn’t come to Iceland to fuck white cause it was the site where Iceland’s women nor to spin in the flash nights ruling chief tossed all their pagan idols of Reykjavik. As far as fashion, what when Christianity became the religion did I have on Europeans? People my of the land one thousand years ago. age whose every kronur, lira, pound, After that second cigarette flared, the franc had been deposited into some driver, one big farm bastard, almost great shell-toed Adidas account. Only choked the troll, but the little one a Japanese college student was going to worked a humble, fawny apology. His outdo those kids. plea, spoken in English, didn’t affect Iceland was my destination because me, but our driver relented. I was disap- there was nowhere else to go. The rest pointed because now the driver didn’t of the world was only getting hotter and, seem like a grown man. Big and strong, much to the shame of my sub-Saharan but what’s it worth without a backbone? ancestors, warm weather was a torment By the way, this whole time, let’s not to me. talk about the Africans. They had no Once there I paid a little over two allegiance to me of course. Why should hundred dollars for a one-way bus ticket they? The white folks weren’t hugging around the island (excluding the western each other in Caucasian familyhood– fjords). Get off in any town you want, still, fuck those Africans, and I mean that explore, be both gawked at and ignored, from the bottom of my pockets. In Reyk- then get on the next bus the next day to javik I went whiplash trying to get a little the next place. I couldn’t pronounce any love from any one of them. Not even the of the names so I’d point to one on my faintest soul-brother nod. May they all ticket, let the new bus driver say it aloud enjoy another hundred years of despotic and then repeat it so that I’d sound well rule. versed. Of course, the guy never cared if When I say troll it probably implies a I was saying it correctly. But I did. smaller size. We hear troll and think Not long before coming to Iceland I dwarf, but out here trolls were enormous stopped wanting marriage. Not only

Dædalus Fall 2004 103 Fiction by with the woman I loved, but the rest of as uncomfortable around me as I eventu- Victor LaValle them too. While it’s true that each fami- ally did around the troll. She and I just ly is unhappy in its own way, every mar- kept picking the same lifeless churches ried person’s affair is monotonous and to visit, the same damn coffeehouses, plain. At least according to me. I had until I must have seemed to own a map friends who’d participated in a few, read of her future engagements. I was con- about many, and the impression I had stantly, accidentally, trailing her. was that the wedding band makes you She had a lovely awkward smile be- a member of one great dull secret socie- cause her teeth were concave. It was ty. I hated the men my friends turned endearing to me, but by the twentieth into. Relentlessly horny for any woman encounter either she or I would always besides their wives, angry at their wives cross the street. Whenever I entered a for having just one pussy. I decided I’d rest stop and found her there I became rather be alone than unhappy. Despite flustered and took my meal outside. the change of mind, it was me feeling all Having gone through that made me sad and longing for my ex. She’d recov- sympathetic, so the troll got an untold ered by making herself busy. number of rides sitting in a seat near me because I wanted to be fair, to be fair. I felt so sexy over there. I felt sexy ev- erywhere, actually. My signature had I hoped for a few good days. Iceland carnal appeal. Also the way I wore my was only dark four hours a night, so in wool hat with the earflaps tied around the other twenty why not expect a few the bottom of my chin. Sexy. I’m not minutes of brightness? At Lake Myvatn being self-deprecating in the slightest. I camped in a long cooled lava pool un- Despite this feeling, I hadn’t been to bed der a constant drizzle and, occasionally, with a woman since my breakup, so I felt downpours. The rain let up only when like a light socket hidden behind the there was a forceful, misty wind. bookshelf. I forgot the troll. I was by Lake Myvatn That was probably best though. Noth- four days and never saw him. Rented a ing worse than meeting a new woman bike to go around the lake and, at one when you’re still organizing your heart- point, found ½elds of lava that had ache about the last one and instead of cooled into grotesque stacks. dating this new lady she’s just keeping Enormous columns of petri½ed ash you company. What I hate are those two stories high. There were little holes folks who can’t spend time alone in a dug into them that resembled shelves, room. They seem so weak. But of course up near the top, where, purportedly, gob- that’s exactly the kind of guy I am so the lins slept. That’s the story. only way to get isolated was to run far, When I walked into these endless far away. ½elds they seemed to twist behind me. The problem with a trip like mine, and It was confusing, but not frightening. the reason I didn’t full-nelson the troll I imagined myself wandering forward on the ½rst day he followed me, is that I until I found the Liege of the Goblins re- kept seeing the same people in different clining on a throne made of sheep skulls. towns. There was a stumpy Italian cou- I liked Iceland because they still had ple that I must have greeted eighteen myths on their minds. Not that you’d times in four days. There was a woman ½nd anyone under forty who’d admit to from who-can-say-where who became believing in goblins, yet even the most

104 Dædalus Fall 2004 skeptical refused to say so very loudly in but not enough to carry camping gear, I left my heart in a public place. After all, they might be sleeping bag, change of clothes, toilet- Skaftafell listening. I needed to be around supersti- ries. Big enough to hold a human head, I tious people, having recently become thought; by now my thoughts were get- superstitious myself. ting macabre. As I got back on the bus, after four The only hotel in town was beside a days, the troll was there. I imagined he’d tiny harbor. Two rowboats were an- been sleeping in the hood of my jacket chored nose to nose in the water, thirty this whole time. feet from me. There were other boats, a When I saw him I tried to remember more modern fleet, moored in tidy rows that beautiful woman with her concave at the other end of the harbor, three hun- smile. The troll was probably only doing dred feet farther. Of the twelve vessels his own gamboling through the country. there, ten wouldn’t ½t more than four Why be paranoid? But then he looked people. The last two were big, for tours up, turned backward and stared right at to the island of Papey, famous for its puf- me until I turned away. ½ns. The clumsy little birds with ador- I wrote a postcard to the woman I’d able faces and multicolored bills were almost married. In the note I described the reason I’d stopped here. I wanted to the guy, but then decided not to mail her eat one. the card because I’d been so damn sure I I let the troll register ½rst because I wanted to be single, yet at my time of kept making this mistake of thinking fear whom did I automatically turn to? that if I caught him in a lie it would be Since the troll sat ahead of me the enough to stop his plans. I’d confront driver reached him ½rst to check tickets him, yell: You said you were getting and ask for a destination. off in Breiddalsvik, but you got off in –Breiddalsvik, the troll croaked. Djupivogur! And he’d buckle under the His voice was even sleazier than his weight of my keen observation. He’d appearance. The way he whispered the screech, then disappear back into the name it sounded like he was about to realm of haints and phantoms. crawl up the inside of the driver’s leg –For one night, he said to the young and bite him in the thigh. girl behind the desk. –Djupivogur, I told the driver breez- –A room? she asked. ily. –Oh no. My sleeping bag will do. When we reached his stop the troll English wasn’t his ½rst language, that had changed his mind. was clear, still he didn’t stammer –Not here, not yet. between each word as a novice would. Our bus wove through sharp moun- His hard consonants had no sharp edges. tains. Big basalt cliffs with little plant life Instead of ‘bag’ it was ‘bay.’ Not ‘sleep- on them because winds eroded them too ing,’ but ‘sleppen.’ But I understood quickly to grow much. Sheep and cows him. grazed in the meager ½elds. I was on that same plan. Iceland was Djupivogur. Fishing village of four expensive, even here in the outer reach- hundred. Four hundred and thirty-one es. A single room was sixty dollars and once the bus parked. wouldn’t be much better than a home- Couples disembarked. I took my pack less shelter. Sleeping bag accommoda- from below the bus. The troll took his tions, a tiny cubicle with a flat cot and single hefty black bag. It was a good size, a shared bathroom, cost only twenty.

