[Discussion] The Origin of Stories:

[Paksoy, Hb]

The Origin of Stories:
Horton Hears a Who=20
Brian Boyd=20
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Copyright =A9 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights =
reserved.
Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 197-214=20

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Works of art die without attention, and we should expect that any =
critical
theory that cannot explain why we attend to art ought itself to be =
moribund.
Yet the currently dominant approach to criticism, which I will dub =
Cultural
Critique, 1 explains art in terms of the limited and suspect =
perspectives of
the culture (society, group, era) that produced it, or as the site of
contestation or locus of imbrication of the ideological discourses of =
its
time. Why anyone would want to attend to art, defined thus, becomes a
mystery, unless audiences always do indeed crave ideological =
nourishment or
indigestion. Surely we can do better.=20

I would like to offer the outline of an alternative: an evolutionary
explanation first for art, then for narrative, then for fiction. Then, =
since
ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or at least sometimes helps us =
retrieve
it, and since we have no printouts of Pleistocene potboilers, I will =
color
in the outline by way of Dr. Seuss's children's classic, Horton Hears a =
Who,
contrasting a sample evolutionary analysis of a single work of fiction =
with
the kind of response typical of Cultural Critique.=20

In art we do or make things simply in order to engage our attention, =
for the
sake of attention, and we are not the only species to do so. =
Intelligence
began to evolve because the world is full of potential information that =
can
suggest advantageous courses of behavior. Curiosity evolved on top of
intelligence--especially in the species that Konrad Lorenz liked to =
call
"specialists in non-specialization," such as rats among rodents, =
corvids
among songbirds, and humans among primates 2 --because it extends the =
range
of information creatures can attend to and act on. As a result rats can
prefer cognitive stimulation to food and sex. 3 As the most intelligent =
and
versatile of species, we humans particularly like directing our =
attention to
what repays our curiosity. [End Page 197]=20

And like other particularly intelligent species, we like to do things =
that
provide cognitive stimulation, whether they have any immediate survival
value or not. Corvids (together with psittacines, the most intelligent =
of
birds) enjoy a kind of aerial acrobatics that Lorenz unashamedly labels =
art.
4 Dolphins in a Hawaiian marine park have developed, without any human
prompting, what has been called "air art," a kind of rhythmic =
gymnastics in
which they deploy air bubbles from their blowholes like gymnasts' =
ribbons or
hoops, or, to stress the affinity to art, a kind of aquatic analogue of
light sculpture. 5 Chimpanzees appear to engage both in solitary =
imaginative
play, like Kakama with the stick he famously and repeatedly handled as =
if it
were a toy baby, 6 and in group activity, like rhythmic dances, 7 for =
the
sheer pleasure they produce. In art as in so much else we had thought
uniquely human, like tool-using or tool-making, like counting or =
culture, we
are finding there are precursors elsewhere in nature. 8=20

Because we are such a highly social species, we crave the attention of
others. Human infants are distressed at adults who do not respond to =
them; 9
infants and children across cultures punish others by withdrawing =
attention.
10 At any age we like to command attention in ways we choose, for the
ability to compete successfully for attention is closely correlated =
with
status, 11 which raises rates of survival and reproduction. 12 And we =
can
recognize something artistic in such forms of competitive animal
attention-getting as the dances of lekking birds, the songs of =
songbirds or
whales, or the extravagant architecture of bowerbirds. Not only do we =
like
to command attention, we also enjoy simply sharing it with others, =
because
this cements our place in a social group whose support we need. 13 =
Again,
there are precursors in other species: the elaborate song of duetting
songbirds, 14 or the communal dances of chimpanzees.=20

Curiosity directed at what we can do that gives us cognitive pleasure,
whether by engaging our own attention or commanding or sharing that of
others, has deep roots in the evolution of intelligence and sociality. =
But
in humans the prodigious development of the frontal lobes, associated =
with
metarepresentation, and with the conditional and the inhibitory, allow =
us to
monitor our own reactions, to select one choice and reject another to
produce this or that effect, 15 in a way that ratchets the inclination
toward art, toward doing or making something for the mind to attend to =
and
enjoy, to a new level. And because we have finer manual control than =
any
other species, and a conscious control of vocal [End Page 198] sound =
unique
to land mammals, we have more diverse and elaborate ways than other =
species
of articulating pattern, shape and even sound. 16=20

