Author Explains Why "Evolution" Has a Bone to Pick with Donald Trump
David Klinghoffer January 12, 2016 5:07 PM
Whoever said intelligent design advocates don't make falsifiable predictions? I've got one right here. I stumbled on a new book by History News Network editor Rick Shenkman, Political Animals: How Our Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics, that offers to reveal political insights based on evolutionary knowledge of human origins. Shenkman and his book are receiving respectful discussion in the media.
Now this is a little unfair to Mr. Shenkman since I have not read his book, but I have read some of the commentary. That said, take an educated guess. Does the perspective that arises from the evolutionary study of mankind correspond most closely to a) anarcho-syndicalism, b) royalism, c) conservatism, or d) a vaguely liberal mélange of conventional wisdom, common sense, and comfortable truisms? I predict (d).
And if the reviews are any guide, my prediction is spot on. It's a bit like the paleo diet, but in reverse and applied to the political scene. Shenkman explains that our instincts were formed in the Pleistocene, a far cry from the modern world, and evolutionary insight thus calls for resisting what comes most naturally: notably, appeals to unthinking emotions like fear, anger, and ethnocentrism.
In fact, I can hardly think of a message more aligned with religious, not evolutionary, thinking than to resist instinct. And it's hard to argue with a dose of calm reflection, whether in a political or any other context. Did we really need evolutionary psychology for the reminder?
"Evolution" has, we learn, a particular bone to pick with Donald Trump. Carlos Lozada writes in the Washington Post ("The book that best explains Donald Trump's appeal (and it's not 'The Art of the Deal')"):
"Political Animals" at times reads like a playbook for the Trump presidential campaign -- or, even more, a devastating explainer for why the Donald has dominated the Republican race so far.
Shenkman...delves into evolutionary psychology to illuminate why American voters so often misread their leaders, resist politicians who offer hard truths and succumb to facile arguments. It's not that voters are stupid or ignorant, though certainly some of us are one or the other, or both. Rather, he contends, it's that we're hard-wired for a different world and different politics.
Columnist Jerry Large in the Seattle Times ("Raw instinct often misleads us in political crises"):
I was just starting Shenkman's new book when Trump made his latest attention-getting declaration, saying he'd bar Muslims from entering the United States. America has some history with that kind of action, and it's not good. Trump says lots of things I'd think would send potential voters fleeing, yet he is the leading Republican presidential candidate.
Shenkman himself was interviewed by Politico Magazine ("Your Brain Is Hard-Wired to Love Trump"). He said:
Trump's supporters don't particularly care whether he's lying or not. Our brain doesn't really care -- I know that's appalling. Our default position is we simply want to be right.
This is why our brain rationalizes our actions even when they're at variance with our principles -- that's what cognitive dissonance is all about. So Trump supporters -- when they hear Donald Trump say thousands of Muslims celebrated 9/11, and that turns out to be a lie, that obviously creates a conflict. Our brain tries to get out of these types of conflict in any way it can. One of the standard ways is to discredit the messenger -- we say the mainstream media is full of it, for example.
Evolution News is a non-political source and expresses no preference for any candidate or party over another. But it's noteworthy that in an unpredictable season of jousting for presidential nominations, it was a safe bet that Mr. Shenkman (again, as mediated by the commentators) would offer evolution as a prop to the sort of viewpoint expressed on the editorial page of the New York Times.
But it's always been this way, going back to Darwin himself. "Evolution" has a long history of supporting ascendant ideologies, including sinister ones like racism and eugenics. (See, for example, The Biology of the Second Reich: Social Darwinism and the Origins of World War I.) In bioethicist Peter Singer's hands, it provides the scaffolding for a "Darwinian Left." Some political conservatives have argued the precise opposite. (See John West's book Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest.)
There is an idea or an attitude that seeks support, and "evolution" obliging provides it. What National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell said of Darwinism and its supposed contribution to biology research seems to apply as well here: "I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss."