Dædalus Fall 2004 105 Fiction by y room was 8 and the troll’s was der a picture window that looked out at Victor M LaValle 9. When I went to the front desk later, the tiny harbor. alone and unwatched, to switch, the In the communal bathroom the troll clerk told me the rest of the rooms had was shaving at the sink. I was actually been reserved by a team of Norsemen feeling terrible right then. Too lonely for off hulking around an unpronounceable fear, I soldiered over to the troll, stood mountain. Climbing it with their bare three feet away, and said,–Hey look. Are hands, probably. I was relieved. A hall of you following me? Vikings was enough company for me to –Yes. feel safe, even if I was directly next door What kind of boar’s hair was he grow- to the ½end. ing? I wondered as I listened to his razor But they never came. The next day I run across his neck and below the chin. asked the teenager at the desk, the same It wasn’t some disposable either. An clerk, where they’d gone. She told me enormous contraption. It wasn’t elec- they’d slipped away. A towrope gave out tric. Actually it looked like one of those in their climb and they cascaded into a settler-era plows. With a pair of lurid pyre of bones, flares, and ice axes. blades that formed the two upright sides I went back to my room to sleep away of an acute triangle. As it pulled across the rest of the morning, listening for the his pinkish skin the sound was a crack- sound of the troll packing up and leav- ling ½re. ing. From his room I heard throat clear- –I’m not going to play dicks with ing and much coughing. He’d hack so you, I explained. If that’s what you’re hard I swear I heard the wet tear of about. his trachea. Rolling around his bed he –No, he agreed and very ½rmly. He bumped the wall, he kicked the wall, slapped the side of the sink once. then back to coughing. I didn’t go out He seemed so offended by the idea to the communal toilet. Just peed in that it threw me into a state of juvenile the room’s small sink. Fell asleep. confusion. When I woke up it was 2 p.m. The –So what are you doing? I asked him day was pleasant, overcast, and gray. I this straightforwardly, but my voice had wanted a baloney sandwich. Deli meats all the man knocked out of it. were all I could get. Actually, there was –I’m going to kill you, he said. There smoked lamb but the taste was like hav- was still shaving cream on the right side ing someone empty a full ashtray on my of his face. Then I’m going to eat your tongue. You’d think there’d be mass flesh and put your bones into my soup. varieties of ½sh delicacies, plentiful as –You really are? blintzes in Borough Park, but they must –I am. have been exporting the marine life and –So you’re a cannibal? keeping not a ½n for themselves. He stopped shaving, but didn’t turn I sat around in my plain white room to me. I looked at him though he only and did ½fty push-ups just to make my- looked at my reflection in the bathroom self move. Seventy-½ve sit-ups to get my mirror.–How can I be a cannibal when stomach working. we are not the same species? After buying a ham sandwich and two I stumbled into the men’s toilet. It was small packets of orange juice at the only where my feet directed me. My room convenience store in Djupivigor I came would’ve been more sensible, but I went back to my hotel, sat at a small desk un- to the shitter instead. It had a full door

106 Dædalus Fall 2004 so that I was on the inside and, at least talked I leaned with my back to the desk I left my heart in nominally, safe from him. lest Gorroon rush the of½ce with a par- Skaftafell He went on shaving that prickly neck ing knife and surprise me. for ½fteen minutes longer. Out of fright The girl’s work schedule was seven I had to pee, but was too scared to pull days a week, eight hours each day. When down my pants. The sound of metal on I commiserated she corrected me.–I skin went for so long that I thought he like it so much, she told me. What else must be regrowing the hair he’d just cut. would I do today? My husband is at My hirsute pursuer eventually ran wa- home without a job. ter in the sink and after that he came to –You’re married? the toilet door. He knocked as if I was There was gold on the ring ½nger of just going to open up for him.–Hello, her right hand, but you’d be excused for he said. Hello? missing it. The metal was whiter than I pressed my hands against the cool, her skin, thin as thread. blue concrete walls on either side of me. –Does everyone here get married If he bashed through the door I was go- young? ing to press myself up and kick him –No, no. A lot of women have chil- straight in the teeth and then do a back- dren and raise them alone. The father flip out the tiny window behind me. might live nearby, but not in the same –Why be so afraid? he whispered. I home. could tear this door down, but I don’t –We’ve tried that in the U.S., I said. want to be boorish. My name is Gor- –And what did you ½nd? roon. I can smell your blood from here. –The boys all grow up to be cry- babies. Because of Gorroon I never saw the She laughed.–How boring that must puf½ns. I rolled my sleeping bag, deflat- be! ed my air mattress, changed my clothes, The bus arrived. A white one with and turned in the key. The teenage girl many blue stars painted across the body. at the desk was sad when I told her I I stayed at the desk with the girl, who was going. She really wanted me to see had ½nished her half of the sandwich Papey. and then taken much of mine. She even I asked her to have lunch with me, but drank my orange juice, but I didn’t care. she said she couldn’t so I went out to The girl let me pay my bill and offered that deli, bought another ham sandwich the receipt, which I declined. and orange juice, and came back to her. –There’s still time to stay and see She accepted half the meal. I leaned Papey, she offered. against the reception counter. Considering that I was being chased by –Have you been to Papey? a brute I could have read her insistence –I haven’t, she admitted. But I’ve seen as providence. Protection by an unseen many puf½ns. force. Except that this had been happen- She had a dimpled, wide face and ing to me for the whole trip. Icelandic couldn’t have been more than seventeen people who really wanted me to see so she was safe with me. I’ve never been every part of their country. More so, I attracted to younger women. Forty-½ve think, because I was a black American. minutes until the bus arrived. I would’ve They all hated the weather, but loved played jacks with children just to have their land. company during the wait. As she and I As a souvenir I gave her my pen.

Dædalus Fall 2004 107 Fiction by She looked at it, but was too kind to but growing bright green, mossy puffy Victor LaValle sneer. As soon as it was between her tufts that made me want to roll around ½ngers I understood how silly I’d been. I on them. mean, it was a blue pen. They cost about We stopped at the lake called Jokulsar- eighty cents. The cap was chewed. lon where the farthest end of a glacier –It’s very nice, she decided. had crumbled into colored hunks of ice. I laughed so then she laughed. Me Even these fragments were three and with humiliation and her with relief that four stories tall. Some blue, others I wasn’t going to press her for a kiss. white. This glacier had been moving, –Let me take it back. incrementally, for centuries, dragging The girl put my pen in her pocket. across the land; the ice was packed with –Nay, she said, which was the way brown and black earth in varied zigzag they said no sometimes. It’s mine now. patterns. Our bus parked for pictures. I –Do your people really believe in was one of the ½rst shooting from the elves and all that? I asked her. shoreline. I wanted her to both con½rm and deny There was a mound that we climbed the idea. Sometimes I placed so much to get new perspectives. Twenty feet up, weight on random conversations. You the lake seemed smaller, if only because can’t help but occasionally wish there the glacier was in full view. These dinky was a thing like destiny, it’s why I can’t chunks were overshadowed by the end- stop reading my horoscope. As if fate less gray sheet of the glacier, which led was always trying to reach us, if only we far back toward the mountains in the would listen. At that moment I expected distance and right up over them. The some teenager to tell me, de½nitively, glacier had frozen right over them. It what I should believe. seemed unlikely the mountains could –If you ever see one then you will ever struggle free. have faith in it and if you never do then My hands were cold (this was sum- you won’t. It is the same here like it is mer, remember) because I hadn’t anywhere. And both sides will never brought gloves. I stopped taking photos accept each other. to rub my hands together, march around The bus driver grumbled into the hotel in a circle. In August it was usually ½fty lobby to ask if there were any passengers degrees, but this close to the ice ½elds to board. She nodded.–These two. the temperature dropped way down. Gorroon stayed by the bus. The ride from Djupivogur to Skaftafell I wondered if he was afraid of the was three hours. I tried to write another cold, or of getting too close to the gla- postcard to my ex, but there was an un- cier. How do you defeat a troll? Put salt steadiness to the roads that showed up on his tongue? Make him say his name in my penmanship. It made even a stan- backwards? If I knew a trick I would dard greeting look panicked. have used it. We moved from the mountainous Instead I watched him lean against surroundings that I’d taken for granted the bus, right beside the bus driver. He into these ongoing ½elds of long-cooled didn’t even have to stare back at me. We lava. Evidence, on either side of the na- were past aggression and now I just un- tional highway, of an eruption that took derstood that he was going to grab me. place six hundred forty years before. Old Women know the feeling I’m talking things here. The ½elds weren’t barren, about.

