To the Editor:
Because the genetic research now being funded by the Human Genome Project and other sponsors is so important to all of us, Francis Fukuyama’s article, “Is It All in the Genes?” [September], is particularly disappointing.
He begins by claiming that anthropological theories depicting culture as the determining molder of individual and group identity are now being supplanted by those emphasizing inherited biogenetic characteristics. But the sources he cites for ethnological culturism are limited to a journalistic name-dropping trot across a narrow span of clichéd figures (Emile Durkheim, Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead). His citation of Clifford Geertz in this context makes one wonder if he has actually read Geertz’s work.
Mr. Fukuyama then turns with evident enthusiasm to Edward O. Wilson’s odd sociobiology, especially its gendered (dreadful term) implications for psychological outcomes, and to bio-evolutionary neo-Darwinism to explain social organization. His revival here of “altruism, sociability, reciprocity, fitness, and human instincts” recalls those disquisitions of grand old armchair theorists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries whom doctoral candidates once had to read and whose capacious generalities were beyond either confirmation or negation.
But anticipating that biological determinism will displace cultural determinism is a bit naive. The so-called social sciences have been built upon and permeated with numerous reductionist, usually mechanistic, “forces-and-factors” explanations, which prevail at established departments in every university and in textbooks as well. Litigation attorneys, welfare-state operatives, and political elites of both Left and Right find such explaining-away far too convenient ever to give it up; biological rationales will simply be added to the existing armamentarium.
A wasted opportunity is Mr. Fukuyama’s failure to raise, much less examine, the many serious problems, personal and eventually political, that will appear with the successful mapping of the human genome. Although by no means complete, the list includes the further “thingifying” of the person; legal conflicts that will arise over putative genetic rights and responsibilities; and the personal anxiety and stress that will follow upon the widespread availability of genetic testing (including of embryos) for predisposition toward serious, often incurable, illnesses, along with a substantial increase in abortions as a result of such testing.
Thomas Fitzgerald
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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To the Editor:
Though I found Francis Fukuyama’s article solid and illuminating, I would like to correct two false notes in his analysis.
First, he deals too summarily with the sociologist Emile Durkheim’s view of social facts. Durkheim’s claim was not that biology had no role in society. Rather, he insisted only that there were some facts of human experience that were not reducible to the individual actor as a substrate.
The example Mr. Fukuyama cites in arguing against the social constructivists who resist acknowledging the role genetic endowments play in human affairs is the dearth of female Asian-American longshoremen (longshorepersons?). This fact does establish the importance of biology, but since, as history has shown, women may also perform this task, it is not deterministic. Social forces must also play a role. Thus, to explain the actual distribution of the labor force by sex is to be faced with a multiplicity of causes—biologically necessary and historically contingent—that interact. Durkheim simply insisted that we explain whatever constitutes the social component of human behavior by the social factor.
Which leads to my second point. Mr. Fukuyama is too narrow when he states that
the new biology would thus seem to lend intellectual support to classical liberalism, which operates on the premise that man in the state of nature is an isolated and selfish individual, coming together with other individuals in markets or civil society primarily as a means to satisfy his wants and needs.
In fact, evolutionary psychology presents, if anything, a better brief for community embeddedness being the original state of nature. As humans, we are “programmed” genetically in some measure, to be sure. But that for which we are programmed is, in most things that matter, socially shaped.
This is evident when Mr. Fukuyama treats the issue of reciprocity. Apparently wired into us, reciprocity is surely socially-targeted. It presupposes a relationship with others and establishes a measure for determining a balance in our dealings with others. Thus, in addition to selfish drives, what the genes must provide is the social ground in which our individual interests and appetites can be realized. Our most natural self, it would follow, is the socially-realized self.
Pure social constructivists are shallow, and Mr. Fukuyama is right to skewer them. But the situation is complicated. Properly understood, the new genetics leads to the collapse of many false dichotomies: not only nature/nurture, gene/environment, and innate/ learned, but even individual/social.
David Murray
Statistical Assessment Service
Washington, D.C.
