The Blank Slate: I'm just finishing Steven Pinker's latest book, he of "How the Mind Works" and "The Language Instinct" fame. Now, I don't know his politics (I suspects he's on the left, leaning libertarian) but the book, which is fascinating, by the by, is pretty much the death warrant of what Pinker calls the "Utopian Vision" of society: that people are infinitely socially malleable, that gender is a social construct, that genetic differences don't really exist, and all that other postmodern twaddle. He shows that nature is, slowly, giving up the secrets of the human brain. Just as a quick example, do men have a natural tendency toward rape? It's a sticky point, because it's hard to say yes without appearing to excuse rape. But Pinker is very clear that, while rape is proscribed in all cultures, it really is a useful strategy (in purely Darwinistic terms) in the male genetic goal of making as many copies of himself as possible. The pomo left has refused to discuss issues like this, since it cuts against their marxism and their political correctness. But Pinker is hopeful of the emergence of a scientific, Darwin-respecting left that is willing to accept the hand that nature has played. Just as the right clings to the Bible in the face of science, the left clings to its sacred texts of social construction (and sneers at the right for being fooled by patriarchal constructs like Judeo-Christian values). One day, perhaps, both provincialisms will be discredited. For now, one is still salon talk in "intellectual" circles.