108 Dædalus Fall 2004 Back on the bus we rode for another was stable. No matter how I tugged or I left my heart in forty minutes until we reached a tiny flicked, the green tent didn’t move. I Skaftafell white sign welcoming us to Skaftafell proudly snapped pictures of it from National Park. There wasn’t much to every angle. it. One building, a parking lot, camp- –Took you long enough, said a man grounds, and a mountain. walking back with his wife. I’d seen I rented a tent, but didn’t know how to them pitch theirs in seven minutes. use it. My whole life I’d been sleeping in They’d been up the mountain and back apartments. Buildings manufactured by by now. sweaty immigrants. I didn’t understand French. an iota about driving little posts into the ground. When I camped out in Myvatn With the sun up twenty hours a day the tents were already pitched. there was still a lot of time to climb. I While other people raised their nylon started moving at 4 p.m. Rain stopped, homes in ½fteen minutes it took me that daylight was vivid. Foreign languages long to read the instructions. I kept hop- sounded profound around me. ing a sympathetic pair would offer to At the far end of the campground help me, but once their tents were up there was a well-established path that the travelers went directly to the hills. slipped onto the hill, and once I was on On my knees I counted every stake, it the land, the people behind me, dis- stake loop, and ½berglass segmented solved. Buses in the parking lot, children pole. Snapped elastic strainers and calling to parents. Instantly there was tugged the guy lines. When I tried to only me. thread the poles through the tent loops I listened to my pants. I wore slacks they kept coming apart in the middle that swished. They kept me company. until I learned to slide them in with the Counting my pace not by how far I’d tent flat on the ground. It started to rain, come, but by the tempo of my khakis. but it rained every day. These trails weren’t even steep, it’s just I went back to the tent rental station that they went on for so long. I took pic- and complained that I’d been given the tures of a waterfall called Hundafoss, wrong tent poles. I needed the curved another, Magnusarfoss, then Svartifoss, models. The guy at the desk wouldn’t and after that I’d had quite e-damn-nuff even look at me. of cascading water. After half an hour I ½gured out that Past the range of waterfalls the those tent poles bend. It became much ground lost most of its grass. Just dirt easier after that. and stones. Mostly stones. Walking on Once I got both poles in, the frame them made my ankles hurt. Another popped up naturally. From there it was forty minutes and the pain reached my an easy prospect to drive in the stakes on knees. one side, then the front, then the rear. When I turned around I could see, Only when I tried to push them in on far below me–even beyond the camp- the last side did I notice the enormous grounds–a hundred little streams, run- stones in the ground. off, faint melt from the glaciers behind Then I had to take the structure down this mountain that bled out to the sea. and replay each step at a location about They crossed each other playfully. Then ten feet away. When it was done I I saw the troll walking toward me. Using plucked at the top of the tent to see if it a cane.

Dædalus Fall 2004 109 Fiction by His beard had grown in. Down to his garbage transfer stations and old ware- Victor LaValle collarbone. His scarf was tied below it. houses that have yet to be refurbished. He didn’t wear a hat. The stick was They’re slagged apart, walls falling, small, but store-bought, redwood. He broke down and decrepit. I can see into waved to me. He didn’t hurry. I turned each one as we go by. I’m overjoyed. We toward the peak and went up that way. all are. Imagine that, a happy story about If I could have run, I would have run, black people. but my legs were aching. As we seek larger bodies of water our boat passes a warehouse ramshackle as I didn’t even come to Iceland for the last ten, but this one’s full of gold. anything. Iceland came to me out of a Not gold, but honey. dream. Not one of my paranoid racism In jars and bowls. Two hundred clear dreams that, my being black, occur containers. Honey spread sticky across about once every twenty-eight days. the wooden floorboards. Yellow candles There are a few versions, most of them are lit and flickering. I hear the wind forgettable. against the side of my face. Rain slaps But one night it was different. I’m my temples, but I am warm. It feels like transported to the future. Still in New we are making a break from all accumu- York. I’m by the water. Sort of. The lated human history to be brand new. Gowanus Canal. Around me thousands Gold coins are gathered into piles two of black people wear yellow rain slickers feet high and just as far across. I want to because the day is overcast. We have sit inside that warehouse, but know the boats. Or rather, boats are docked. Cat- heat would kill me. Seeing it from the amarans actually. Those cruiser types catamaran is close enough to dry my used for whale-watching tours. A hun- mouth out. Yellow fabric is strung up on dred of them taxi up against the docks the walls. Yellow fabric, tied into enor- in Red . mous bows, sits in the puddles of honey. Black people climb on the catamarans It is majestic and reassuring. A send-off, to capacity. Once full, the boats go out not a sayonara. to New York Harbor and from there, the I saw it. The boats were going to Ice- sea. Those of us on the shore cheer and land, and I couldn’t have felt better. those on the ships excitedly wave. No one carries suitcases, but I know that Almost at the top of this mountain, we’re leaving. Not being deported. For- called Kristinartindar, Gorroon fell far- get that. Choosing to go. ther and farther back. Maybe he was And where are we off to? Iceland. heavier than he looked. My own thighs All the black folks in the United States were boiling from the exertion. I was are taking to Iceland because no one nearly jogging to the top. lives there anyway. This was a dream, There were actually two peaks. You remember. So ½nally I get on a catama- ascend either one and from those points ran. Stay out on deck even though it see the southwestern end of the country. begins to rain. The engine is so power- But I couldn’t look backward. I went ful that I feel the vibration up through around the peaks instead, on the well- my shoes, strong enough to shake me. marked trail. Passing no one. A ribbon of The drawbridges have been lifted, not clouds descended over me. I stopped to so much for clearance, but to wave good- watch it happen. A gray mist came down bye. As our boat pulls off we pass the from the gray sky until it touched the

110 Dædalus Fall 2004 highest peak of the mountain. Then I felt, oddly, safe. It was all that sunlight I left my heart in it descended. Consuming the earth, on the snow: I stood in a dreamy ½eld Skaftafell quietly. of gold. If you can’t trust in a prophetic I crouched to keep clear, but the cloud dream then nothing will ever soothe overwhelmed me. Then I was inside. I you. expected to cough, but there was no real Once he’d recovered, the troll effect except that the trail behind me stopped seeming like a fool. As soon as was obscured. There was still the trail he could stand straight he was next to ahead. Around the rounded curve of me. I didn’t even feel the movement. Kristinartindar I came to view the gla- Like water trickles through a closed cier. Skaftafellsjokull. hand. From ten feet away he’d seemed I wasn’t near it; the ice was still miles like an old man without the sauce to away, but I saw it clearly. Sunlight re- catch a cab. Now I could see his mouth flected against ice particles in the air, quite clearly. surrounding the glacier with pixie dust. His teeth were tiny; splintered, bone I took pictures and waited for Gorroon. fragments. I didn’t think he’d be able to The view was pure mesmerism so I chew through my arm, but shred the couldn’t actually leave. It wasn’t the troll meat instead. that had captured me, it was the country. –Hello again, he said. Gorroon’s beard had grown since I’d He bent down. I thought it was a bow. seen him an hour ago. Now it was at his Instead he grabbed my left leg and pulled navel. He stooped deeply as he walked, it from under me so that I fell backward, resembled the old Chinese women at the landing in the stones and snow. Canal Street train station. I always want- Wow. He had small hands, but a strong ed to protect their fragile spines from in- grip. One hand on my left ankle, one on jury; scoop them up in my hands, and my left knee. I struggled, but it was a carry them to a room full of cushions. cursory movement. Just to say I tried. He For an instant I felt the same affection pulled my knee toward him and pushed toward the troll. my ankle the other way. The pressure Our breathing was different because was instant, amazing. his was loud. I looked down, thinking: will my knee –Not used to the climbs? I actually pop out of the skin? Will my ankle turn taunted the thing. to splinters? Gorroon patiently insisted His cane had a blue stone imbedded in that my lower leg snap. the handle, which he rubbed with his fat, My left hand moved into his long hair. yellowed thumb. I hadn’t meant to do it. I wasn’t think- He admitted,–I’m having a hard time ing, just ½ghting. with this part. I really didn’t expect you The stuff on his head rivaled his to go all the way up. beard for length. It wasn’t as greasy as it I took off my small backpack. The looked. It cracked in my hands. I grasped larger one was at the camp, in my tent. closer to the scalp until I found a patch I’d brought a bag of nuts and two pack- that wasn’t brittle. My leg bled down ets of orange juice. I drank one packet onto my left shoe. He ignored my efforts and had a few handfuls of cashews be- and continued to press. fore Gorroon could breath normally Once I had a tight grip I leaned back again. Instead of waiting I should have so all my weight was pulling at his skull. sprinted some more, but at that moment His skin tore away from his scalp, but the