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To the Editor:
Francis Fukuyama implies that the new biology is replacing the dictum of social determinism, “society made me do it,” with “my genes made me do it.” Biologists know better. When one of two identical twins exhibits symptoms of schizophrenia, the chance that the other twin will also develop the disease is about 50 percent. Both experience and heredity are contributory causes. Both are important, and to argue that one is more significant than the other is unsupported by the evidence.
Mr. Fukuyama further states that “The new biology leaves individual free will and personal responsibility intact.” But what other factors are there besides societal determinism and genetic influence? The new biology has not taken sides on this subject. Only the philosophers, and of course the theologians, have.
When society is willing to acknowledge that free will is a figment of our imagination, that we have no censor (superego) acting in our brain, it will acknowledge that man is not responsible for what he does. Then, Mr. Fukuyama will really have something to worry about. Luckily, however, man is and remains accountable for his actions.
Felix Friedberg
Howard University
Washington, D.C.
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To the Editor:
Francis Fukuyama does well to highlight the increasing evidence of how our biological and genetic endowment influences and sets limits on marital and social behavior and on cultural evolution. Of special importance is his affirmation that “biology and culture interact in complex ways,” and his recognition that the relationship between genome and learned social behavior is not deterministic, but of a linking nature.
However, despite his wisdom in avoiding the abyss of genetic determinism, Mr. Fukuyama carelessly discards a major body of tested knowledge and theory as to how the interaction of biological endowment and familial/social experience can and does convert aggression into affection, jealousy into friendship, and debilitating childhood anxiety into a capacity for friendly play and a readiness to learn.
Mr. Fukuyama also seems to be unaware that “chemical imbalances” (which may or may not respond to drug therapy) sometimes reflect a form of somatic adaptation that is distinctly related to social and emotional distress.
The reality of such interaction is well-established in a body of knowledge that has grown out of Freudian beginnings and is widely included in graduate and postgraduate study in social work, psychiatry, and much of clinical psychology. Psychodynamic theories of child development and human behavior are grounded in the very biological realities to which Mr. Fukuyama refers. This is a body of knowledge that is entirely friendly to the basic role of our phylogenic past and biological present in human behavior and the evolution of culture.
One should note, too, that the feminists Mr. Fukuyama claims are hostile to the new biology are members of the “socialist” or “radical” schools of feminist analysis. The “liberal” school of feminism, to which most women belong, seeks equal opportunity but not at the expense of children or of the role of a healthy, heterosexual marital axis for child development.
Sheldon Rahn
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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To the Editor:
Francis Fukuyama nicely exposes the anti-biological and anti-empirical fanaticism that informs the argument of extreme cultural relativism. In the process, however, he dismisses Sigmund Freud as a pre-scientific primitive and mischaracterizes Freudian psychology as irrelevant, since, according to him, it explains behavior in terms of the psyche rather than in biological terms.
It is indeed strange to accuse Freud, of all people, of being insufficiently appreciative of biology. His great achievement was to provide a compelling description of human nature as fundamentally biological. For Freud, the function of the mind is to regulate our adaptation to our biological nature and to social reality. Thus, he is despised by those who are hostile to the very concept of human nature and who view behavior as infinitely plastic.
My best guess is that were he alive today, Freud would be an enthusiastic supporter of genetic and neurochemical research. However, he would probably find Mr. Fukuyama’s positive assessment of the efficacy of drug therapy a bit premature, and he would be surprised that a writer who defends free will and human responsibility would be so dismissive of a therapeutic approach that seeks to expand the boundaries of choice and responsibility.
Richard Shur
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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To the Editor:
Let me take Francis Fukuyama’s discussion a little farther. Think of the spider: no parent teaches it to build its web or how to hunt, nor is its behavior a response to odor or chemicals from other nearby spiders. This complex behavior must, then, be based on genes—i.e., “hard-wired.” Which leads to another thought: virtually all vertebrates have, along with the drives of hunger and sex, a strongly developed sense of territory, which also must be hardwired.
