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6 von 6 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
4.0 von 5 Sternen
Lively, biased, and a whole lot of fun, 17. Juli 2000
Matt Ridley nicely demonstrates here that there is no such thing as virtue and that altruism is an oxymoron. Instead it is all reciprocity and enlightened self-interest. This reminds me of when I was a sophomore in college. We used to argue passionately about three things: the nature of women, whether the Pope believed in God, and whether it was possible to act otherwise than in one's own self-interest. We concluded that women were an enigma wrapped in a mystery, etc.; that it wasn't clear whether the Pope believed in God or not; and that, barring mistakes, we always acted in our own self-interest. We further concluded that "altruism" was a word without real meaning, that the Pope was an amoral political animal, and that women were, regardless of their nature, VERY interesting. But we were sophomores. Matt Ridley is all grown up, and what interests him in this book is not so much the origin of virtue (although he does get heavily into that) but the restoration of the conservative agenda. Alas. He argues from biology (our nature) to what ought to be politically. This is doubly "alas" because Ridley preaches mightily against this very delusion, calling it a "reverse naturalistic fallacy" (p. 257). David Ricardo and Adam Smith are brought into the fray, Hobbes and Machiavelli. Ridley takes arguments from game theory and political science and the world of high finance to make his point that virtue as it is ordinarily understood does not exist. He goes on to call for less government and more local autonomy, a return to a dream state of "everything small and local" (p. 264). As he does, Ridley comes dangerously close to taking on all the trappings of a right wing radio talk show host, spouting the virtues of Newt Gingrich and Margaret Thatcher on his way to becoming something like a high-toned Russ Limbaugh. Alas, how sharp was his rapier and how telling his prose when Ridley stuck to revealing our social and sexual hypocrisy as he did so delightfully in The Red Queen (1993); but how obvious are his prejudices when he steps into the political arena. He actually argues that tried old irrelevancy of the embarrassed right wing, that even though Hitler was bad, very bad, he was better than Stalin. Thus on page 258 we have (referring to the doctrine of acquired characteristics embraced by the Soviet state): "Unlike the genetic determinism of Hitler, Stalin's environmental variety went on to infect other peoples." Ridley even argues that Hitler got his ideas from the communists. "Hitler was merely carrying out a genocidal policy against 'inferior', incurable or reactionary tribes that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had advocated..." (p. 253). So caught up in his cause is Ridley that he begins to contradict himself and argue for the kind of idyllic fantasy world that he condemns in Rousseauians. Thus in his chapter entitled "The Power of Property" he waxes nostalgic for the "egalitarian" conservation systems of New Guinea fishermen and Maine lobster men before the interference of big government. On page 262 he talks about "The collapse of community spirit in the last few decades, and the erosion of civic virtue...caused" by "the dead hand of the Leviathan." But on the very next page he declares, "I hold to no foggy nostalgia that the past was any better. Most of the past was a time of authority, too..." Yes, Matt, it was. The authority of the gang lords, of the feudal lord, of a system of social, political and economic imprisonment so oppressive that the average person never got further than a few miles from the place of his birth and had little to no chance of rising above the economic and social station of his birth. It was "small and local" with a vengeance. The tyranny of the feudal lords in Europe and, e.g., the war lords in China is conveniently ignored in Ridley's political fantasy. He claims that we have it better today only because of superior technology (p. 263) forgetting that our system of representative democracy in Republican form is also an improvement over the absolutism of the tribe. The sad lesson here is, that even a man as adroitly talented and as intelligent as Matt Ridley becomes just another propagandist when he ventures into an area in which he is emotionally involved. Still there is a lot to enjoy in The Origins of Virtue. His discussion of the prisoner's dilemma is the best I've read, although his analysis of the "wolf's dilemma" (p. 55) is faulty. I won't go into it here, but "the tiny chance" that he refers to is overwhelmed by the fact that each player has only a five percent chance of "winning" by pushing his button since he has to beat 19 others to the punch. Consequently the best strategy is the obvious, don't push that button! (But check this out for yourself.) His discussion of how the division of labor has enriched our world is interesting; his analysis of how we detect cheaters and how that is an instinctive human talent is persuasive; and his delineation of the nature of gift giving and receiving and how it relates to our innate sense of reciprocity is valuable as it shines light on the nature of "virtue." In fact, his entire argument is eminently worth reading. His glorification of trade (with which I agree) and his put down of ecologists (with which I disagree) is tolerable. Most fun though--recalling the Matt Ridley of The Red Queen--is in all the sacred cows he slaughters along the way: the New World Indians (ouch!), Margaret Mead, the so-called "tragedy of the commons" theory, the Noble Savage, even poor Chief Seattle is revealed as a slave-owner whose public reputation is largely the product of a screenwriter's imagination (p. 214).
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von Steven Pinker