Dædalus Fall 2004 111 Fiction by only sound was when he started panting. come all this way to discover there was a Victor LaValle Had I hurt him? third. My fatigued brain was command- The mountains, the glacier, they were ing my hands to release, relent, surren- waiting for an answer. Who do we get? der but, bravely, they refused. –You can’t have it, I told Gorroon, but he wasn’t listening. I don’t think I even understood what I meant. There was blood on my shoe, yes, but there was blood in my left hand as well. His blood. My right hand went for his beard and the left was doing so well that I decided not to intervene. My body knew what it was doing. You might even call my de- termination happiness. He’d take my leg, but I would steal his face. As my right hand came near his whiskers Goroon opened his mouth. I thought I was far enough away that he couldn’t bite, but he had a jaw like a shark’s and the teeth sort of popped past the lips to reach me. The outer edge of my hand was there for him to rip so he tore into the flesh and then pulled back- ward, peeling the skin and taking some meat. My right pinky curled down on itself and wouldn’t straighten though I still had feeling in the rest of that hand. I thought maybe I should just roll and take us both over the precipice, but the point wasn’t to kill him, it was that I should live. I refused to die. If I had to I’d stay here with him, on our backs, for ½fty thousand years. Locked in place un- til our bodies calci½ed, until we became another landmark, one more folktale. My leg wouldn’t break. It was obvious from the troll’s consternation. He might have liked to scare me by appearing non- chalant, but when he attempted a laugh it made his shoulders buckle. It easily could have turned into a cry. Meanwhile my grip had locked onto his scalp, all nine of my usable ½ngers pulling there. Who knew I was such a wonderful stubborn bastard? In my ex- perience there seemed to be only two kinds of men: brooders and brats. I’d

112 Dædalus Fall 2004 whether my commitment to dif½cult poetry is merely the elitism of an aging critic who mistrusts the simpler pleas- ures. But then often when I do take con- siderable pleasure in a poem that is not Charles Altieri provocatively dif½cult, that pleasure turns quickly to guilt, to a feeling that I on dif½culty in am betraying allegiances and succumb- contemporary ing to seductions that oversimplify the intricacies of experience. American poetry Partially to convince myself, I want to trace such an event where pleasure turned to guilt and I was forced to rec- ognize by contrast why I persist in these possibly ridiculous commitments. This is a poem that I found quite moving, C. D. Wright’s “Utopia” from String Light (1991): Experimental poetry has fallen on hard Inside of me times. Poetry that makes its dif½culty a there are no cathedrals basic means to accomplishing its ends even in the vaulted halls seems now mostly a throwback, a fan- where you thought you would come upon tasy that the excitements of modernist some providential soul art can continue into the present. It also letting go a cage of doves faces charges of privileging artistic com- there are only vaulted halls. plexity over political obligation, of championing ambivalence over convic- Inside of me tion. And, ½nally, it is often dif½cult to there is a period of mud, see the point of dif½culty in poetry: isn’t flies and midges come with the mud the aim to give pleasure and thereby en- followed by a time of intense sun; hance life? So I sometimes wonder with the sun comes a cool room furnished by a rotating fan, a typing Charles Altieri, a Fellow of the American Acade- machine. my since 2003, is professor of English at the Uni- While there is the sun I type then I walk versity of California, Berkeley. His books include often for long stretches “Painterly Abstraction in Modernist American in search of hidden springs, curative herbs Poetry: The Contemporaneity of Modernism” or not in search of a blessed thing. (1989), “Postmodernisms Now” (1998), and “The Particulars of Rapture: An Aesthetics of Inside of me the Affects” (2003). Permission to reprint “Uto- a stranger rubs its knees pia” was granted by C. D. Wright and the Univer- against the palings of my ribs sity of Georgia and Copper Canyon Presses; per- someone who may be born to fail, mission to reprint “No More Bof½ns” was granted a drifter hunched over a cinder block by Joshua Clover. pitching rock at mounds of garbage, someone who may catch and tear © 2004 by the American Academy of Arts like a plastic bag in a fence. & Sciences

Dædalus Fall 2004 113 Note by But beyond this zone others. This clearing contains the realm Charles of tire heaps and oil drums of utopian possibility, the inner garden. Altieri a clearing entertains one tree; But this is a late-twentieth-century gar- where you thought you would come upon den, where “there is only enough soil blades of steel light or where enough blood / and seed good enough you thought the doves would collect for one tree.” Why only one tree? Why themselves the insistence on blood as the means of there is only enough soil enough blood nourishing this tree? And why repeat and seed good enough for one tree. “enough” three times, as if the repeti- tion were also its own denial, since Wright explores many styles, often far more than one “enough” can only call more experimental. But I have chosen the assertion into question. Does the this poem because I identify with it de- poem suggest that this single tree in- spite myself, and because I think the ap- dicates a willful loneliness excluding peal to identi½cation is elegantly and the person addressed, or does it gesture seductively handled. toward inclusion? I want to say both. The poem’s leisurely pacing sets up Then the repeated “enough”s would reg- the sense of surprise one experiences at ister the uneasy dif½culty of both desir- the suddenly pointed and parsimonious ing to share the soil and recognizing that ending. Three anaphoric stanzas elabo- this may be a limit case where sharing rate a single governing metaphor: the would be destructive. speaker’s inner self is available for a I admire the poem largely because guided tour. First there is the thwarted this ending refuses clear answers to such possibility that the vaulted halls “inside questions while managing at the same of me” betoken a cathedral, or even con- time not to rest in indeterminacy. The stitute an adequate setting for a soul to point is not that language fails but that engage in religious ceremony. It turns language succeeds by bringing us to a out that these vaulted halls are only sense of its inherent limitations. The empty signs of what could host a spir- speaker has arrived at a clearing that itual life but does not. yields an intimacy and a sense of the The second stanza seems spiritually speci½city of one’s own being that beg- less bleak, because there the poem ar- gar description. And in this clearing rives at a better adjustment to powers of what playful metaphor has created agency that the speaker might actually yields to something else–to the con- possess and ½nd appropriate for the ma- vincing presence of a self who can terial conditions provided. These condi- assert a self-suf½ciency won out of tions, however, are so distinct from the facing disappointment. world of religious expectation that now Now that I have shown why the poem the presence of an agent disappoints as gives me pleasure, I have to ask if the much as its absence had in the previous pleasure is a suf½cient compensation stanza. Then in the third stanza the ana- for my years of learning from the avant- phoric structure arrives at someone “in- garde to distrust the theatrical way the side of me” who may be the poet’s de- poem manipulates emotions. Much as I monic other, someone at home in the admire the poem’s self-con½dent pacing, sense of failure that pervades the poem. I have to admit there is a luxuriating in The poem’s concluding stanza in ef- the domain of metaphoric possibility fect pushes further inward, to a clearing that is deeply at odds with the bare sense beyond the zones possessed by demonic