David Klinghoffer January 12, 2016 5:07 PM
Whoever said intelligent design advocates don't make falsifiable predictions? I've got one right here. I stumbled on a new book by History News Network editor Rick Shenkman, Political Animals: How Our Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics, that offers to reveal political insights based on evolutionary knowledge of human origins. Shenkman and his book are receiving respectful discussion in the media.
Now this is a little unfair to Mr. Shenkman since I have not read his book, but I have read some of the commentary. That said, take an educated guess. Does the perspective that arises from the evolutionary study of mankind correspond most closely to a) anarcho-syndicalism, b) royalism, c) conservatism, or d) a vaguely liberal mélange of conventional wisdom, common sense, and comfortable truisms? I predict (d).
And if the reviews are any guide, my prediction is spot on. It's a bit like the paleo diet, but in reverse and applied to the political scene. Shenkman explains that our instincts were formed in the Pleistocene, a far cry from the modern world, and evolutionary insight thus calls for resisting what comes most naturally: notably, appeals to unthinking emotions like fear, anger, and ethnocentrism.
In fact, I can hardly think of a message more aligned with religious, not evolutionary, thinking than to resist instinct. And it's hard to argue with a dose of calm reflection, whether in a political or any other context. Did we really need evolutionary psychology for the reminder?
"Evolution" has, we learn, a particular bone to pick with Donald Trump. Carlos Lozada writes in the Washington Post ("The book that best explains Donald Trump's appeal (and it's not 'The Art of the Deal')"):
"Political Animals" at times reads like a playbook for the Trump presidential campaign -- or, even more, a devastating explainer for why the Donald has dominated the Republican race so far.
Shenkman...delves into evolutionary psychology to illuminate why American voters so often misread their leaders, resist politicians who offer hard truths and succumb to facile arguments. It's not that voters are stupid or ignorant, though certainly some of us are one or the other, or both. Rather, he contends, it's that we're hard-wired for a different world and different politics.
Columnist Jerry Large in the Seattle Times ("Raw instinct often misleads us in political crises"):
I was just starting Shenkman's new book when Trump made his latest attention-getting declaration, saying he'd bar Muslims from entering the United States. America has some history with that kind of action, and it's not good. Trump says lots of things I'd think would send potential voters fleeing, yet he is the leading Republican presidential candidate.
Shenkman himself was interviewed by Politico Magazine ("Your Brain Is Hard-Wired to Love Trump"). He said:
Trump's supporters don't particularly care whether he's lying or not. Our brain doesn't really care -- I know that's appalling. Our default position is we simply want to be right.
This is why our brain rationalizes our actions even when they're at variance with our principles -- that's what cognitive dissonance is all about. So Trump supporters -- when they hear Donald Trump say thousands of Muslims celebrated 9/11, and that turns out to be a lie, that obviously creates a conflict. Our brain tries to get out of these types of conflict in any way it can. One of the standard ways is to discredit the messenger -- we say the mainstream media is full of it, for example.
Evolution News is a non-political source and expresses no preference for any candidate or party over another. But it's noteworthy that in an unpredictable season of jousting for presidential nominations, it was a safe bet that Mr. Shenkman (again, as mediated by the commentators) would offer evolution as a prop to the sort of viewpoint expressed on the editorial page of the New York Times.
But it's always been this way, going back to Darwin himself. "Evolution" has a long history of supporting ascendant ideologies, including sinister ones like racism and eugenics. (See, for example, The Biology of the Second Reich: Social Darwinism and the Origins of World War I.) In bioethicist Peter Singer's hands, it provides the scaffolding for a "Darwinian Left." Some political conservatives have argued the precise opposite. (See John West's book Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest.)
There is an idea or an attitude that seeks support, and "evolution" obliging provides it. What National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell said of Darwinism and its supposed contribution to biology research seems to apply as well here: "I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss."
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