ELC Theory, part 3: Evolutionary Psychology Predicts Its Own Marginalization

This blog is supposed to be about John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces (COD). However, I have been working on a parallel track on the theory and practice of evolutionary literary criticism (ELC), as is evidenced in my book chapter on the comic mechanisms in COD. This post is another installment in a new series of posts on the theory of Evolutionary Literary Criticism which have little relation to COD per se. Thank you again for your patience, my two followers.

Evolutionary Psychology (EP), the basis of ELC, has a problem with itself. In particular, Multilevel Selection Theory posits that humans have evolved mechanisms that promote and enforce group selection. For example, leaders can inspire followers to die for a cause. The followers may individually fail to reproduce, but the group that contains those followers may out-compete groups where followers did not die for their causes.

Toward this effort, irrational loyalty to the ideology of the group can be an important pro-group mechanism. The irrational loyalty could be to a religious ideal (kill the infidels), to a nation (for Mother Russia), political ideals (give me liberty or give me death), racism (master race, anyone?), or a number of other causes. I have heard it said that much of the motivation for soldiers to sacrifice is for their fellow siblings-in-arms (pronouns to be determined). Henri Tajfel showed that members of even arbitrary groups display strong group loyalty, so just identifying an arbitrary Us as opposed to an arbitrary Them can get the pro-group juices flowing.

Framing all actions in a rational framework of selection and reproduction, however, throws cold water on the ardor of group loyalty, in much the same way that students trained in modern economic theory tend to be more selfish and less altruistic in their personal lives than the average person. In this way, Evolutionary Psychology itself is a bad ideological mechanism for pro-group loyalty. It should come as no surprise that activists, those trying to rouse others to action that may cost them individually, to fight to the death as it were, are likely to reject EP. Therefore, EP predicts its own rejection because it does not provide a selective advantage.

In last month's blog entry, I discuss Judith Saunders's essay on Benjamin Franklin. Franklin in his autobiography was quite candid about using pro-social behaviors to advance his own personal worldly success. He was disparaged by 19th century intellectuals as a philistine. The rejection of Franklin is very much of a piece with the rejection of evolutionary psychology and, with it, evolutionary literary criticism.