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Quote of the Day: A Leftist Describes Why Nature Is Horrible
Published in GeneralGeorge Williams, the revered evolutionary biologist, describes the natural world as “grossly immoral.” Having no foresight or compassion, natural selection “can honestly be described as a process for maximizing short-sighted selfishness.” On top of all the miseries inflicted by predators and parasites, the members of a species show no pity to their own kind. Infanticide, siblicide, and rape can be observed in many kinds of animals; infidelity is common even in so-called pair-bonded species; cannibalism can be expected in all species that are not strict vegetarians; death from fighting is more common in most animal species than it is in the most violent American cities. Commenting on how biologists used to describe the killing of starving deer by mountain lions as an act of mercy, Williams wrote: “The simple facts are that both predation and starvation are painful prospects for deer, and that the lion’s lot is no more enviable. Perhaps biology would have been able to mature more rapidly in a culture not dominated by Judeo-Christian theology and the Romantic tradition. It might have been well served by the First Holy Truth from [Buddha’s] Sermon at Benares: “Birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful…”” As soon as we recognize that there is nothing morally commendable about the products of evolution, we can describe human psychology honestly, without the fear that identifying a “natural” trait is the same as condoning it. As Katharine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
— Steven Pinker
Ha! What’s the date for that Stephen Pinker quote?
So is this supposed to be some new or enlightened insight? It is and has always been obvious and was true of humans and pre humans, but in case nobody had noticed the emergent system driven by accommodation to immediate interests, threats and opportunities that evolve in all species including humans continued as humans discovered behaviors and social norms and mores, notions of sin and good that allowed some groups, tribes to thrive and become civilizations. These were referred to by Katherine Hepburn and which we can call revelation or inherited wisdom, or as Burke referred to as the bank of nations and of ages. Progressives, as if to prove the species hasn’t really advanced, believe they can sweep away and replace accumulated civilization with their own “short sighted selfishness” which they inevitably call the right side of history or advanced thinking and compassion or the application of their superior reason, but which is fundamentally pre civilization, raw self interest.
Pinker? That’s as blood-red a quote as I have ever read.
While building our pole barn yesterday (yes, I’m still at it) we were keeping an eye on our cat, who was playing with her food again. She might have let a chipmunk get away from her and live to tell about it, although usually she isn’t that careless. My son pointed out that man isn’t the only animal that hunts for sport, and cited Steven Pinker’s remarks (though not by quoting them).
I’m not sure I’d describe Steven Pinker as a “leftist”.
Nature is amoral, not immoral.
He seems like less and less of one recently. Though, it seems more because of the shrinking intellectual freedom of the left than a a rightward shift in his thought.
Thanks, Henry.
This is an entry in Ricochet’s Quote of the Day Series. If you would like to join us, there are still several openings in September.
One leftie who’s contradiction on this I’ve found pretty blatant was Jack London. He obviously understood nature incredibly well regarding animals, but he thought people could just wipe all that away and create a socialistic paradise.
As I’ve said to my kids many times: the first thing nature does with you after bringing you to life is try to destroy you and make you in to something else. And it does that with all your stuff. So bring your damn bike in out of the rain!
A webcomic called “The Oatmeal” had one that detailed the hunting actions of domesticated cats, noting that many of these cats were killing small animals and not even eating them. The summation was “Dogs are man’s best friend; cats are man’s adorable little serial killers.”
Pinker is an ass. What he doesn’t realize is that the object to life is not pleasure or luxury or accommodation or prosperity. He only sees the here and now and not the transcendent beyond death. As revealed in Christian revelation, the object of life is sacrificial love in which love for our neighbor and God forms us into the beings worthy of everlasting life. The hardships of life are prodding for humanity to care for each other, to let God’s love flow through you to bring you into righteousness with God. If you start with life as being meaningless and random and that life ends everything, then nature is something to be feared, but really that’s a useless exercise because it’s all meaningless. If there is a loving God, and He has shown us the means to salvation after this life, then nature is something we manage and embrace, the good and the bad.
Pinker hasn’t been a standard-issue leftist for a long time, if he ever was. The Blank Slate was published 15 years ago. That book undermines much leftist orthodoxy.
Perhaps biology would have been able to mature more rapidly in a culture not dominated by Judeo-Christian theology and the Romantic tradition.
That’s some sort of joke that went over my head, right? (Normally nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast; I would catch it.)
Well he is an atheist materialist with a weird animus towards Christianity but has Pinker ever been rude like Christopher Hitchens has been rude. If not, I object to your characterization of him on the basis of his beliefs.
George Williams wasn’t revered for his knowledge of comparative religions or Western Civilization. He was an evolutionary biologist guy.
Gary Larson, of Farside fame, wrote a book called There’s a Hair in My Dirt! that very cleverly shows how those who think they are protecting the environment are actually harming it. He talks about the interconnectedness of all the ugly critters and how saving only the cute ones unbalances the whole system. I highly recommend it to any and all eco-warriors.
That’s right. Judging aspects of nature as either “good” or “evil” requires a perspective beyond nature, since nature itself is not cognizant of ethical categories. The lion eats the deer because it is what lions do, no more no less. It’s neither good nor evil – from the perspective of nature itself.
I wonder in what Williams and/or Pinker ground their judgments of nature as either good or evil?
Yes he has. Perhaps not as viscous but insulting nonetheless.
Nature wants to kill me and eat my corpse.
And people wonder why I never went for the Gaia / nature-worship stuff emanating from the environmental movement…
It’s amusing that he thought Christianity was hindering biology by revering nature as perfect. You’d figure he would have heard something about the Christian view of nature, or at least that little story involving naked people, reptiles, and fruit trees.
That’s not how it hindered things. One way was through proscriptions on dissecting human cadavers, so many medical books were based on dissecting pigs and other animals. Another way was a misunderstanding of what the Bible was and said that tended to hinder some ideas from taking off even into the Nineteenth Century. There were plenty of other reasons, unrelated to Christianity, why science was hindered, too. Mostly it comes down to our being a stupid, bull-headed species, even if the smartest we know of on Earth.