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

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554 J HOW THE MIND WORKSof a dominant-submissive or celebrity-fan relationship are always <strong>the</strong>re,but nei<strong>the</strong>r party may want <strong>the</strong> relationship to go in that direction. Bydeprecating <strong>the</strong> qualities that you could have lorded over a friend or that afriend could have lorded over you, you are conveying that <strong>the</strong> basis of <strong>the</strong>relationship, as far as you are concerned, is not status or dominance. All<strong>the</strong> better if <strong>the</strong> signal is involuntary and hence hard to fake.If this idea is correct, it would explain <strong>the</strong> homology between adulthuman laughter and <strong>the</strong> response to mock aggression and tickling inchildren and chimpanzees. The laughter says, It may look like I'm tryingto hurt you, but I'm doing something that both of us want. The idea alsoexplains why kidding is a precision instrument for assessing <strong>the</strong> kind ofrelationship one has with a person. You don't tease a superior or astranger, though if one of you floats a trial tease that is well received, youknow <strong>the</strong> ice is breaking and <strong>the</strong> relationship is shifting toward friendship.And if <strong>the</strong> tease elicits a mirthless chuckle or a freezing silence, youare being told that <strong>the</strong> grouch has no desire to become your friend (andmay even have interpreted <strong>the</strong> joke as an aggressive challenge). Therecurring giggles that envelop good friends are reavowals that <strong>the</strong> basis of<strong>the</strong> relationship is still friendship, despite <strong>the</strong> constant temptations forone party to have <strong>the</strong> upper hand.THE INQUISITIVE IN PURSUITOF THE INCONCEIVABLE"The most common of all follies," wrote H. L. Mencken, "is to believepassionately in <strong>the</strong> palpably not true. It is <strong>the</strong> chief occupation ofmankind." In culture after culture, people believe that <strong>the</strong> soul lives onafter death, that rituals can change <strong>the</strong> physical world and divine <strong>the</strong>truth, and that illness and misfortune are caused and alleviated by spirits,ghosts, saints, fairies, angels, demons, cherubim, djinns, devils, andgods. According to polls, more than a quarter of today's Americansbelieve in witches, almost half believe in ghosts, half believe in <strong>the</strong> devil,half believe that <strong>the</strong> book of Genesis is literally true, sixty-nine percentbelieve in angels, eighty-seven percent believe that Jesus was raised from<strong>the</strong> dead, and ninety-six percent believe in a God or universal spirit. <strong>How</strong>does religion fit into a mind that one might have thought was designed toreject <strong>the</strong> palpably not true? The common answer—that people take

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