Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, & Culture: Literature as Experience

Literature as Experience - A Hope for Literary Darwinism
A purpose of literature is to provide experience to humans - this is an expression of my hope that literature can be looked at from the point of view of evolutionary psychology.
Some preliminary thoughts on Literary Darwinism.

There is much I object to in Joseph Carroll's idea of applying evolutionary psychology to literature. (See Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature.) Yet, I am in sympathy with the point that any rational view of literature, or of human culture in general, accepts the fact that humans are a product of natural processes and that all of human culture is a subset of our biological make-up. Humans share a common evolutionary heritage and because of the contingencies of our biological history we share a set of species-properties including common cognitive faculties. The species-specific cognitive faculty that is easiest to designate and investigate is the language-faculty. This is because it is relatively isolated from other cognitive faculties and is unique in the way it works in our brains.

First of all, it is probably true that "narrative" or story telling is a species-specific result of our biological history. But, does that lead us to conclude, that any particular aspect of narrative, or narrative-itself, is what we should be trying to explain when developing an evolutionary theory of cognitive faculties? Narrative may be a by-product of the combination of many other cognitive faculties, which, when combined with the very special faculty of language, brought about the possibility of narrative. The fact that what we call "narrative" is universally observable among homo sapiens does not necessarily mean that narrative, as a separate human faculty, provides the individual with a selective advantage. One would suppose that there must be certain aspect of narrative and story telling that does give selective advantage. If story-telling "merely" allows us to give a good description of how to find food or allows us to sound charming to a potential mate, then I would easily conclude that there must be some selective advantage for the "behavior" of some story-telling. But exactly which aspects of narrative provide this advantage? And how do we "find" and trace these aspects of narrative back to their evolutionary etiology?

In theory, all of what we call culture and society can be traced back to human potentials and physical structures that have emerged in the course of biological evolution. Whether these structures are specific adaptations or are spin-offs from other changes in the structures of our body-brain-minds - spin-offs which were necessitated in order to accommodate previous adaptations - does not matter for a biological explanation of culture. Also, it is possible to have a biologically cognizant explanation of culture and literature - relating our cultural products to cognitive structures in the brain - without providing an explanation of how any particular cognitive structures were selected for in the course of our evolutionary history. Of course, we should assume that such an explanation, if provided, would be theoretically important, even if not always pragmatically possible. It is certainly true as E.O. Wilson pointed out to us many years ago that 'society' by any definition is not unique to humans. Moreover, what we call culture - a very loose and non-scientific term - is not unique to humans either. As an example I would suggest that the work of Frans de Waal would be a good starting point. I am currently reading his Chimpanzee Politics : Power and Sex among Apes, which shows that many of the cognitive processes and cultural relations that we consider uniquely human are in fact properties of our closest animal relatives.

But the problems of tracing any cultural or cognitive product back to its origins in our biological nature only begins once you accept the above - and the above must be accepted if the premises of evolutionary biology are accepted. But this does not mean that we are in the position to develop non-trivial theoretical descriptions and explanations of any particular aspect of culture from the point of view of evolutionary psychology.

Take the following suite of faculties, propensities, and abilities - chimpanzees can plan ahead; they make simple tools that show an ability to manipulate diverse aspects of the environment; they can establish coalitions to obtain leadership; chimpanzees seem to have a complicated ability to recognize and "make" patterns; they seem to have primitive mathematical abilities, which we can suppose grew in the course of human evolution; they display a need for both reciprocal and hierarchical sociability; all chimps "play" among with their peers and the "play" seems both elaborate and sometimes rule-based. Suppose this suite of faculties, propensities, and abilities, were ramped up by the language-faculty into the ability to make narrative. Suppose, also, that narrative or telling stories is both a need and a pleasure. So when we study story-telling from the point of view of evolutionary psychology what do you want to study first? An evolutionary psychologist can in fact make up many stories of why the ability to tell a good story will provide an adaptational advantage. If I wanted to be flip and snarky I would say that evolutionary psychologists are themselves a good example of the advantage provided by good story telling since they often tell good stories and have had some success doing so. But my real question here is what should we study? Joseph Carroll's answer is the following:

A primary concern of literary theory, then, must be to identify the level of analysis at which elements form meaningful units that join with other such units so as to fashion the larger structures of figuration. As the evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides rightly affirm, "Sciences prosper when researchers discover the level of analysis appropriate for describing and investigating their particular subject: when researchers discover the level where invariance emerges, the level of underlying order. What is confusion, noise, or random variation at one level resolves itself into systematic patterns upon the discovery of the level of analysis suited to the phenomena under study." (From Joseph Carroll's Rhetoric and the Human Sciences: The Conflict between Poststructuralism and Evolutionary Biology)

Do we know enough about human cognition to designate "meaningful units"? My reading of the literature is that beyond our basic study of language and how it grows we know very little in this area. A word might be called a "meaningful unit" but we are nowhere near understanding what makes a unit "meaningful" simply because meaning is a term or concept that has no scientific definition. The closest we can come in most cases is when we define units of perceptual information, but even here we are not yet on solid explanatory ground. When it comes to problems of meaning we are mostly lost. We need much more study of the basic cognitive faculties involved in perception before we reach the point where Carroll wants to begin. The problem might also be grounded in our biology. One reason why we can define "meaningful units" in language is that human language is discrete (there is no such thing as "half" a word) where as most other forms of animal information transfer seem to be continuous. There is no reason to think that the way we perceive narrative as a whole is discrete or that we can isolate a meaningful unit. IIf we can't define basic "meaningful units" of narrative then it may be very hard to look at the cognitive aspects of narrative in the way we have been able to look at language.

