Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Hotheads | 419standing, the sneering, body-pierced, guitar-smashing rock musician istypically not singing about drugs, sex, or Satan. He is singing about love.He is courting a woman by calling attention to the irrationality, uncontrollability,and physiological costs of his desire. I want you so bad, it'sdriving me mad, Can't eat, can't sleep, Heart beats like a big bass drum,You're the only one, Don't know why I love you like I do, You drive mecrazy, Can't stop lovin'you, Ain't nobody can do it to me the way you can,I like the way you walk, I like the way you talk, et cetera, et cetera.Of course, one can well imagine a woman not being swept off her feetby these proclamations. (Or a man, if it is a woman doing the declaring.)They set off a warning light in the other component of courtship, smartshopping. Groucho Marx said that he would not belong to any club thatwould have him as a member. Usually people do not want any suitor whowants them too badly too early, because it shows that the suitor is desperate(so they should wait for someone better), and because it showsthat the suitor's ardor is too easily triggered (hence too easily triggerableby someone else). The contradiction of courtship—flaunt your desirewhile playing hard to get—comes from the two parts of romantic love:setting a minimal standard for candidates in the mate market, and capriciouslycommitting body and soul to one of them.THE SOCIETY OF FEELINGSMental life often feels like a parliament within. Thoughts and feelingsvie for control as if each were an agent with strategies for taking over thewhole person, you. Might our mental agents use paradoxical tactics withone another—handcuffs, doomsday machines, unbreakable contractswith third parties? The analogy is imperfect because natural selectiondesigns people to compete but does not design organs, including mentalagents, to compete; the interests of the whole person are paramount. Butthe whole person has many goals, like food, sex, and safety, and thatrequires a division of labor among mental agents with different prioritiesand kinds of expertise. The agents are bound by an entente that benefitsthe whole person over a lifetime, but over the short term the agents mayoutwit one another with devious tactics.Self-control is unmistakably a tactical battle between parts of themind. Schelling observes that the tactics people use to control them-