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Article: What Is a Man?(The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- November 11, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker (Viking, 528 pp., $27.95)
Patients often ask me why they do the things they do. Naturally, they inquire only after their bad habits and actions, such as drinking too much or burgling houses; their good habits and actions are, to them at least, self-explanatory, as being manifestations of their true or innermost selves, and thus arousing no curiosity. I ask these patients what would count as a satisfactory explanation of their behavior, and not one of them has ever been able to answer me. Man is a mystery so deep that we don't even know what a solution to it would be like.
Of course, ...