If true for other vertebrates, it must be true for humans. Call it what you will: a sense of territory, of ownership, of family first, of greed, of envy—it is basically the same. It can even be called “human nature.” Look at the infant he wants his toys to stay his, he shares only with difficulty, and early on learns the word “mine.” Knowing that people live with a social contract, his mother teaches him to share more freely, with family first, then with tribe; but this is teaching superimposed on genetic substructure. The substructure is always there, ready to assert its primacy. If the mother teaches poorly, or if the child is raised as an absolute monarch, or if the social contract breaks down, the “mine” is there in its full and unrestrained supremacy.
It is possible to override this genetic trait by social conditioning, but the trait remains, ready to reassert itself under a variety of stimuli and opportunities. If I am right, then any effort at social improvement is at risk of failure unless it addresses this reality.
Arnold L. Flick, M.D.
La Jolla, California
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To the Editor:
Francis Fukuyama could have used the Israeli kibbutz experiment with sexual equality to bolster his argument that behavioral differences between the sexes are of biological and not of cultural origin. The kibbutzim freed women of their traditional responsibilities by providing full-time child-care centers and communal kitchens. The experiment failed. In spite of ideological pressures, the women chose to work in the child-care centers and communal kitchens, whereas the men did the heaviest farm work and held most of the managerial positions. In addition, the women spent considerable time visiting their children at the centers.
Armin Sommer
Brockport, New York
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To the Editor:
Francis Fukuyama’s article is a brilliant analysis of the impact of biology on human behavior. Human behavior, with its infinite complexities, is certainly more a result of our genes than modern social scientists have been willing to acknowledge. Nevertheless, the mere fact that many (most?) people control their baser instincts indicates that human beings, as compared with other animals, possess the ability to exercise a degree of reason that often transcends biology.
I share Mr. Fukuyama’s trepidation about the possible misuse of the findings of the new biology by materialists of various political philosophies. The relative importance of genes versus environment will be vigorously debated, as it should be. As Mr. Fukuyama implies, however, regardless of which influence on human behavior is key, if we ever lose the belief in free will, Western society as we know it will collapse. Our rule of law, with few exceptions, assumes free will and the accountability that flows from it.
More importantly, our Creator has endowed us with the ability to make choices, sometimes contrary to our biological urges and in defiance of the sway of our environment.
Brian N. Mullins
Bristol, Connecticut
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To the Editor:
As a layman, I must confess that my interest in the resurgence of Darwinian thinking relates more to its social and political implications than it does to any scientific expertise on my part. And in these terms, I think Francis Fukuyama’s summary treatment of the subject is as clear and cogent as anything I have read.
What is interesting, though, is that Mr. Fukuyama (prudently, I think) does not trot out our genetic past to make any particular political case. Yes, he points out that a more informed attitude about genetics will have its social side-effects, but he does not say that an emphasis on nature rather than nurture necessarily lends itself to a neoconservative outlook any more than it does to a feminist, libertarian, or communitarian one.
His restraint is interesting precisely because it is the Right that has been more accepting of the role of biology, while the Left (for the reasons Mr. Fukuyama cites) has been until recently significantly more resistant. In so doing, the Right seems to have subtly laid claim to the scientific high ground. But does the historical fact of greater conservative acceptance mean that a genetic interpretation supports one side or the other? Here I am not convinced.
It is easy to accuse the Left of trying to reform human nature, but is not the entire enterprise of culture built on the restraint of our “natural selves”? Moreover, is it not the case that neoconservatives in particular are in the forefront of advocating restraint in a host of areas?
It can be argued that the Right’s case for restraint (stay married; honor thy father) is built on solid ground and the Left’s case for restraint (teach your child about sexual harassment; sex is about power) is built on Utopian expectations. But is it really so easy? If a distinction can be made, I am missing it. Perhaps, in the future, COMMENTARY might address itself to what impact, if any, the resurgence in genetics is likely to have on ideas and ideologies. I suspect it is a complicated story.
Jeffrey Apfel
Barrington, Rhode Island
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Francis Fukuyama writes:
Thomas Fitzgerald is disappointed that I did not write a different article, one about the social consequences of genetic mapping. While issues like genetic testing and abortion are serious, my interest was never in biology per se, but in biology’s relationship to the social sciences. However “clichéd” my citations are, and however misinformed he thinks I am about the exclusion of biology from the social sciences, the extent to which nonbiological explanations of human behavior persist remains striking. A recent, highly-regarded work on criminology, for example, continues to assert that boys are more likely to commit crimes than girls because they are everywhere “socialized” to be more aggressive.