114 Dædalus Fall 2004 of suf½ciency celebrated by the ending– ironic motion to Wright’s elaborate Dif½culty a luxuriating that seems to bring the po- focusing. In the place of inwardness, in contem- porary em dangerously close to the self-indul- Clover seeks a different locus for subjec- American gent portentousness that constitutes tivity based on resistance to lyrical and poetry one common strand in contemporary social conventions. Rather than project- lyricism. Of course the poem presents ing this inwardness for the subject, a good deal of irony in relation to its Clover makes poetry a site where the quest to understand the conditions of its subject has to experience the strange own saying–but it does not subject the impersonal or transpersonal dependen- promise of an inner principle of identity cies that bind us to our cultural moment: to that irony. Nor does the poem register We were drinking gin and tonics on the its species of inwardness as a now anach- terrace when the midi skirt ronistic model of subjectivity, nor does it Came back into style. At this time movies make any effort to explore alternative lo- were extremely popular cales for selfhood–for example, in qual- Although no more than usual, after which ities of sensation or habits built on ways many people stopped in of engaging social relations. At the Liberty Equality Fraternity Café for Yet the poem is beautiful (consider ice cream, just the vowel music in the second stan- The ice cream of novel thoughts. Everyone za with its elaborate harmony of long o was wearing and i sounds). And the portentousness Those sunglasses everyone’s wearing. Just works because the spare concluding a few felicities stanza de½nes so dramatic a contrast Make a movement, the kind that should with the utopian possibilities raised by really have its own comic book the anaphoric rhetoric in the rest of the Exploring the great issues of the age but poem. I cannot not acknowledge this still with boffo action beauty, nor my increasing sense that this And a speaking part for the lightbulb. suf½ces for what poetry can offer social And so the crowd promenaded, lacking a life. And yet there is in this very seduc- manifesto, tiveness proof that the avant-garde spirit Yet to have condemned the passésists or from Eliot on has its own crucial social started the exclusions, role to play in challenging the ease of Scarcely aware they were (in the words of identi½cation produced by elegant rhet- Archigram– oric. That modernist spirit wants poet- Clever boys, give them their own terrace ry to take on other roles–to insist that immediately!) beauty is not enough precisely because it A moment-village. They goeth abroad in can be so seductive. To fall for beauty is the land. to ignore how much we need the imagi- How long have we been discussing nation to devise models of the self and of whether we are a part intimacy that make identi½cation prob- Of what passes by, and at what point did lematic and that test other resources for that become elaborating utopian social relations. The main conversation, replacing the Now consider Joshua Clover’s “No summer, our cadastral survey More Bof½ns,” not by any means his Of its many crowded quarters, its tuned best poem, but one that I can handle suburbs and departments, here. This poem is utterly different in Its way of being a different sort of parade, pacing, preferring constant impersonal

Dædalus Fall 2004 115 Note by The kind which can be conveniently cial conditioning. But even its “we” Charles depicted with a spectrum? Altieri comes to our attention as states of con- Paint samples from Jane’s Hardware will sciousness where the festive flow of pos- do in a pinch. sible identi½cations has no anchor, no Already the fete is erasing itself from the site where examination and judgment popular memory can take hold. And the possibility of a Like exploding instructions, leaving manifesto to give meaning to this flow stained confetti as a reminder is quickly dismissed, because the move- You were supposed to get something done. ment that would pen it is only a “mo- Little tasks, ment-village,” united not by ideas but Large problems, philosophers say: Who by these proliferating processes. will do the laundry Lines 15 and 16–“How long have we Now that history is coming to an end? been discussing whether we are a part / What advantage Of what passes by”–thicken the poem’s Would someone have over me who knew a obsession with information, with how direct route one comes to terms with all the ways one From blue to yellow, far from this shady registers oneself part of a world–or, in way-station our post-Stevensian climate, parts of Where we dream aimlessly of love in the worlds. Notice how the lines intricately afternoon, place time elements against space ele- The post-historical kind? However big ments so that geography and history you grow in my estimation, pull against each other. Each dimension You will always be a dwarf compared to is necessary for grasping the “Now,” but these buildings, each involves different kinds of mea- Their skins glassy and inviting as that lake surements, and each demands different just to the west kinds of self-consciousness. Positioned Of wherever we grew up, you remember, in time, we have to work our way Something Lake. through narrative forms; positioned The information lurks in the shoals in in space, we ½nd the movement condi- forms by now tioned by the many crowded quarters Almost unrecognizable. Now if only you through which the parade passes. No could dive sideways. wonder the poem is driven to surreal When is the real holiday, the one for notions of how depiction might take which everyone gets a sharp haircut, place. Cruel atonal singing seeps from the crypt The sense of festival made us attend and the meaning of objects to our social place. But as that sense ex- Is once again up for grabs? Even bricks plodes, the feeling of sociality takes on were once straw. content primarily as a set of questions that comes to structure the poem. And The poem begins by quickly surveying two interesting aspects of the social several social locales; in effect the poem come to the fore. First, second- and ½rst- wants to know what kinds of informa- person pronouns now enter the poem tion might sustain and give substance because the issue of person is insepara- to its own desire to speak as and for the ble from these questions about what ½rst-person plural. Clearly this world is kind of place the individual might have too dispersed to allow an “I” to emerge, in working out the consequences of the except in the form of a lamentation for initial attention to festival. Second, the all that it cannot possess of its own so-

116 Dædalus Fall 2004 speaking presence seems increasingly can become the bricks that get hurled Dif½culty in contem- locked into the postures Clover takes as against the dominating glass. The poem porary basic to capitalist society. On the one is left in the horrible position of refusing American hand, insecurity reigns because there is to give up on the dream of revolution poetry fear of being disadvantaged in relation while it has to recognize how this dream to others; on the other hand, there is the makes every present attachment to the temptation to cultivate one’s private social a source of alienation. being apart from all social relations. Were an individual to offer this ac- I am not sure how to read the last sec- count of alienation, many of us would tion, or whether it is best to treat the rest ½nd his pathos self-indulgent. But if po- of the poem as a single unit. But I think etry can imagine itself into the symp- the dif½culty is not a problem with the toms, into an abstracted and nonsubjec- poem but a problem for the poem– tive version of the pains and uncertain- given the situation that has been depict- ties that shape our relation to our sense ed. Trapped by what we might call the of what the social might be, then the historical geography shaping cultural dream of revolution, suf½ciently tem- identities, the speaking presence wob- pered by despair, might seem itself an bles between a tentative, unrealizable ineluctable part of our culture. Theory lyricism addressed to the “you,” and an can explain why revolution may be nec- unbearably clear awareness that the facts essary and analyze what constrains us. sustain an order of information more ca- But perhaps only poetry can show how pacious and more determining than the that cry emerges from modes of aware- positioned intellect has the resources to ness more intimate, more widely shared, grasp. When the speaking presence tries and more desperate than theory can de- to be expansive about the “you,” it is velop. instantly forced to recognize how pa- Identi½cation then is as fundamental a thetic the human seems in relation to concern in Clover’s poetry as in Wright’s the buildings that frame the scene. But, “Utopia,” but almost never in ways that good interpellated subject that it is, the can reinforce us as subjects. As in the speaking presence also lets its fascina- work of John Ashbery, we are always al- tion with the buildings provide a lyrical ready coming upon the identi½cations hope of reconciliation with the environ- that shape us. But Ashbery’s fluidity ment. Still, the terms of reconciliation among personal pronouns becomes in depend on the fantasy that the glass of Clover a constant sense of how weak a those buildings will dissolve into the hold we have on the various permuta- waters of an idealized lake visited in tions of self-reference. The ideal of fluid- childhood. ity becomes a measure of the impotence The impossibility of that action pro- felt when one looks at the many ways in- duces the urgent direct wish for the real dividual subjects become utterly bound holiday, only to bring into the present to their roles and narrow interests. the sounds of an atonal operatic funeral Clover’s poem is not uplifting, even as procession. Dreaming and dying turn a bare personal resolve. In fact, its dif½- out to be dangerously close to one an- culty may be necessary for expressing other. However, even if people cannot such bleakness, because then that bleak- dive into the lake-buildings, the dream ness can be at least tempered by the play of revolution persists in the reminder of intelligence. But the dif½culty also that even meanings reduced to straw helps interpret the impotence it renders:

Dædalus Fall 2004 117 perhaps such impotence is an inevitable result of poetry’s inability to ½nd con- vincing collective voices that might make revolutionary sentiments less wistful and less dogged by irony. Lynn Margulis on syphilis & Nietzsche’s madness: spirochetes awake!

In the foothills of the Italian Alps, in a snow-draped piazza in Turin on January 3, 1889, a driver was flogging his horse when a man flung his arms around the poor beast’s neck, his tears soaking its mane. The horse’s savior was the Ger- man philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900). His landlord later found him collapsed in the square and brought him back to his room, where Nietzsche spent the night writing a flurry of bizarre postcards. As soon as his friend and colleague Jacob Burck-

Lynn Margulis is Distinguished University Profes- sor in the department of geosciences at the Univer- sity of Massachusetts, Amherst. A Fellow of the American Academy since 1998, she is the author of “Symbiosis in Cell Evolution: Microbial Com- munities in the Archean and Proterozoic Eons” (2nd ed., 1993) and “Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution” (1998). She coauthored “Ear- ly Life: Evolution on the Precambrian Earth” (2002) with Michael F. Dolan and “Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origin of the Species” (2002) with Dorion Sagan.

