WE ARE THE DEADLY WARRIORS.

WE ARE THE DEADLY WARRIORS. David Brooks's recent column (behind a firewall but I summarize it here sufficiently, I hope) on how the conservatives are correct about human nature is hilarious. In short, he argues that we humans (though I think he really means male humans) are malevolent brutes, intent on status competition and clubbing the cavewoman out before dragging her off to a life of housewifery in the cave. Well, I added that last bit, but I have an excuse, because the whole article encourages such humorous additions.Take this paragraph, for example:

Over the past 30 years or so, however, this belief in natural goodness has been discarded. It began to lose favor because of the failure of just about every social program that was inspired by it, from the communes to progressive education on up. But the big blow came at the hands of science.From the content of our genes, the nature of our neurons and the lessons of evolutionary biology, it has become clear that nature is filled with competition and conflicts of interest. Humanity did not come before status contests. Status contests came before humanity, and are embedded deep in human relations. People in hunter-gatherer societies were deadly warriors, not sexually liberated pacifists. As Steven Pinker has put it, Hobbes was more right than Rousseau.

Note how the whole argument depends on the truth of Brooks's assertions that "just about every social program" has failed and that we actually have scientific evidence on the horrible nature of early human beings. How would Brooks respond to my counterarguments that most social programs have been moderate successes? Think about the poverty rate among the elderly in this country before Social Security and after it or the greatly beneficial aspect the government-run Medicare program had on any remaining poverty among this age group from the 1960's onwards. Or think about the general level of literacy in this country. Public schools are one of those programs that Brooks so deplores.And what about the "lessons from evolutionary biology"? It is actually evolutionary psychology Brooks appeals to here, and not biology. That he adds stuff about "neurons" is just intended to make his arguments look more scientific. But as far as I know, all the theories from evolutionary psychology are just that: theories and conjectures, not based on genetic information at all. It's impossible to go back in time to gather the necessary evidence. Were "people" in hunter-gatherer societies "deadly warriors" as Brooks argues? All of them? Even the women? Why are those societies called hunter-gatherers, then? And didn't I read somewhere that the current hunter-gatherer societies get most of their foods from gathering? The deadly warriors clubbing the mushrooms? In any case, many evolutionary psychologists see and study quite different aspects of human behavior in the past. Altruism, for example. But mentioning such studies would have blunted Brooks's point, which is that the conservatives are always right about human nature. And according to Brooks, human nature is inelastic. It can't change. The band will snap. Now, this part doesn't even appear to require any evidence, though it's a crucial link in his argument. Never mind the enormous flexibility human beings are continuously demonstrating in all sorts of different ways. In Brooks's world I'm typing this with a club. Or I would be if I were a man.The culmination of his piece is probably this bit:

Today, parents don't seek to liberate their children; they supervise, coach and instruct every element of their lives. Today, there really is no antinomian counterculture -- even the artists and rock stars are bourgeois strivers. Today, communes and utopian schemes are out of favor. People are mostly skeptical of social engineering efforts and jaundiced about revolutionaries who promise to herald a new dawn. Iraq has revealed what human beings do without a strong order-imposing state.

"Iraq has revealed what human beings do without a strong order-imposing state. Oops. Oops. Oops. I'm not saying it. But might I point out that the situation in Iraq is not exactly the kind which usually exists in a country. Brooks suggests that we would see something just like Iraq if Iceland suddenly lost its government, for example. I very much doubt it. Iraq was invaded, after a long period of rule which favored one group in the society over other groups, and in the post-invasion period the country was used as the flytrap for all the Islamic terrorists out there. That much of this was done by the very same conservatives Brooks so agrees with is ignored in his column. Something that should be seen as a great failure of American neoconservatism is written by him as a proof that conservatism was correct. Sigh.For a much more elegant treatment of Brooks's column, see Power of Narrative.

--J. Goodrich