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

Standard Equipment 57The confusion of scientific psychology with moral and political goals, andthe resulting pressure to believe in a structureless mind, have rippled perniciouslythrough the academy and modern intellectual discourse. Manyof us have been puzzled by the takeover of humanities departments by thedoctrines of postmodernism, poststructuralism, and deconstructionism,according to which objectivity is impossible, meaning is self-contradictory,and reality is socially constructed. The motives become clearer whenwe consider typical statements like "Human beings have constructed andused gender—human beings can deconstruct and stop using gender," and"The heterosexual/homosexual binary is not in nature, but is socially constructed,and therefore deconstructable." Reality is denied to categories,knowledge, and the world itself so that reality can be denied to stereotypesof gender, race, and sexual orientation. The doctrine is basically aconvoluted way of getting to the conclusion that oppression of women,gays, and minorities is bad. And the dichotomy between "in nature" and"socially constructed" shows a poverty of the imagination, because itomits a third alternative: that some categories are products of a complexmind designed to mesh with what is in nature.^__^,Mainstream social critics, too, can state any absurdityi£ifc"fits theStandard Social Science Model. Little boys are encoujagea to argue andfight. Children learn to associate sweets witlj^pieasure because parentsuse sweets as a reward for eating spina«rLTeenagers compete in looksand dress because they follow^he example set by spelling bees andaward ceremonies. Men ape-Hocialized into believing that the goal of sexis an orgasm. Eighty^year-old women are considered less physicallyattractive thajXwenty-year-olds because our phallic culture has turnedthe young'girl into the cult object of desire. It's not just that there is noevidence for these astonishing claims, but it is hard to credit that theauthors, deep down, believe them themselves. These kinds of claims areuttered without concern for whether they are true; they are part of thesecular catechism of our age.Contemporary social commentary rests on archaic conceptions of themind. Victims burst under the pressure, boys are conditioned to do this,women are brainwashed to value that, girls are taught to be such-andsuch.Where do these explanations come from? From the nineteenthcenturyhydraulic model of Freud, the drooling dogs and key-pressing