While there are precursors of art in other species, then, there are =
also
evolutionary reasons why only in our species it has become both =
optional,
rather than a fixed behavioral pattern, and yet species-wide,
reliably-developing, compulsive. We have an intensified curiosity, a =
greater
capacity for self-awareness and self-control, and finer and more =
flexible
articulation. Perhaps even more important, we have a more intense =
sociality,
a closer attunement to one another, as indexed, for instance, in the
difference between monkeys, apes, and humans in mother-infant =
interaction,
culminating in the elaborate back-and-forth of human mother and infant =
gaze
17 and of behavior such as rhythmic play. 18 From infancy we have a =
desire
to command the attention of others, to shape it more finely, and to =
share it
more fully, than in any other species.=20

If there are precursors of dance and music in other species, and even,
especially in bowerbirds, of the visual arts, no precursor has been =
found
for narrative. Again, the key difference seems to lie in the way human
sociality has shaped human intelligence.=20

It has become increasingly clear that our own intelligence builds on
rudimentary intuitions other species also have about number and =
quantity,
about solidity, penetrability and impact, about natural kinds, about =
the
behavior of individuals and the relationships between them, 19 and that =
in
humans these intuitions reliably develop slightly further, before much
cultural input, into the species-wide folk physics, folk biology, folk
psychology and folk sociology that developmental psychologists now =
study
even in prelinguistic children. 20=20

Of these, it is folk psychology or Theory of Mind which marks our =
species
out most radically from others and seems to enable the high degree of
cultural sharing that has allowed us to continue to elaborate and =
eventually
improve these folk intuitions. 21 Where other animals interpret =
behavior,
especially of conspecifics, in terms of position, orientation and =
motion,
and perhaps even desire and intention, we seem uniquely able to =
understand
others in terms of beliefs as well as desires and intentions.=20

Theory of Mind has arisen out of our social fine-tuning (increased
altriciality, prolonged childhood, early infant imitation, social =
learning,
fine articulation in facial expression, in vocalization, and in =
gesture),
and it has in turn made still finer social tuning possible, including =
the
[End Page 199] development of protolanguage and then full modern =
syntactic
language. Language of course has still further refined Theory of Mind =
22 and
social fine-tuning in a powerful positive feedback loop.=20

Even before language, humans appear to have a uniquely powerful event
comprehension system, forming reliably in all normally-developing
individuals as a set of theories that combines intuitive physics =
(objects
and forces), intuitive ontology (animals, plants and artifacts), and
especially intuitive psychology or Theory of Mind (beliefs, desires and
intentions), and an intuitive sociology (affiliation, hierarchy and
exchange). As a high-level set of already high-level cognitive =
subsystems,
the event comprehension system naturally becomes strongly influenced in =
the
course of later individual development, once language has arisen, by =
local
cultural explanations, which however could not grow except on this rich
substratum of universal and innate theories.=20

When our innate event comprehension system began to be coupled with =
some
means of re-presenting events intersubjectively, through reenactment,
through images and especially though not exclusively through language, =
we
had started along the road to narrative.=20

Although narrative is unique to humans, because we alone have both a =
rich
system of event comprehension and various means of event =
representation, we
find it compelling partly for reasons that also have evolutionary
precursors. Even rats and monkeys have a natural default response to =
others
of their kind, not just their kin, whom they see in distress, and human
children "by one year of age . . . spontaneously comfort people in
distress." 23 As Frans de Waal notes, "distress at the sight of =
another's
pain is an impulse over which we exert no control: it grabs us
instantaneously, like a reflex." 24 In chimpanzees, because they are so
flexibly social, individuals keep close track of who does what to whom, =
and
judge their future relations with others by assessments of their =
individual
powers and personality and their social support. 25 Humans, because we =
are
even more flexible and more socially interdependent, are even more =
eager to
keep track of one another; more attentive to the complex goals of =
others; 26
much more capable of keeping track of others and their goals =
indirectly,
through narrative, through gossip; more eager to share such =
information,
since sharing it secures attention for the teller and offers =
information for
the listener; and more likely to respond even to indirect reports with
strong empathy or indignation.=20

