Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee

Author:Celeste Headlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2020-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

UNIVERSAL HUMAN NATURE

Why are we born free and end up enslaved?

—NOAM CHOMSKY

IF WE DON’T NEED work to survive, what do we need? If constant work is not healthy for the human brain, what is healthy? What is the point, I wondered, of realizing that what I’m doing is bad for me if I don’t know for sure what is good? What I needed was a how-to guide for the care of a human being, just like the books you read when you get a new pet. What do I need in order to be happy and healthy? This new line of inquiry led me to one of the most contentious debates in evolutionary biology.

Nearly half a century ago, Noam Chomsky, the linguist, social critic, cognitive scientist, and philosopher, agreed to participate in a live debate on Dutch television. In what has since become a famous dialogue, he spent about ninety minutes sparring with the French philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault.

The two men were attempting to answer one of the most enduring questions in all of human history, the question I had about myself and my colleagues: Is there a universal human nature? Are some things bad for all humans, like chocolate for dogs, or does it always depend on the person? Are there some traits and tendencies that are common to all of us, or are we entirely shaped by culture and family? It is the question at the heart of the nature-versus-nurture dispute, and it has yet to be decisively answered.

Chomsky is a scientist, one of the founders of the study of cognitive science, and it’s no surprise that he believes evolution and biology help to dictate our behavior. Foucault was fairly contemptuous of modern science, seeing it as just another method by which elites exert control over society. He rejected any suggestion that our behavior is tied to biology.

The Chomsky-Foucault debate veered fairly quickly into political territory and issues of war and oppression, but I want to stick with that question of evolution and human nature. Since that debate in 1971, we have learned much more about DNA and the workings of the mind.

The question of nature versus nurture is still an open one, but we do know that Chomsky was more right than Foucault. While we can’t explain all human behavior as a product of biology, we can explain some of it. As Chomsky said almost fifty years ago, “There is something biologically given, unchangeable, a foundation for whatever it is that we do with our mental capacities.”

If, as I believe, our current work habits are stripping away our humanity and it is now imperative that we return to what is natural and healthy for our species, it’s essential that we first decide what that looks like. In other words, what is a natural environment for humankind? How much productivity is healthy, and at what point does the pursuit of productivity become toxic?

These are difficult but crucial questions. If some of our

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