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 at Gary.D.Schwartz@let.uu.nl.
Amy
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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 to 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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