© 2004 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

118 Dædalus Fall 2004 hardt received a crazed letter, he con- of such clarity that there seems to have Syphilis & vinced his close friend Peter Gast to go been a cure. Nietzsche’s madness: and accompany Nietzsche on his return Infection by the spirochete of syphilis spirochetes to Basel. Much of the rest of the century, –declared eradicated in the mid-twenti- awake! the last eleven years of his life, Nietzsche eth century–still prevails, I believe. The spent in incoherent madness, crouching ef½cacy of early treatment with penicil- in corners and drinking his urine. The lin, improved hygiene, condom use, and most productive year of his career had attitudes that lead the afflicted to seek been immediately prior to the psychotic help for venereal disease conspire to bol- break. After it, he wrote no more philos- ster the common myth that syphilis has ophy. Deborah Hayden, in her recent disappeared. We are deceived; many book Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mys- people suffer from syphilis called by teries of Syphilis (2003), summed up the other names. famous incident: Syphilis symptoms are caused by vene- real infection with a spirochete bacteri- The story of Nietzsche’s sudden plummet um called Treponema pallidum. The tre- from the most advanced thought of his poneme family of spirochetes consists time to raving dementia is often told as of tiny corkscrew-shaped bacteria, all of if there were a razor’s edge demarcation which swim and grow in animal tissue. between sanity and tertiary syphilis, as if The bacterial flagella are encased within on 3 January armies of spirochetes woke an outer membrane. Spirochetes, like suddenly from decades of slumber and at- other ‘gram negative’ bacteria, all have tacked the brain, instead of the biological two cell membranes with a space be- reality that paresis is a gradual process tween them. In this periplasmic space presaged over many years. between the inner and outer membranes Hayden’s case to prove that Nietzsche the flagella rotate. Smaller spirochetes indeed suffered all his adult life from such as the syphilis treponeme have only syphilis is as strong as any posthumous one or two such flagella, whereas some medical history can be. He was diag- giant spirochetes have more than three nosed at a time when clinical familiarity hundred. The ef½cient screw-wise mo- with the disease abounded. Detailed evi- tion into genital and other tissue re- dence shows that he passed through quires this flagellar arrangement. each of the three stages: the chancre of Treponema pallidum is one freak among primary syphilis immediately after in- a huge diversity. The vast majority of fection; the terrible pox, fever, and pain spirochetes live peacefully in mud, of secondary syphilis that emerges swamps, and waterlogged soils all over months or years later; and the dreaded the world. Benign, ‘free-living’ spiro- third: paresis. ‘Paresis,’ like the word chete relatives of Treponema pallidum are ‘syphilis’ itself, refers to a syndrome. everywhere. They thrive where food is An acronym, its mnemonic is: person- plentiful: lakeshores rich in decaying ality disturbances; affect abnormalities; vegetation, marine animal carcasses, reflex hyperactivity; eye abnormalities; hot sulfurous springs, intestines of sensorium changes; intellectual impair- wood-eating termites and cockroaches, ment; and slurred speech. Paresis often and the human mouth. Most kinds are begins with a dramatic delusional epi- poisoned by oxygen, from which they sode, but in the following months and swim away to avoid. Very few cause ill- years dementia alternates with periods ness, yet ticks infected with the Borrelia

Dædalus Fall 2004 119 Note by burgdorferi spirochete of Lyme disease on doctor’s orders! Years later, in 1889, Lynn Margulis can induce serious arthritis and other when Nietzsche broke down and was enduring symptoms. Another spirochete taken to the clinic of a paresis expert, he nearly indistinguishable from the Lyme was admitted with the diagnosis “1866. disease Borrelia is a healthy symbiont in Syphilit. Infect.” the intestines of termites. A treponeme In 1888 Nietzsche’s productivity was, similar to that of syphilis is associated by any standard, extraordinary. He com- with the tropical eye disease yaws. pleted his philosophical project: Twilight Leptospirosis, a systemic and some- of the Idols, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, and times fatal infection found usually in The Case of Wagner. The style of these ½shermen, is due to spirochetes that are works is apocalyptic, prophetic, incendi- carried in the kidney tubules of rats that ary, and megalomaniacal, leading many urinate into nearby water. The ½sher- scholars to claim the excesses of these men acquire Leptospira spirochetes from works were due to incipient paresis. ½shhook cuts and other skin lesions. Now, after more than half a millennium And, of course, there is syphilis. of the study of syphilis and more than a Nietzsche’s letters from 1867 until his century after Nietzsche’s breakdown, breakdown provide a vivid account of our research suggests that the philoso- the suffering of secondary syphilis. He pher really did plummet abruptly into complains of the pain, skin sores, weak- madness; armies of spirochetes did ness, and loss of vision that typify the awaken suddenly from decades of slum- repertoire of the disease. In his last year, ber, and literally began to eat his brain. his letters give evidence of euphoria. His Many claim syphilis was known in published works show the grandeur and Europe prior to the return of Columbus; inspiration that tertiary syphilis some- but as Hayden describes and I agree, it is times brings to brilliant and disciplined more likely the insidious venereal infec- creative minds by removing inhibition tion was a new gift of the Americas to as brain tissue is destroyed. When Niet- the people of Europe. Columbus and his zsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra crew returned to Spain with a novel set (1884), “Die Erde, sagte Er, hat eine of symptoms that soon spread to Naples Haut; und diese Haut hat Krankheiten. and France. From that year, 1493, the dis- Eine diese Krankheit heist zum Beispiel: ease was described in detail, ½rst by the ‘Mensch’” (translated as “The Earth, he physician who treated Columbus and his says, has a skin, and this skin has a sick- men, Dr. Ruiz Diaz de Isla. Diaz report- ness. One of these sicknesses is called ed, “And since the Admiral Don Cristo- ‘man,’” or as “The Earth is a beautiful bal Colon had relations and congress place but it has a pox called man”), what with the inhabitants . . . and since it is terrible insight Nietzsche must have had contagious, it spread.” Eventually it af- into the devastating horror of pox! fected the waterfront prostitutes of Bar- Multiple sources indicate that he celona. Diaz, in work published in 1539, was treated for syphilis in 1867 at age wrote that infected sailors were accepted twenty-three. Seeking medical treat- into the army that Charles of France ment for eye inflammation, a frequent brought to besiege Naples in 1495 and syphilitic symptom, he consulted Dr. into the forces that Ferdinand of Spain Otto Eiser, who reported not only Niet- employed to defend Naples. Ferdinand’s zsche’s penile lesions, but that he had army alone is estimated to have had ½ve engaged in sexual relations several times hundred prostitutes among its camp fol-

120 Dædalus Fall 2004 lowers. Soon after the victorious entry of ary syphilis symptoms. (The best recent Syphilis & Charles’s army, the Great Pox of Naples photo I’ve seen of spirochetes in the Nietzsche’s madness: erupted. His multinational mercenaries frontal cortex of a paresis patient, ½gure spirochetes brought infection back to every Euro- 8-14 in W. E. Farrar’s Atlas of Infections of awake! pean country. Charles himself returned the Nervous System, is at too low a mag- to France infected. By the next year, the ni½cation to see round-body details. disease spread across the continent, puz- See the inside back cover and page 125 zling physicians with its novelty. below.) Within the early decades of the conta- Syphilis has gained attention again gion, in cities across Europe physicians because of its disputed relationship to reported that between 5 and 20 percent aids. Today, although physicians rarely of the population suffered. Variously record cases of tertiary syphilis, the ear- named at ½rst, it came to be called mor- lier two stages of the disease seem on the bus gallicus, the French malady. Charles’s rise. aids patients who have a past re- army was blamed for its introduction to cord of syphilis that was apparently Naples–perhaps rightly. Physicians who cured by antibiotics succumb again to published work on it in the lingua franca the disease. “Syphilis in patients infected of Latin soon after the great outbreak of with hiv is often more malignant with 1495 drew international attention. Giro- a greater disposition for neurological lamo Fracastoro, in 1530, wrote a verse relapses following treatment,” says Dr. treatise on the disease entitled Syphilus Russell Johnson of the University of sive Morbus Gallicus, in which the epony- Minnesota Medical School, a world ex- mous protagonist, a shepherd, is the ½rst pert on the Lyme disease spirochete. Dr. to bear the disease, as a punishment for Peter Duesberg, discoverer of the retro- impiety. The name stuck. virus, rejects exclusive focus on hiv as Syphilis has been surprisingly well the cause of aids in his excellent book documented since its outbreak in the Inventing the aids Virus. He questions closing years of the ½fteenth century, the common assumption that, as a con- as microbiologist and sociologist of sci- tagious virus, hiv is even the main cause ence Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961) wrote in of the lesions, tumors, rashes, arthritis, his masterpiece Genesis and Development weakness, pneumonia, and other severi- of a Scienti½c Fact. From the sixteenth ties that accompany immunosuppres- through the end of the nineteenth cen- sion. Such symptoms, including the tury, the prevalence and peculiarities of presence in tissue of both the hiv anti- syphilis inspired a wide range of litera- body and of the virus itself, may, as in ture, from scienti½c arcana to torrid nov- other opportunistic infections, be the els. Meanwhile, the cause of the disease consequence, not the cause, of aids. I was avidly sought. Then in 1905 Erich suspect that many of the symptoms in Hoffmann sent a genital chancre speci- the immunosuppressed sufferers corre- men to German microscopist Fritz late both with the tenacity of the syphilis Schaudinn, who con½rmed the etiology. treponeme and the sexual and other be- He aptly called the lively, translucent, haviors of the patient. thin, corkscrew-shaped bacterium he Joan McKenna, a physiologist with a observed “thin, pale thread”: Trepo- thermodynamic orientation, writes: nema pallidum. In 1913 Udo J. Wile found Because spirochetes can be harbored Treponema pallidum spirochetes in the in any tissue for decades and can move brains of patients that manifested terti- from latency to reproductive stages,