David Murrray’s clarifications about Emile Durkheim are well taken, as are his general comments about the growing irrelevance of dichotomies like nature/ nurture or innate/ learned. Since the same genetic facts apply uniformly to individuals across time, differences among groups or changes in group behavior over time are likely, as Durkheim pointed out, to be caused by social factors. On the other hand, when the loosening of constraints on sexual behavior of the sort that has occurred over the last 40 years produces very different effects in men than in women (i.e., a much more marked decrease in parental responsibility in the former than in the latter), one suspects that a genetically based behavior is reasserting itself after having long been socially suppressed.
Mr. Murray is also correct in stating (as I did in my article) that the new biology grounds certain kinds of altruism and social behavior in the genes, and generally lends support to Aristotle’s contention that man is a political animal. Over the past generation, economists have spent a lot of time trying to show that reciprocity—the returning of a favor for a favor and a harm for a harm—arises out of the repeated interactions of selfish but rational individuals. They need not have bothered: it appears that reciprocity is not “learned” over and over again by each generation but is, rather, carried in our gene pool.
Felix Friedberg is certainly right that no self-respecting biologist would ever argue that genes determine behavior. But it is precisely the desire to avoid personal responsibility that makes it likely that the courts, the legal system, and people in general are going to use the findings of the new biological research to exculpate themselves in situations where they can show genetic predispositions to, or biological sources for, certain kinds of behavior. Some in the medical profession have already demonstrated their willingness to label as “syndromes” a wide range of behaviors that used to be regarded as matters of character. We have, for example, recently seen arguments over whether children with “attention-deficit syndrome” should be categorized as disabled and entitled to Supplemental Security Income benefits. I can only assume that more attempts to use biology to explain away free choice lie in store for us.
Sheldon Rahn and Richard Shur are both concerned that I dismissed Freud and the clinical traditions derived from his work too readily in favor of a pharmacological approach to therapy. Mr. Rahn is correct that somatic responses often have psychological origins, as is Mr. Shur that Freud began his career as a neurologist and never neglected psychology’s biological grounding. But as a matter of intellectual history, it is nonetheless striking that a thinker who was regarded 50 years ago as one of the most profound analysts of the human condition has proved to be so wrong in so many of his basic theories.
Arnold L. Flick’s argument, as I understand it, is that human nature is essentially selfish, and that social policy ought to take account of the fact that selfishness can be overcome by social conditioning only to a limited extent. It seems to me we do this already: the selfishness of individuals (and hence the primacy of their “rights”) is an underlying premise of both modern liberal economics and politics. The basic truth of this proposition explains the enormous success of free societies and market economies in recent generations. Once you go beyond generalities like this, however, the precise boundaries between selfish and social behavior prove to be quite variable among societies sharing the same liberal assumptions. For example, as Tocqueville pointed out, the willingness of Americans to cooperate with one another is very different from the behavior of Frenchmen in similar situations, for reasons that have nothing to do with biology.
I appreciate the supportive comments of Armin Sommer and Brian N. Mullins. Lionel Tiger’s Women in the Kibbutz (1975) documents in fascinating detail the way in which ideologically-determined sexual roles gave way over time to more traditional ones in the kibbutz. Tiger takes this as an indication of the biological basis of sexual roles.
The Left is today associated with causes like feminism, an important branch of which asserts that any social differentiation between men and women is ipso facto a sign of discrimination against the latter. Contrary to Jeffrey Apfel, I do not see how many of the findings of the new biology can be anything but supportive of a more traditional view of social relations that says that sexual roles are grounded (though not wholly determined) by the different natures of men and women.
It is true, as Mr. Apfel suggests, that the feminists who want to “take back the night” through stronger penalties for rapists and pornographers and conservatives who want to protect traditional families have ended up with similar agendas. The former, however, have tended to place much stronger emphasis on formal law and hence on the state as the maker and enforcer of norms, while the latter have stressed informal mechanisms like religion and culture.
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