Now, narrative could be entirely factual, especially as gossip about =
the
immediate social group. Indeed, this remains the dominant form of [End =
Page
200] casual conversation even today. 27 The obvious social advantages =
of
factual narrative, however, cannot explain why we have fiction, why we
engage so compulsively in telling and listening to stories we know are =
not
true.=20

We have an innate interest in and engagement with the interests of =
others,
providing it does not run counter to what we perceive as our own =
interests,
and those who wish to gossip can count on this to secure attention. But
there are two disadvantages of gossip: it can be misleading and it can =
be
boring. Fiction on the other hand removes the dangers of deceit or
manipulation and offers the promise of interest. Since we develop the
ability to detect and resist stories, like any other forms of =
communication,
that we see as skewed toward tellers whose interests differ from ours, =
28
skilled storytellers secure our attention by appealing to our cognitive
craving to comprehend the actions and intentions of others, while =
serving
their own aims both through the attention they garner and through =
appealing
to interests that we either share or can be made to think we share with
them. Fiction therefore offers a win-win situation, a non-zero-sum =
game, an
advantage for teller (benefit in attention and status, at a cost in
imaginative effort), and for the listener (maximum cognitive interest =
at
little cost except time).=20

An evolutionary model of fiction, therefore, should focus on ways
storytellers, as active individual strategists, maximize the attention =
of
their audience by appealing to features that have evolved to be of =
interest
to all human minds, to our shared understandings of events, our shared
predispositions to be interested in and engaged by what others do and =
our
sheer readiness to share attention.=20

Let me contrast an evolutionary approach to fiction--to the example of =
Dr.
Seuss's Horton Hears a Who 29 --with the approach that has become =
standard
in Cultural Critique.=20

The historian Richard Minear reflects the modes and moods of the times =
when
he critiques Dr. Seuss's 1954 tale in terms of what he sees as Theodor =
Seuss
Geisel's typically mid-century American attitude to Japan: xenophobic
hostility during World War II, and condescension afterwards in his =
eagerness
to see democracy re-established after the American Occupation. 30=20

When he wrote Horton Hears a Who, Ted Geisel had indeed recently =
visited
Japan, and wrote the story partly because he was concerned about the
establishment of democracy there and wanted to stress the importance of
every vote even within a vast population. 31 The Whos, crammed onto an
unbelievably small space, are in one sense the [End Page 201] Japanese,
densely crowded onto their island nation, who can be saved if all =
citizens
exercise their voice together. It would therefore seem easy in =
retrospect to
criticize Horton Hears a Who by way of the whiff of hysteria in Dr. =
Seuss's
depiction of the Japanese in his political cartoons of World War II, =
and of
condescension in his hopes for Japanese democracy in the early 1950s. =
But
the historicizing approach is both too narrow (it ignores the universal
appeal of the story) and too blunt (it ignores the individual problem =
Dr.
Seuss faces and the individual way he deploys universals, evolved human
interests, in order to solve it).=20

Let me first summarize the story. Horton the elephant, with the help of =
his
big ears, one day overhears a cry for help from a dust-speck. He =
realizes
there must be someone on that speck of dust, perhaps a whole family: =
but
who? As he carefully places the speck on a clover, two kangaroos mock =
him
for thinking that dust can talk, but as he walks away, carrying the =
clover
to safety, he hears the mayor of Who-ville speak from the speck and =
thank
him for shielding them all. But to the other animals around him =
Horton's
behaving as if there were a whole community on a dust-speck seems an
outrageous affront to common sense. A group of monkeys snatch the =
clover
away, passing it on to an eagle who flies off and drops it into a =
clover
patch a hundred miles wide. Intrepid Horton treks over the mountains to =
the
clover plain, and on the three millionth flower, finds his Whos. He =
just has
time to learn from them that their town has been badly damaged as it =
fell,
although they are already starting to repair the damage, when along =
come the
kangaroos and the monkeys to tie Horton up, cage him, and take the =
clover
off to boil it in oil. As they haul him toward the cage, Horton exhorts =
the
Whos to make as much noise as they can, to convince the bigger animals =
they
exist. They banged on drums "and blasted great toots On clarinets, =
oom-pahs
and boom-pahs and flutes," but still cannot be heard by anyone except
Horton. When Horton calls for more noise, the Mayor of Who-ville rushes
through the town to locate any shirkers, and at last finds a very small =
Who
at home just bouncing a Yo-yo. He grabs the young twerp and hauls him =
to the
top of the Eiffelberg Tower, then calls on every Who to make one last =
blast
of noise, "For every voice counts!" The little lad he has found clears =
his
throat and calls out "Yopp!": "And that Yopp . . . That one small, =
extra
Yopp put it over! Finally, at last! From that speck of clover Their =
voices
were heard! . . . And the elephant smiled. . . . 'They've proved they =
ARE
persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the
Smallest of All!'" The kangaroos now rush to protect the Whos, the =
little
Kangaroo in its [End Page 202] mother's pouch chiming in: "ME, TOO! =
>From sun
in the summer. From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect them. =
No
matter how smallish!"=20

