erickreguera

This book grew on me as I read it. At first, I suspected Pinker of cherry-picking targets from the extreme fringe of cultural constructivism. However, after I spent some time in a Sociology of Gender class at college, I discovered that the total denial of innate psychological programming is indeed as pervasive among the social sciences as Pinker suggests. His characterization of post-modernist philosophy, cultural anthropology, and some factions within psychology are very consistent with the ideas that I've seen professors advocate and students at my school endorse. The Blank Slate is an important book for impressionable students of the social sciences because it thoroughly explicates arguments that some academic programs would never dare to teach. It's also a wonderfully engaging and thought-provoking intellectual history of how human nature has been conceptualized in different eras, and contains a spicy variety of compelling sociopolitical perspectives that will challenge liberals and conservatives alike. Pinker is so smart and well read that he doesn't need to be mean, and he isn't. However, since he so thoroughly refutes so many positions that so many people hold so dear, he's inevitably going to be accused of being hostile, bitter, nasty, insensitive, and so on. That's what people do when someone proves them wrong.

2020-08-22 16:56