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Speak to me

by
August 1994, no. 163

The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language by Steven Pinker

Allen Lane (Penguin)

Speak to me

by
August 1994, no. 163

An immense irony: Noam Chomsky, one of the left-culture heroes of the 1960s and 1970s –one of mine, at any rate – was in fact all along engaged in a white-anting of the sacred central tenet that unites leftish beliefs, the notion we are products (constructs is the more fashionable term) of our culture. And its optimistic sequel: we can therefore be changed, or improved. Gender roles are supposedly a construct, IQs are supposedly a construct, the fact that all sprint finalists in the Olympics are black-skinned is even supposed to be a cultural construct.

Peter Goldsworthy reviews 'The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language' by Steven Pinker

The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language

by Steven Pinker

Allen Lane (Penguin)

From the New Issue