A State of Nature

In his article "The Blank Slate," Stephen Pinker writes about archeologist Lawrence Keeley's "discovery" that in "pre-state" societies, such as hunter-gatherer and hunter-horticultural societies, men are much more likely to die at the hands of other men than they are in the contemporary U.S. and Europe.  Pinker cites Keeley's finding as statistical proof that "when it comes to life in a state of nature, Hobbes was right; Rousseau was wrong" (Pinker 4).  Essentially, Pinker's argument goes: non-state societies are more natural than states, and more men die violent deaths in non-state societies; therefore, violence is inherent in human nature, and since states in some way suppress this violent aspect of our nature, we should all live under states.

This train of thought has multiple flaws.  For one, in what sense can non-state societies be said to be more "natural" than states?  What does the word "natural" even mean in this context?  What are the broader implications of this belief that some forms of human organization can be considered more "natural" than others? Does living "naturally" imply living only according to innate biological impulses?  Does Pinker believe that it is possible to live otherwise?  If so, is living "naturally" a good idea, or a bad one?  Complicating his position on the "natural," Pinker states later in the article, in his discussion on parenting, that "an appreciation of human nature can help restore human relationships to a more natural state" (7).  Whereas earlier Pinker appealed to the modern state as a positive entity because of its ability to help us curb the natural state of human relationships, in this phase of his argument he wants us to restore that natural state. 

I guess Pinker's claim about Hobbes being right contradicts my deeply-held belief in the importance of exploring possibilities of constructing a (possibly non-state) society which is more humane, and more racially and socially equitable society than the one we have now.  I'm not into the idea of dismissing the possibility of doing something in the future just because it's never been done before.  And I do believe that there are structural flaws in our current socio-economic institutions (both in the US and globally), which could be repaired to create a world in which social and racial injustice are less severe.  This belief drives much of my life, as I spend a lot of my time working to discover how to change these structural flaws or dismantle current institutions and construct new ones which would involve a more humane and equitable (not equal) distribution of resources and opportunities.  

Pinker believes that seeing human beings as a "blank slate" (rather than recognizing that our nature and abilities are somewhat genetically determined) leads to the belief that the economically successful people in a society only became successful through cheating and parasitism, and that this belief leads to persecution of these people, and to horrific incidents like the Holocaust (Pinker 5).  He says "in the case of individual differences, the downside to denying that they exist is the tendency to treat more successful people as larcenous" (Ibid).  Although he doesn't come right out and say it, the implication of Pinker's argument is that the most economically successful people in the world tend to be genetically superior in some way to those who are poorer.  The downside to believing that differences in individual wealth are based on genetic differences is that it leads to the justification of exploitation of workers, explaining their position in the working class as evidence of their genetic inferiority.  Looking at the current global distribution of wealth, Pinker might have no problem with its vast inequities, arguing that this distribution of wealth simply indicates that white males tend to be genetically superior to all others in the world.

The poorest people in the world currently tend to be African -- Pinker's argument about the lack of environmental effect on behavior implies that these people are in poverty because they are genetically inferior (and not because, perhaps, colonialism destroyed their socio-economic structures and corporations continue to extract their resources while denying them access to any of the capital produced from these ventures).  Pinker, like many other thinkers, creates an understanding of "human nature" out of a hodge-podge of scientific findings, and uses this view of human nature to justify his position as a well-to-do member of the white ruling class.  Like others who used religion or the Bible to back up their beliefs on human nature in the past, Pinker lays claim to "scientific truth" to back up his positions, when in fact his conclusions are no more logically sound than any of the ones that he critiques.