Dædalus Fall 2004 121 Note by their survival in any host and despite prior to marriage. However, as shown Lynn any known therapy is nearly certain . . . . Margulis by Fleck and others, the Wassermann [We also] know that unknown factors reagent does not measure the presence will activate the microorganism [Trepo- of Treponema pallidum. It indicates, and nema pallidum] from latency into an ag- not even 100 percent of the time, the ex- gressive infection . . . . posure of a patient to unspeci½ed infec- tious bacteria: a positive Wassermann She goes on to remark about the relation test shows only that a person makes between syphilis and aids: “No symp- antibodies against certain blood-borne toms show up in aids that have not his- bacteria that may include the syphilis torically shown up with syphilis and the treponeme. Furthermore, this test in history of these populations [where known syphilitics in advanced stages of aids is rampant] includes a high inci- the syndrome often converts to negative. dence of syphilis.” To preclude mother-to-infant trans- Clinical confusions (misdiagnoses, mission of syphilis during parturition, anomalous symptoms, conflated multi- drops of silver nitrate, thought to sup- ple infections) have abounded since the press the syphilitic spirochete, were early centuries of syphilology. Yet many placed in the eyes of most newborns. studies con½rm the variety and severity This practice occurs in some regions of symptoms attributable to the Trepo- even now, and even when blood tests nema pallidum spirochete. The malady for syphilis in the mother are negative. remains idiosyncratic in its course, with These irrational practices measure resid- variability in the timing of the stages, ual fear of the contagion of syphilis. and in the absence of any reliable test or In the beginning of the twentieth cen- single diagnostic. Still, the evidence sug- tury, arsphenamine, an arsenic-based gests that the virulence and severity of remedy, was said to improve the health the disease have diminished dramatical- of syphilitic patients. Often it made peo- ly since the initial violent pox outbreak. ple sicker. After 1943 came the ‘miracle This behavior is expected of pathogens drug’: the claim was that a single or a in ½rst exposure to naive populations. few massive doses of penicillin cured Syphilis in Europe showed the same pat- the body permanently of the dreaded tern as measles and smallpox did when treponeme. After hefty antibiotic treat- Europeans ½rst introduced them to the ment in newly detected cases, the insidi- Americas. As early as the ½rst few de- ous corkscrews disappeared. Whereas cades that followed the Pox of Naples, the apparent remains of ‘dead’ spiro- subsequent generations of Europeans chetes–tiny, shiny round bodies–might were more resistant. Pathogenic mi- sometimes be found in tissue, the mov- crobes maximize not by rapid lethality, ing treponeme was declared gone. J. Pil- but by transforming into a chronic dis- lot, the French researcher after whom ease that lasts a lifetime and subtly af- the beautiful large spirochete Pillotina fects behavior in the stricken animal. was named, ‘proved’ that the round- Since the late nineteenth century, the body remnants of the lively corkscrew Wassermann blood test has often been are dead. The confusion comes from the touted as the best diagnostic test for fact that–penicillin or not–during the syphilis. The fear of syphilis transmis- long latent phases of the disease after the sion was so common that the Wasser- primary chancre, moving corkscrew tre- mann test was, and often still is, legally ponemes are not seen anyway. Many mandated in many places, required

122 Dædalus Fall 2004 years and studies later we can say that speci½c genome knowledge of the single Syphilis & whether or not any treponemes are vis- treponeme strain investigated, however, Nietzsche’s madness: ible in the patient, penicillin (except the routine growth of any Treponema pal- spirochetes when given in an appropriate dose very lidum in isolation (outside the warm, awake! early in the course of the disease) is not nutritious mammalian body) has not an effective and permanent cure. been achieved. Whether in organic mud Yet some physicians still insist that or changing human tissue, these spiro- penicillin and strong immune systems chetes depend utterly on their immedi- de½nitively eliminate this disease; oth- ate environment. Unfortunately, more- ers claim that treponemes ‘hide’ in tis- over, no one has ever been able to induce sues where antibiotics are inaccessible. round bodies of Treponema pallidum to Some speculate that tertiary syphilis form in isolation in a test tube, or to test occurs when the syphilis treponemes these round bodies in isolation for their ½nally manage to spread, after decades ability to resume growth. of invisible stealth, and penetrate the My students and colleagues and I are blood-brain barrier. Alas, most physi- not experts on any disease bacteria, nor cians and syphilis scholars (and scien- on illnesses where symptoms are associ- tists such as I) simply don’t know the ated with visible spirochetes. We have relationship between Treponema palli- been living closely with spirochetes for dum, syphilis symptoms, the immune very different reasons. Our interest is response, the hiv virus, secondary in the possible role these wily bacteria infection, sexual behavior, and the pu- played in the evolution of larger forms tative cures. of life. Attempts to reconstruct the evo- Finally, in 1998, the description of the lutionary history of the nucleated cell, entire genome of Treponema pallidum, the kind that divides by mitosis, have one of the smallest bacterial genomes led us to study harmless spirochetes. known, with about nine hundred genes I suspect that the mitotic cell of ani- in total, was published. Two other spiro- mals, plants, and all other nucleated or- chete genomes are known: Borrelia burg- ganisms (algae, water molds, ciliates, dorferi, with some eleven hundred genes, slime molds, fungi, and some ½fty other and Leptospira, with nearly ½ve thousand groups included in the Protoctista king- genes. Spirochetes like Leptospira, which dom) share a common spirochete ances- are capable of life outside the body of tor. I believe that with much help from animals, have at least ½ve times as many colleagues and students, we will soon genes as the syphilis treponeme. The be able to show that certain free-swim- leptospires all by themselves internally ming spirochetes contributed their lithe, produce all their necessary components snaky, sneaky bodies to become both the (proteins, lipids, vitamins, etc.), whereas ubiquitous mitotic apparatus and the fa- Treponema pallidum does very little by it- miliar cilia of all cells that make such self; it survives only on the nourishment ‘moving hairs.’ Our lab work, coupled of rich human tissue. For this reason, it with that of other scientists, reveals that is likely that the syphilis treponeme lost certain spirochetes when threatened by four-½fths of its genes as it became an death can and do form immobile, shiny obligate parasite. round bodies. Furthermore, these round To identify any bacterium, the micro- bodies can hide and wait until condi- biologist needs to separate it and grow it tions become favorable enough for by itself, that is, in isolation. Despite the growth to resume.

