Today, because we live in a post-Darwin age of “social constructs,” we find the idea of “man’s nature” too teleological for our taste. To Plato and Rousseau, however, it would have been preposterous to discuss child rearing without embedding it in this idea. How can you tell how to direct the education of a child without having in mind an idea of the adult you want?
Whenever Laurie Fendrich writes a piece for Brainstorm, I drop everything and read it at once. There is not only a deep love of the arts and culture generally, but there is a moral purity that I find truly humbling. (Sorry Laurie if this embarrasses you, but I am really not just saying it.) So I was a bit taken aback in the last column (but one now) by the paragraph reproduced above. I guess if I am anything in this world, I am a Darwin scholar – I have this horrendous 400,000 word Darwin Encyclopedia about to go into production this month – and so without being a Darwin fanatic, I do have a bit of an affection for the old fellow (actually I am just about the age when he died). Hence, I did find myself wondering about whether he was responsible for the decline and fall of modern child rearing and education.
I certainly wouldn’t want to see it as an either/or between Darwin and Plato. I love the Republic and have taught it many times. Frankly, I think Plato is a bit iffy on aspects of education – he ain’t very keen on the arts, at least without a good deal of censorship – but I do agree that he has a conception of the human being – “man’s nature” – and it does inform and direct his philosophy of education.
What about Darwin? I think it would come as a considerable surprise to him to learn that in some sense he was responsible for destroying the idea of man’s nature and that he had led us into a world of “social constructs.” It seems to me that in the Descent of Man he offers a very clear and firm vision of human nature, and that (certainly as evidenced by his own family) he thought that this had major implications for education.
Obviously Darwin thought of us as intelligent apes – that for him was without any doubt the main distinguishing feature of humankind. He also thought of us as one species. The Darwin-Wedgwood family (his mother was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood the potter and his wife was also a Wedgwood) were violently against slavery. Once, when one of Darwin’s sons made a joke on the subject, Darwin went ape, so to speak, and later that night went into his son’s room to apologize because he had so lost his temper.
A major thing for Darwin was the importance of the moral sense for human nature. He spent many pages exploring and explaining this, arguing that it is truly fundamental to our being. Interestingly, he was far less concerned to argue that we are religious beings. He reflected the agnosticism of many late-19th-century intellectuals, who really thought that religion was a thing of the past. (Just as well that they couldn’t run for the American presidency today!)
I wouldn’t deny that there are aspects of Darwin’s thinking that make us today, shall we say, a bit uncomfortable. So perhaps after all talk of social construct is not entirely irrelevant. There is no doubt that Darwin thought Europeans superior to others – although he did think that a major factor in the superiority was less a matter of intelligence and more a better ability to withstand diseases.
What does grate today is Darwin’s view of women. Thanks to sexual selection, he thought they were much more childlike than men, and certainly nothing like as qualified when it comes to thinking matter. This view was part and parcel of Darwin’s personal life. He put a huge amount of thought into the education of his sons, and made sure that they got a good grounding in science. The daughters were home educated mainly and not intended for lives of work or stress. (There was quite enough family money that they did not have to become governesses – the oft-imposed life on a less-than-wealthy daughter of the middle classes.)
As often happens in these cases, this view of women was modified in real life, inasmuch as it is clear that Darwin’s wife ran the family with an iron hand – she too was a grandchild of Josiah Wedgwood! – and Charles and everyone else did what she ordered. Also there is no doubt that Darwin was a terrific father to all of his children, always ready to stop work and play. Moreover, Darwin’s favorite child by far was little Annie, who died at about the age of 10.
Let me conclude. Basically Laurie Fendrich and I are in agreement. We should care about our kids and proper care demands a thoughtful vision of human nature. All I want to suggest is that Darwin – and his successors – might be our friends in this quest. Plato is tremendously important (I am not quite so sure about Rousseau), but there are other options than some kind of rank, constructivist subjectivity. Laurie isn’t sure we need science or philosophy to get cracking on the job. Kids need a good cuddle. Agreed. But let’s not be too down on Plato the philosopher, or Darwin the scientist.
