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A review by tac107
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker
4.0
This was a really interesting book that challenged a lot of preconceived notions that I didn't even realize I had. I think it's a must-read for anyone interested in sociology or psychology. For the most part, it offers a different way of looking at things from philosophy to violence. The language is easy to understand - I was afraid the book would be full of philosophical buzzwords but for the most part it is really easy to follow. The tone is conversational, not too dry, and at times funny.
The arguments are MOSTLY well supported. There were a few times that I felt the author was contradicting himself or leaning too heavily on anecdotes. For instance, when the author was arguing that utopianism doesn't work because people are biologically inclined to violence (which suggests that the absence of policing leads to more crimes), he cited countries that are in civil wars and his own anecdote about the Montreal Police strike of 1969. He also attributes the drop in violent crime in the 1990s to more active policing, which other books like Freakonomics have seemingly disproven.
The author definitely comes across as being slightly conservative, but he gives both liberal and conservative viewpoints roughly equal airing. He does defend conservative positions more vigorously for certain and spends a lot of time talking about the failures of Marxism/communism/collectivism/utopian society/what have you.
However, where this book completely fell apart for me was one of the final chapters, which is about rape. While reading it, I could not help but feel that the author was living in a different universe than me. He does not believe the conception that rape is about power, rather than sex. While he offers some interesting arguments that rape is primarily about sex, he does not say anything to back up his assertion that it is NOT about power. If you believe that having sex with someone against their will is an assertion of power over them, as I do, he is really bolstering the opposing argument. He also suggests that men who rape are "losers" who can't get sex in any other way, but this totally discounts the prevalence of rape by coercion, marital rape, serial rape, and rapes committed by powerful politicians/sports figures/movie stars/etc. When you look at the statistic that most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows I find this hard to believe.
What made me put this book down without finishing it was the author's attitude toward rape prevention. He admiringly quoted Paglia's comparison of leaving your car keys on your hood in New York and having your car stolen to drinking at a fraternity party and then going upstairs and expecting nothing to happen. After a chapter saying that, even if men have a biological drive to rape, it does not excuse them of responsibility, he reproduces Paglia saying that you should NOT be able to expect a man to not rape you after drinking and being alone with him, plus Paglia's assertion that, in this situation, she and the police have the right to say "You idiot, what the hell were you thinking?"
Having spent 18 months working at a rape crisis center and having seen the psychological damage that occurs when the police or others act like this, I felt sick and had to put the book down. I am sure the rest of it is very interesting but in my non-professional opinion the author knows nothing about this particular subject and this chapter is best being skipped.
The arguments are MOSTLY well supported. There were a few times that I felt the author was contradicting himself or leaning too heavily on anecdotes. For instance, when the author was arguing that utopianism doesn't work because people are biologically inclined to violence (which suggests that the absence of policing leads to more crimes), he cited countries that are in civil wars and his own anecdote about the Montreal Police strike of 1969. He also attributes the drop in violent crime in the 1990s to more active policing, which other books like Freakonomics have seemingly disproven.
The author definitely comes across as being slightly conservative, but he gives both liberal and conservative viewpoints roughly equal airing. He does defend conservative positions more vigorously for certain and spends a lot of time talking about the failures of Marxism/communism/collectivism/utopian society/what have you.
However, where this book completely fell apart for me was one of the final chapters, which is about rape. While reading it, I could not help but feel that the author was living in a different universe than me. He does not believe the conception that rape is about power, rather than sex. While he offers some interesting arguments that rape is primarily about sex, he does not say anything to back up his assertion that it is NOT about power. If you believe that having sex with someone against their will is an assertion of power over them, as I do, he is really bolstering the opposing argument. He also suggests that men who rape are "losers" who can't get sex in any other way, but this totally discounts the prevalence of rape by coercion, marital rape, serial rape, and rapes committed by powerful politicians/sports figures/movie stars/etc. When you look at the statistic that most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows I find this hard to believe.
What made me put this book down without finishing it was the author's attitude toward rape prevention. He admiringly quoted Paglia's comparison of leaving your car keys on your hood in New York and having your car stolen to drinking at a fraternity party and then going upstairs and expecting nothing to happen. After a chapter saying that, even if men have a biological drive to rape, it does not excuse them of responsibility, he reproduces Paglia saying that you should NOT be able to expect a man to not rape you after drinking and being alone with him, plus Paglia's assertion that, in this situation, she and the police have the right to say "You idiot, what the hell were you thinking?"
Having spent 18 months working at a rape crisis center and having seen the psychological damage that occurs when the police or others act like this, I felt sick and had to put the book down. I am sure the rest of it is very interesting but in my non-professional opinion the author knows nothing about this particular subject and this chapter is best being skipped.