But let me suppose that we do know enough to begin some kind of study into the biological basis of narrative. Should we then jump directly to telling a story about its adaptational value, i.e. its evolutionary etiology? Perhaps it would be better to study the various cognitive faculties that go into making of narrative.

It is precisely here that I find the main problem with literary Darwinism. If the brain is made up of modular cognitive faculties - as I think the best evidence shows us it is - then on what level could we study something such as narrative? As I have already indicated I think that narrative is a by-product of a number of other faculties, propensities, and abilities and that there is unlikely to be a separate "narrative"-faculty that can be studied as if it were a cognitive module. I hope that my previous sentence is incorrect. I hope that there is a sort of deep grammatical structure to narrative that is somehow separate from other cognitive faculties. I hope that this is true only because it would be interesting in many ways. But I don't think that we have the evidence for it. Without being able to isolate a cognitive module it will be next to impossible to give a biological and evolutionary explanation of narrative.

The above is the basic problem an evolutionary psychologist runs into when she tries to explain any aspect of evolution that cannot be defined as a bodily organ. The evolution of the eye is easy to define because the physical unit itself is discrete and definable. It is possible to study animal and human vision without knowing anything about how the eye evolved. It is also possible to study the evolution of the eye without knowing a whole lot about how the eye works inside the human brain. Similarly, it is possible to study human narrative as a biological product without necessarily knowing anything about how narrative evolved in our biological history, but in this case I can't say vice-versa. Without knowing the biological basis of narrative it will be well nigh impossible to study how narrative evolved. That is because unless we are able to define the biological basis of narrative we will never be sure what evolved and why. (Similar criticism can be made of Carroll's concepts of "figurative structure" and "elements of figuration." See FN1.)

So let us suppose that we simply seek to give an explanation of the behavior that we call narrative? Then my question would be, what kind of behavior is it? Even if we overcome all other hurdles, I have a basic disagreement with Carroll on what literature actually is and how it functions among human animals. Carroll states:

The traditional categories--character, setting, and plot--can be explained and validated by invoking the largest principles of an evolutionary critical paradigm. If the purpose of literature is to represent human experience, and if the fundamental elements of biological existence are organisms, environments, and actions, the figurative elements that correlate with these biological elements would naturally assume a predominant position within most figurative structures. Evolutionary theory can thus provide a sound rationale for adopting the basic categories, and it can also provide a means for extending our theoretical understanding of how these categories work within the total system of figurative relations. This theoretical understanding can in turn provide a means for assessing traditional explanations or applications of the categories and measuring their central presuppositions against those of an evolutionary paradigm. (From Joseph Carroll's Rhetoric and the Human Sciences)

Is "the purpose of literature to represent human experience"? I am not quite sure of this. I think a better preliminary definition is that "the purpose of literature is to provide experience to humans." Of course the experience that is provided can also be a representation of certain kinds of human experiences, dilemmas, actions, etc. The important point is that the mere change of definition would provide a different focus for investigation into narrative.

For example, at times stories may be mere play, rehearsal, or simply a kind of logic game that exercises the mind. I would argue that all good stories have aspects of a logic game about them, but a logic game extended into a very particular kind of experience that somehow ramifies beyond the mere "logic" of the game. What I mean by this is that to a certain extent a structure of narrative may be working through problems that are internal to the mind's own cognitive processes. I think to some small extent dreams might work this way also. I am not making a point that is similar to Freud's point about dreams being a form of wish fulfillment. Rather, I am saying that some of the logical structures of narrative might actually be a working through and a building of logical structures of the mind/brain. Further, humans may need to build these logical structures through out a long period of life (if not a whole life time) in order for certain areas of the brain to continue to grow... at least not atrophy. (This would be in contrast to the growth of the language-faculty during childhood.) In other words this kind of narrative game playing may be an experience that the human mind/brain 'craves' for its own internal growth.

This may just be one function of narrative and it may be a function that is similar to our attraction to rule based games such as chess or poker, games that depend on pattern recognition, etc. In other words this kind of experience of narrative might be relatively independent from the representational aspects of narrative. But it is possible that narrative may help humans to connect social relations with pattern making cognitive abilities.

There are other reasons for my redefinition. I think that the primary fact of literature is that it provides humans with a very special kind of human experience and that it is an experience that helps us to build our experience of the world beyond literature. It is this fact that I think is a primary starting point for any evolutionary or sociobiological (to use the taboo designation of the field) view of literature.