Evolution sees individuals as problem-solvers coping with their =
situation as
they assess it. Horton Hears a Who offers a compact example of a master
storyteller strategically solving his own artistic problem situation. =
In
itself Ted Geisel's personal response to postwar Japan, his desire to
promote democracy there, does not seem likely to elicit avid attention,
whether in the United States or in Japan. But the initial impulse to
advocate the value of even the smallest voice becomes transformed, in =
the
need to interest children and adults, from a message of contemporary
political relevance into a timeless tale that appeals to universal =
evolved
cognitive interests, especially to the early-developing interests and =
skills
of children, through each level of the event comprehension system, =
through a
strong belief-desire-intention dynamic, and through a central but =
simplified
and therefore accessible use of false belief.=20

Oral storytellers catch and hold attention partly through their =
presence,
through real-time interaction with their audience, through prosody, =
gesture,
perhaps even enactment and costume. Storytellers telling their stories =
in
print had to discover ways of maximizing attention and minimizing
inattention to compensate for their absence in person. Dr. Seuss =
therefore
draws on these long traditions of printed storytelling, of refining =
economy,
sequence and pace, but at the same time he returns to the origins of
stories.=20

He engages children so well because he appeals to their pleasure in =
play and
their early-developing capacities for shared attention. A newborn baby =
less
than an hour old, who cannot even fully focus its eyes, can =
nevertheless
respond to someone smiling at it or poking out his or her tongue, by =
smiling
or poking out its own tongue in reply. 32 In humans around the world, =
that
need to coordinate activity and attention develops into all kinds of
rhythmic cross-modal interplay between elders and infants, into =
bouncing and
clapping and babbling and singing, into peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake. 33
Children know that these games are for their pleasure, and they thrive =
on
the attention, and on synchronicity of action and response marked out =
by
shared rhythms or turntaking. Even when they are not actively playing =
games
with them, older humans around the world talk to infants in a =
heightened,
singsong voice, with exaggerated rhythms and intonations, which serve =
both
to engage the infants' attention and to simplify their comprehension. =
34
[End Page 203]=20

Whenever language has been used to command and consecrate shared =
attention,
in traditional verse around the world, the need to focus and refocus
attention has led to the use of rhythm and a line-length of about three
seconds, in instinctive reflection of the fact that three seconds is =
the
span of the human auditory present. 35 But Dr. Seuss returns through =
this
adult norm to the element of childhood play behind it. He selects a
four-foot dactylic rhythm that unlike the iambic stands out from =
natural
English intonations: dit-dit-DA dit-dit-DA dit-dit-DA dit-dit-DA. He =
chooses
couplet rhymes to demarcate the lines in often amusingly obtrusive =
fashion,
often with the aid of nonsense words patently and absurdly for the sake =
of
the rhyme, from the opening couplet ("On the fifteenth of May, in the =
Jungle
of Nool, In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool") 36 to the =
climax
of the story ("When they got to the top, The lad cleared his throat and =
he
shouted out, 'yopp!'"). His language, in other words, is a verbal =
equivalent
of the play-face, the gamboling gait, the rhythmic romp.=20

