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The Blank Slate
The Modern Denial of Human Nature
The Blank Slate (2002) is about the huge role that evolution and genetics play in making us who we are. Steven Pinker makes a strong case against the belief that everyone is born a blank slate and influenced only by their upbringing, arguing instead that biology is a far more important factor in shaping our behaviors and personalities.
- Students of psychology, biology, and philosophy
- Teachers and parents
- Readers eager to understand human nature
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist and one of the world’s most renowned writers on language, the human mind and nature. Pinker has won numerous awards from organizations such as the American Humanist Association and has been included in Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and his influential books include The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works and The Better Angels of Our Nature.
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The Blank Slate
The Modern Denial of Human Nature
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Synopsis
The Blank Slate (2002) is about the huge role that evolution and genetics play in making us who we are. Steven Pinker makes a strong case against the belief that everyone is born a blank slate and influenced only by their upbringing, arguing instead that biology is a far more important factor in shaping our behaviors and personalities.
Key idea 1 of 14
There have been three popular but faulty theories about human nature.
The mysteries of the human mind have proved a fascinating subject for millennia, as we’ve striven to understand and anticipate people's behavior.
Many of our older, popular theories about human nature came from religion: In Judeo-Christian tradition, for example, the mind is considered separate from our physical form and lives on after the body dies.
These days, science is less influenced by religion, and we’ve ended up with three main theories regarding the nature of the human mind.
The first is known as the Blank Slate theory, and it’s often attributed to seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke. It suggests that there is no inherent human nature – that we’re born with a clean slate, so to speak, and everything that makes us who we are gets picked up along the way.
This theory emphasizes the role of social influences in forming the customs, thoughts and behaviors we exhibit. So, any behavioral patterns that groups of people share, whether they’re of a particular race, ethnic group or gender, are all gained through experience. This means that if an individual grew up with another set of parents and a different education routine, and was exposed to different media, they would turn out to be a completely different person.
Another popular belief is known as the Noble Savage theory, which is often attributed to the eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He believed that humans are inherently selfless and peaceful, but this natural state gets corrupted by civilized societies that promote greed and lead to violence.
The third concept is known as the Ghost in the Machine theory, which dates back to the seventeenth-century and the philosopher René Descartes. He believed that humans are composed of two separate systems, one that relates to the physical body and one that relates to the mind. People who adhered to this belief thought that the mind was complex in ways that simple mechanical terms couldn’t explain.
The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine are also known as empiricism, romanticism and dualism. But as we’ll see in the next blink, there’s another theory that can explain how the mind works.
Key ideas in this title
- There have been three popular but faulty theories about human nature.
- Cultural behaviors can be the result of evolution and genetics.
- Modern science has found bridges between the physical world and the mind.
- The defenses of the Blank Slate theory are not sound.
- Many of the defenses for the Blank Slate theory are based on politics and religion.
- Abandoning the blank slate provokes fears of inequality and imperfection.
- Abandoning the blank slate also evokes fears of determinism and nihilism.
- The human mind is great at categorizing, but this can lead to racism.
- Genetics dictate our strongest desires to help, and our moral emotions can be irrational.
- Political preferences and violent tendencies can also be traced to genetics.
- The minds of women and men aren’t interchangeable, but this shouldn’t stand in the way of feminism.
- Three laws of behavioral genetics show the influence of genes, parenting and unique environment on human nature.
- The arts are also in our genes, and it’s beauty that’s been missing in modern art.
- Final summary