In one respect I would like to chastise Carroll. Carroll seems to assume that all leftists will be repelled by biological explanations of literature. I think this may be a result of his social position as an English professor. It is likely that the only 'leftists' he knows are in the English Departments of the academy. I am a radical leftist, informed by left marxism, anarcho-syndicalism, romantic radicals such as Shelley, and the tradition of the radical enlightenment. There are others like me who are repelled by the obscurantism that passes for politics in many English departments.

Perhaps, Carroll will think it strange that for me the cofounders of evolutionary psychology are two polemicists -- Kropotkin, the anarchist, and T. H. Huxley, Darwin's bulldog. I am sure many on both the leftist and right will choke on the fact that I believe that both Kropotkin and Huxley are politically admirable and scientifically correct. Didn't Huxley produce a rationalization of the ideological justification of dog-eat-dog capitalism that is known to history as Social Darwinism? Didn't Kropotkin deny natural selection and put in its place "cooperation"? No, on both counts. I would suggest that we reread Huxley's The Struggle for Existence in Human Society and Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution and reevaluate both in the light of current debates. I think what a new reader will find is a rehearsal of the arguments over the origins of altruism and the evolution of cooperation. On a political note, suffice it to say for now that I don't believe evolutionary psychology or sociobiology are incompatible with radical democracy and libertarian socialism - a view that one aspect of human nature is a desire for freedom and self-determination, and that this desire can be best fulfilled by a radical democracy that would eliminate the monstrous human destructiveness of our current business forms.

I close with the first paragraph of the Joseph Carroll essay I have quoted in this comment.

Darwinian evolutionary theory has established itself as the matrix for all the life sciences. This theory situates human beings firmly within the natural, biological order, and evolutionary principles are now extending themselves rapidly into the human sciences: into epistemology, sociology, psychology, ethics, neurology, and linguistics. The rapidly developing and increasingly integrated group of evolutionary disciplines has resulted in an ever-expanding network of mutually illuminating and mutually confirming hypotheses about human nature and human society. If literature is in any way concerned with the language, psychology, cognition, and social organization of human beings, all of this information should have a direct bearing on our understanding of literature. It should inform our understanding of human experience as the subject of literature, and it should enable us to situate literary figurations in relation to the personal and social conditions in which they are produced. Up to this point, contemporary literary theory has not only failed to assimilate evolutionary theory, it has adopted a doctrinal stance that places it in irreconcilable conflict with the basic principles of evolutionary biology. (From Joseph Carroll's Rhetoric and the Human Sciences)

The results of the extension of evolutionary theory into the areas of epistemology, sociology, psychology, ethics, and neurology are yet to be seen. Can we go beyond the good hints that we now have and provide theoretical descriptions and explanations of human faculties and propensities that are more than mere truisms? Or is it possible that we have reached areas where there is too much hidden from us for us to come to firm testable scientific conclusions? What is for sure is that only a world views that "situates human beings firmly within the natural, biological order" are contenders for the production of knowledge. This excludes all forms of obscurantism, whether superstition, religion, or deconstruction.

Jerry Monaco
7 November 2005
New York City

[FN1 -

To designate the total set of affective, conceptual, and aesthetic relations within a given literary construct, I shall use the term "figurative structure." Any element that can be abstracted from a figurative structure is ipso facto a figurative element. Thus, representations of people or objects, metrical patterns, rhyme schemes, overt propositional statements, figures of speech, syntactic rhythms, tonal inflections, stylistic traits, single words, and even single sounds are all elements of figuration. Figurative structure, like any other kind of structure, can be analyzed at any level of particularity.

It remains to be shown empirically that there is any level of what Carroll is calling "figurative structure" that can be studied directly. Let us assume, to make things easier, that there is a specific metrical mental module that has adapted over the course of biological time. The behavior of making poetry with metrical patterns may have nothing to do with the biological evolution of this "metrical module". One might what to start with any kind of testable hypothesis to study the evolutionary origins of this "metrical module." It may have had something to do with memory of sound that allowed our evolutionary ancestors to perceive or understand patterns. The sounds can be any kind of pattern whether patterns in vocalization or in the rustling of trees. But it may have nothing to do with our current uses of metrical patterns.

When studying non-mental physical phenomena such a diversion between the original function of an evolving "module" and its eventual function does not pose an insurmountable problem. For instance, feathers and wings may have first been insulation devices and later feathers and wings enabled flight. We were able to study how one function evolved into a different kind of function. The reason that this is less of a problem when studying physical evolution is because it is easier to isolate the physical entity (the organ or module) upon which adaptation is operating. This is not so when studying most mental phenomena. The isolation of the "module" we call "wings" and the module we call "feathers" was relatively easy. They were in effect predefined for us. If we were mistaken in isolating these specific modules then in the course of investigation we would have been able to clarify and modify our levels of analysis. Very little is predefined for us when we try to isolate the modules involved with general mental, emotional, and related phenomena. We have a hard enough time isolating the modules having to do with perceptual phenomena such as vision, smell, etc. The rare exception to this is probably the language faculty, which seems to be a relatively isolated mental module that can be studied separately. Jerry Monaco 16 November 2005. ]

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