Hi, folks.
Some of you may know the bi-weekly discussion list "From Follows Dysfunction
(ffdys)" distributed by the art historian Gary Schwartz. This week he wrote
about "The art gene" and, since brain theories often rest on assumptions
much like those associated with the sociobiological thesis this distribution
discusses, I am forwarding his article (with his permission). Anyone who
might be interested in subscribing to the list might want to contact Gary
directly. His address is at the end of the piece.
Amy
_____________________
Form follows dysfunction 110: The art gene
As you may have heard, science is about to (I cut and paste from the website
of
the Human Genome Project) "identify all the approximately 100,000 genes in
human DNA and determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical bases that
make
up human DNA." When this is accomplished, scientists expect to have a grip
on
"the building blocks that underlie all of human biology and its diversity."
This is a great advance over earlier estimates of the number of building
blocks, such as the 2 complementary forces that make up all of human life in
Oriental thought or the 4 body fluids that served this function in the west
for
many centuries. At this rate of increase, we can expect to be into
gigatrillions before long, of determinants even smaller than a chemical
base.
Unless, that is, science reverses direction and heads back closer to 4 or 2
or
perhaps even 1, the indivisible individual.
The first practical benefits expected from the genome project lie in the
realm
of medicine and public health. "Human biology and its diversity," however,
is a
bigger deal than that. For example, the more daring genomicists have long
been
speaking about finding the "criminal gene" in the presumable hope of
eliminating it from human nature.
A less practical approach to the tie between genetics and behavior is being
taken by the sociobiology of the arts. Rather than waiting for the
identification of the gene sequences responsible for artisticity, scientists
in
this controversial field take their existence for granted and proceed to
study
their effects. Their basic tool is the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. In
this view natural selection takes place not through the behavior of the
individual members of a given species, but at the level of the gene and its
properties. The nickname for this hypothesis is the Selfish Gene Theory. The
proceedings of the first international congress on sociobiology and the
arts,
held at the Vrije Universiteit in 1993, was recently published under that
title. (Edited by Jan Baptist Bedaux and Brett Cooke; ISBN 90 420 0684 6).
The starting point of this approach is stated baldly by Andras Ludmany.
"Artistic activity is a general and characteristic property of Homo sapiens
independent of eras and cultures. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that
it
bears important biological advantages." The task of sociobology is to
explain
what they are and how they manifest themselves in art.
I must say that my enjoyment of "Sociobiology and the arts" was hampered
considerably by (aside from the sloppy copy-editing and proofreading) my
inability to accept this thesis. I fail to see why everything human beings
do
has to be explainable down to the details in terms of natural selection, at
gene level or wherever. Surely a lot of the things we all do are the result
of
general evolutionary, ecological and cultural factors, with a lot of chance
thrown in. They do not in themselves have to be explainable as the primary
object of natural selection. Art, along with such systems as economics,
cuisine, fashion - and criminality, for that matter - would certainly seem
to
lead a life of its own, at a far remove from whatever genetic propensity may
have spawned it.
Sociobiologists are aware of such objections. As Ellen Dissinayake puts it:
"different societies vary in . the kinds and forms of arts they practice.
Additionally, the arts appear to serve a variety of individual and social
purposes, so that again one is hard-pressed to identify an underlying
adaptive
function that would have provided selective advantage." Nonetheless, she and
her colleagues feel obliged to bridge the gap between the Selfish Gene and
even
the most sophisticated human behavior.
The uncritical acceptance of the relevance of neo-Darwinism to the arts
forces
the authors of the 14 chapters in "Sociobiology and the arts" again and
again
into contortionary explanations. Even Jan Baptist Bedaux, the distinguished
co-editor of the volume, falls into this trap. He writes: "The proverbial
Rubens woman . belong[s] to the tradition that links fatness with feminine
beauty, a connection that turns out to make biological sense. It is that
woman
must store a reasonable amount of body fat to be capable of reproducing."
Bedaux must then explain why in some cultures (he does not mention our own)
feminine beauty is linked not to fatness but to thinness. "Probably quite
simply," he writes, "because everything that repeats itself endlessly
becomes
extremely tedious, which is also, by the way, a biological fact." With
self-serving arguments like these, you don't need critics to work yourself
into
a corner.
The book made me sympathize with the sociobiologists who deny that their
discipline can be applied to the arts and with the evolutionists who turn
their
backs on all of sociobiology. In general, the more sensible any given
argument
in the book is, the further it stands either from evolution studies or from
art. Dissinayake, the most persuasive contributor, is able to arrive at
credible conclusions about cultural biology only by generalizing art out of
its
aesthetic existence. The founding father of this field, the late Jan Wind,
is
at his most convincing when he points out its weaknesses. "In all higher
vertebrates one finds variation in behavior . which is not related to
genetic
variations.. The direction of cultural evolution is underdetermined by
evolutionary theory."
Nonetheless, Wind expressed the belief that "evolutionary informed
speculation
may help us find a plausible explication of the function of art and the
origins
of our aesthetic preferences which is in accordance with the Selfish Gene
Theory." I fear he is wrong. When it comes to determining the course of art
history, genetics has little to tell us. Art is at least as selfish as the
gene, and it knows its own mind a lot better.
© Gary Schwartz 2000. Published in the Dutch translation of Loekie Schwartz
in
Het Financieele Dagblad, Amsterdam, on 22 July 2000.
=====================
Gary Schwartz
Maarssen, The Netherlands
t +31 346 562778
f +31 346 570574
e Gary.D.Schwartz@let.uu.nl
http://www.codart.nl
_______________________________
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