Dr. Seuss's is a world predisposed to play, to the imaginative compact
between teller and told, a shared but almost effortless effort of
imagination, no matter how strange the action or actors, no matter how =
far
they lead us from our everyday world. He can count on children's =
pleasure
that someone has made up a story for them to respond to, as a parcel of
pleasure, a gift of attention. Rather than taking the fact of =
storytelling
for granted, or trying to pass Horton's plight off as real, he feeds
children's consciousness of and delight in the fact that someone has =
made up
a story for them, that it is just a story, that it cavorts away from =
the
real, and that they can scamper after in imagination wherever the tale
heads. He captures children's attention through a spirit of shared =
play, a
kind of controlled communal surprise.=20

Just as adults' play with their children combines kinetic, aural and =
visual
cues, so Dr. Seuss adds visual cues to his verbal ones. He ensures =
ready
apprehension through economy of color (he uses the three colors that
anthropologists find are the first to be named in all human
societies--black, white, red 37 --and just one more primary color, =
blue) and
economy of outline (an analysis of Paleolithic cave drawings points out =
that
their profile outline forms of highly distinct animals create the =
maximum of
recognizable representation for the minimum of effort). 38=20

He employs an extravagantly overt anthropomorphizing that makes animal
features both easy to read and distinctively and outrageously Seussian. =
Like
other species, only more so, because we are ourselves [End Page 204] =
such a
strikingly neotenous species, we have a particular fondness for =
infantile
traits in creatures of our own kind or others, for heads relatively =
large in
proportion to the body and eyes relatively large in proportion to the =
head,
and for relatively flat facial profiles. 39 Dr. Seuss plays to all =
these
evolved tendencies, not least in giving his kangaroos and elephant and
chimpanzees human-like smiles and comically obvious, loose-limbed human =
feet
and hands that are the hallmarks of the Seussian biome, whether in =
species
more or less real or entirely invented, and that signal, once again, a
disposition to play.=20

Dr. Seuss may appeal to species-wide cognitive features, but he does so =
in
his own unmistakable way. Without individual variation, natural =
selection
would have nothing to select from--and nor would social competition,
artistic attention, or cultural selection.=20

For its expression, narrative usually needs a verbal and often a visual
medium. But in its core elements, character, plot, perspective, it =
draws on
aspects of life that predate verbal and visual art.=20

Essential to narrative is a focus on agents and goals. Long before
narrative, animals have needed to be rapidly aware of other agents, =
other
animals, as potentially urgent threats or opportunities. Agency itself
therefore catches the attention, 40 but some agents catch the attention
better than others. Long before narrative, animals needed to =
distinguish one
organism from another at first sign: by smell, sound, or in the human =
case,
especially by sight. Hence human children have an innate fascination =
with
animal kinds and names, out of all proportion, in modern urban life, to =
the
likelihood of their encountering aardvarks or zebras. 41=20

Precisely because we are primed so early, phylogenetically and
ontogenetically, to attend to the stark differences between animal =
kinds,
these differences have been an immemorial analogue for the differences =
in
powers and personalities within the human that are so important for our
social life, an analogy as natural and universal, if not quite as
fundamental, as the analogy between space and time that Lakoff and =
Johnson
demonstrate to be fundamental to language 42 and that developmental
psychologists show even precedes language. 43 If some agents catch the
attention more than others, that applies within as well as beyond the =
human.
We take more notice of the larger than the smaller, of higher status or
greater powers rather than lesser, of the unusually helpful or harmful, =
of
those with features strikingly different from the normal range. Dr. =
Seuss
harnesses children's fascination with [End Page 205] differences =
between
animals both to attract their attention and to simplify their =
apprehension
by providing striking and memorable distinctions between participants =
in his
story.=20

But where other species "read" other animals by differences in kind and =
by
heuristics of position and behavior, 44 humans read one another, and =
often
even other animals, with the help of Theory of Mind, with a
belief-desire-intention psychology. Because of the predictive =
advantages of
Theory of Mind, we overread agency--it is safer to suppose a bush a =
bear
than a bear a bush--and we humanize animal thought. And because of our
fascination with the different powers and personalities of different
creatures, animals and humans, young and old, little or big, animals =
provide
us with salient examples of difference, and animals who speak and act =
in
human ways stretch all the way from the earliest known human cultures, =
from
Aboriginal dream-time legends, the Mahabharata or Aesop, to Herriman,
Disney, and Spiegelman, Kafka, Ionesco and Cort=E1zar, Hawkes, Pynchon =
and
Auster. Animals are of course especially prominent in stories for =
children,
who are just beginning to learn to discriminate differences between =
animal
kinds and between human individuals. But no one creates critters quite =
so
quickly catchy as Dr. Seuss, or creates differences in kind quite so
extravagant. Horton, as an enormous but kindly elephant ready to help
creatures microscopically small, has the child in us engrossed, not =
least
for his paradoxical powers and predicaments: his big ears that enable =
him to
hear little things, his trunk that can handle something as minute as a =
speck
of dust, his generosity despite his immensity, his vulnerability =
despite his
size, his facing punishment despite his selflessness.=20

