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They didn't ask me, but by their own admission, they need all the help that they can get. | en-193201.png | |
And I would like to suggest that it's not a coincidence that this supposed decline in the elite arts and criticism occurred in the same point in history in which there was a widespread denial of human nature. | en-193202.png | |
But it's very clear, looking at these syllabuses, that — it's used now as a way of saying that all forms of appreciation of art that were in place for centuries, or millennia, in the 20th century were discarded. | en-193203.png | |
The beauty and pleasure in art — probably a human universal — were — began to be considered saccharine, or kitsch, or commercial. | en-193204.png | |
Barnett Newman had a famous quote that " the impulse of modern art is the desire to destroy beauty " — which was considered bourgeois or tacky. | en-193205.png | |
And here's just one example. | en-193206.png | |
I mean, this is perhaps a representative example of the visual depiction of the female form in the 15th century; here is a representative example of the depiction of the female form in the 20th century. | en-193207.png | |
And, as you can see, there — something has changed in the way the elite arts appeal to the senses. | en-193208.png | |
(Laughter) Let me give just you an example to back up that last statement. | en-193209.png | |
But here, there — one of the most famous literary English scholars of our time is the Berkeley professor, Judith Butler. | en-193210.png | |
By the way, this is one sentence — you can actually parse it. | en-193211.png | |
Well, the argument in " The Blank Slate " was that elite art and criticism in the 20th century, although not the arts in general, have disdained beauty, pleasure, clarity, insight and style. | en-193212.png | |
People are staying away from elite art and criticism. | en-193213.png | |
What a puzzle — I wonder why. | en-193214.png | |
Well, this turned out to be probably the most controversial claim in the book. | en-193215.png | |
Someone asked me whether I stuck it in in order to deflect ire from discussions of gender and Nazism and race and so on. I won't comment on that. | en-193216.png | |
But it certainly inspired an energetic reaction from many university professors. | en-193217.png | |
Well, the other hot button is parenting. | en-193218.png | |
And the starting point is the — for that discussion was the fact that we have all been subject to the advice of the parenting industrial complex. | en-193219.png | |
Now, here is — here is a representative quote from a besieged mother: " I'm overwhelmed with parenting advice. | en-193220.png | |
I'm supposed to do lots of physical activity with my kids so I can instill in them a physical fitness habit so they'll grow up to be healthy adults. | en-193221.png | |
And I'm supposed to do all kinds of intellectual play so they'll grow up smart. | en-193222.png | |
Well, here's some sobering facts about parenting. | en-193223.png | |
Parents who talk a lot to their kids have kids who grow up to be articulate, parents who spank their kids have kids who grow up to be violent and so on. | en-193224.png | |
And very few of them control for the possibility that parents pass on genes for — that increase the chances a child will be articulate or violent and so on. | en-193225.png | |
Until the studies are redone with adoptive children, who provide an environment but not genes to their kids, we have no way of knowing whether these conclusions are valid. | en-193226.png | |
The genetically controlled studies have some sobering results. | en-193227.png | |
Remember the Mallifert twins: separated at birth, then they meet in the patent office — remarkably similar. | en-193228.png | |
Well, what would have happened if the Mallifert twins had grown up together? | en-193229.png | |
You might think, well, then they'd be even more similar, because not only would they share their genes, but they would also share their environment. | en-193230.png | |
That would make them super-similar, right? | en-193231.png | |
Wrong. Identical twins, or any siblings, who are separated at birth are no less similar than if they had grown up together. | en-193232.png | |
Everything that happens to you in a given home over all of those years appears to leave no permanent stamp on your personality or intellect. | en-193233.png | |
OK — two different bodies of research with a similar finding. | en-193234.png | |
So let me conclude with just a remark to bring it back to the theme of choices. | en-193235.png | |
I think that the sciences of human nature — behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science — are going to, increasingly in the years to come, upset various dogmas, careers and deeply-held political belief systems. | en-193236.png | |
And that presents us with a choice. | en-193237.png | |
The choice is whether certain facts about humans, or topics, are to be considered taboos, forbidden knowledge, where we shouldn't go there because no good can come from it, or whether we should explore them honestly. | en-193238.png | |
I have my own answer to that question, which comes from a great artist of the 19th century, Anton Chekhov, who said, " Man will become better when you show him what he is like. " And I think that the argument can't be put any more eloquently than that. | en-193239.png | |
Thank you very much. | en-193240.png | |
(Applause) | en-193241.png |