Dædalus Fall 2004 123 Note by Since 1977, a group of scientists and to our collaboration with Spanish col- Lynn Margulis students has been traveling to Laguna leagues at the delta of the Ebro River. Figueroa (called Lake Mormona by An- Professors Ricardo Guerrero and Isabel glophones) near San Quintin, Baja Cali- Esteve had begun a strong research proj- fornia Norte, Mexico, to study microbial ect. One stake, a stick in the mud labeled mats. These communities of organisms #1 uab, marks a site on a microbial mat resemble ancient ones that left fossils that somehow seems exceptional. Many in rocks. They are the best evidence we fascinating organisms were taken from have of Earth’s oldest life-forms. Many that place, but none as interesting as the times we have brought microbial mat large spirochetes we named Spirosymplo- samples back to our lab and left these kos deltaeiberi. Whenever these easy-to- bottles of brightly colored mud on the see spirochetes are confronted with windowsill, where photosynthetic bacte- harsh conditions–such as liquid that ria powered the community. On several does not support their growth, water occasions the bottles were assiduously that is too acidic, sugars that they cannot ignored through semesters of classes digest, a temperature that is too high– and meetings. From time to time, we they make round, dormant bodies much took tiny samples and placed them in like those that Pillot and nearly all his test tubes under conditions favorable successors argue are dead. for growth. Various kinds of spirochetes The spheres of Spirosymplokos deltaeiberi did begin to swim and grow; we suspect we studied look just like the round bod- they emerged from round bodies after ies published by Norwegian microbiolo- the samples were put into fresh, clean, gists Oystein and Sverre-Henning Bror- abundant liquid food. Spirochetes, son. (They call them cysts.) The Bror- mostly unidenti½ed, persisted in hiding sons showed that under unfavorable in these bottles and jars for at least ten conditions the Borrelia burgdorferi spi- years. rochetes of Lyme disease make round Today we study another microbial- bodies. After weeks of dormancy, of no community sample, collected by Tom growth and no sensitivity to antibiotics Teal in 1990 at Eel Pond in Woods Hole, and other chemical insults, these round Massachusetts. It is in our lab at the Uni- bodies revive. At high magni½cation versity of Massachusetts, Amherst in a they look just like those of Spirosymplokos forty-liter glass jar. To it we add only deltaeiberi, only smaller. The Borrelia ‘rain’ (distilled water), but with sunlight burgdorferi round bodies convert to form as the energy source an abundance of life swimming spirochetes all at once and still thrives. Long after no typical spiro- begin to grow easily as soon as they are chetes were seen in the sample, we placed into proper liquid food at the cor- added bits of either wet or dry mud to rect temperature and salt concentration. food and water known to support the The Brorsons con½rmed what we sus- activities of spirochetes, swimming and pected: spirochete round bodies, like the growing. In a very few samples, within spheres of Spirosymplokos deltaeiberi, are about a week, armies of spirochetes fully alive. Either mixed with other mud awoke from at least months of slumber. organisms or growing by themselves in We have observed and ½lmed spiro- isolation, just supply them with what chetes in samples from all over the world they need to grow and within minutes rounding up to form inactive bodies. they revert into swimming, active, feed- Continuation of work on spirochetes led ing, corkscrew spirochetes. Armies of

124 Dædalus Fall 2004 them awake from months of slumber. Syphilis & Our work with Guerrero on Spirosym- Nietzsche’s madness: plokos deltaeiberi, coupled with our read- spirochetes ing of the literature (especially several awake! studies by the Brorsons), leads us to em- phasize an ancient secret of spirochete success: persistence via round bodies. Nietzsche’s brain on January 3, 1889 experienced a transformation like that of the microbial mat sample transferred into new fresh food. Our interpretation is that the spirochetes transformed from dormant round bodies into the swim- ming corkscrews in a very short time. Deborah Hayden, however, is also cor- rect. Nietzsche was inoculated in his early twenties, and his long-standing condition was con½rmed both by the physician’s diagnostic on the medical record (“Syphilit. Infect.”) and, at his autopsy, by pox scars on his private parts. The dormant spirochetes had been hiding out in his tissues for over thirty years. But on January 3, 1889 in Turin, armies of revived spirochetes munched on his brain tissue. The con- sequence was the descent of Nietzsche the genius into Nietzsche the madman in less than one day.*

* James di Properzio and Brianne Goodspeed helped importantly in the writing of this essay, and Celeste Aisikainen aided in its preparation. The scienti½c work, aided by Dr. Mónica Solé, was funded in part by the Alexander von Humboldt Prize, the Tauber Fund, and the University of Massachusetts, Am- herst (The College of Natural Sciences and Math- ematics and the graduate school).

Dædalus Fall 2004 125 President Patricia Meyer Spacks Executive Of½cer Leslie Cohen Berlowitz Vice President Louis W. Cabot Secretary Emilio Bizzi Treasurer John S. Reed Editor Steven Marcus Vice President, Midwest Center Martin Dworkin Vice President, Western Center Jesse H. Choper

Dædalus Board of Editors Committee Steven Marcus, Chair, Joyce Appleby, Russell Banks, Stanley Hoffmann, Donald Kennedy, Martha C. Nussbaum, Neil J. Smelser, Rosanna Warren, Steven Weinberg; ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Committee on Publications & Public Relations Jerome Kagan, Chair, Emilio Bizzi, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks, Steven Marcus, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Inside back cover: Spirochetes from low-oxy- gen muddy water of a microbial mat, growing near the salt works of the Alfacs Peninsula, northeast Spain. (Phase contrast light micro- graph, magni½ed 1000x, false color.) The large ones–Spirosymplokos deltaeiberi–and many of the smaller ones have formed round bodies as evaporating water threatens them with desiccation. See Lynn Margulis on Syph- ilis & Nietzsche’s madness: spirochetes awake! pages 118–125: “after more than half a mil- lennium of the study of syphilis and more than a century after Nietzsche’s breakdown, our research suggests that the philosopher really did plummet abruptly into madness; armies of spirochetes . . . literally began to eat his brain.” Photograph © Lynn Margulis.

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on race Kenneth Prewitt, Orlando Patterson, George Fredrickson, Ian Hacking, Jennifer Hochschild, Glenn Loury, David Hollinger, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Victoria Hattam, Kwame A. Appiah, Ian Haney López, Melissa Nobles, and Kim Williams Fall 2004

on imperialism Niall Ferguson, Kenneth Pomeranz, Anthony Pagden, Jack Snyder, Akira Iriye, Molly Greene, William Easterly, Robin Fall 2004: on human nature on Steven Pinker Why nature & nurture won’t go away 5 Blackburn, and Henk Wesseling human nature Richard Rorty Philosophy-envy 18 on professions Howard Gardner, Lee Shulman, William Sullivan, Geoffrey Galt Richard Wrangham Killer species 25 & professionals Harpham, Jeanne Nakamura & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William Patrick Bateson The origins of human differences 36 Damon, Anne Colby, Kendall Bronk & Thomas Ehrlich, and Harvey Goldman Donald E. Brown Human universals 47 Jonathan Haidt on body in mind Antonio & Hanna Damasio, A. S. Byatt, Carol Gilligan, Gerald & Craig Joseph Intuitive ethics 55 Edelman, Jorie Graham, Richard Davidson, Raymond Dolan & Vernon L. Smith An economic perspective 67 Arne Öhman, and Mark Johnson Jerome Kagan A psychological perspective 77 on aging Henry J. Aaron, Paul Baltes, Frank Kermode, Linda Partridge, Matt Ridley The biology of human nature 89 Dennis J. Selkoe, Caleb E. Finch, Sarah Harper, Chris Wilson, Jagadeesh Gokhale & Kent Smetters, Hillard Kaplan, and Lisa poetry Geoffrey Hill Improvisations for Hart Crane 99 Berkman

½ction I left my heart in Skaftafell 102 on identity Akeel Bilgrami, Wendy Doniger, Stephen Greenblatt, Sidney Victor LaValle Shoemaker, Susan Green½eld, Claudio Lomnitz, Carol Rovane, Todd E. Feinberg, and Courtney Jung notes Charles Altieri on dif½culty in contemporary American poetry 113 Lynn Margulis on syphilis & the nature of Nietzsche’s madness 118 plus poetry by Rachel Hadas, Franz Wright, W. S. Merwin, Charles Wright, Peg Boyers, Jorie Graham &c.; ½ction by Sigrid Nunez, Margaret Atwood, R. Edmund &c.; and notes by Donald Green, Shelley Taylor, Robert F. Nagel, Philip L. Quinn, Jeri Laber, Morris E. Fine, Michael Wood, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Peter Hohendahl, Allan Basbaum, Rita Colwell &c.

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