We have a default concern for others, and especially for others who =
stand
out in terms of might or merit, and a default sympathy with their =
pursuit of
their goals. 45 Dr. Seuss makes Horton the sort of agent we would =
naturally
want to ally ourselves with, the sort of agent who dominates stories =
from
Beowulf to Braveheart, powerful, generous, and resourceful; and he =
makes
Horton's goals unmistakable, admirable, and urgent: the struggle not to =
be
cast out of his community, the survival of a whole people.=20

Like religion, in Pascal Boyer's evolutionary account, 46 Dr. Seuss =
engages
children's attention both by drawing on their intuitive expectations =
and by
transgressing them for the sake of salience, by violating their =
knowledge
that animals do not talk or their sense that a whole city could not =
possibly
fit on a dust-speck. Yet despite catching their attention and inviting =
their
enjoyment of this shared fantasy, he also [End Page 206] knows he can =
make
them still engage with the characters, with Horton's own predicament =
and
that of the Whos themselves. 47 He engages them not by simple =
identification
(they cannot simultaneously "identify" with the enormous and solitary =
Horton
and the myriad minuscule Whos), 48 but by their default sympathy with a
prominent agent in pursuit of commendable goals, and hence, especially, =
by
rousing their moral emotions. 49=20

But there would be no story with only Horton and the Whos. Stories need
obstacles, and especially the clash of goals and counter-goals. Not =
only do
we sympathize with Horton's goals, we oppose the counter-goals of the =
other
jungle animals, because we know they rest on a false belief: they think
there is no one on Horton's speck of dust, no Whos in Whoville, whereas =
we
not only "hear" what Horton can hear, we can even see the Whos he =
cannot
see.=20

Because Theory of Mind is so essential to our fine-grained perception =
and
prediction of the behavior of others, it is essential to storytelling. =
But
children's Theory of Mind develops only gradually. Neither animals =
other
than humans nor children under three seem to have a clear understanding =
of
false belief, that others can have a different understanding of a =
situation
than what is the case, or than what they think themselves. By four, =
children
understand false belief, or second-order intentionality (Horton knows =
that
the other animals think there are no Whos), by six they can handle
third-order intentionality, and by adolescence they can handle fourth- =
or
even fifth-order intentionality. The capacity to understand false =
belief,
even in its initial stages, is crucial to the human capacity for =
narrative,
and to narratives real and invented: Elizabeth Bennet thinks that Darcy
thinks that she thinks he thinks too harshly of her family; Maria =
foresees
that Sir Toby will eagerly anticipate that Olivia will judge Malvolio
absurdly impertinent to suppose that she wishes him to regard himself =
as her
preferred suitor.=20

In Horton Hears a Who Dr. Seuss makes the false belief of the other
animals--that there are no Whos--central to the entire story, but he =
makes
it utterly accessible to all but the youngest children by not passing =
beyond
second-order intentionality and by demonstrating so graphically, =
through his
cityscapes of Whoville, what the true belief should be. At the same =
time, he
makes false belief epistemologically and ethically urgent: the child in =
us
wants to cry out to the other animals: "But can't you SEE? There ARE =
Whos
there!" Dr. Seuss has raised the stakes of the false belief to the =
maximum,
but placed the minimum strain on the cognitive capacity of his =
audience.
[End Page 207]=20

I would suggest that there are two essential forces behind the power of =
plot
to command our continued attention to a story, and that these forces =
are
best explained in evolutionary terms: first, our interest in whether or =
not
agents achieve their goals, which arises from the natural sympathy =
creatures
at a certain cognitive and social level can have for others of their =
kind;
50 and, second, our unique human interest, because we have Theory of =
Mind,
in knowing the full situation that will explain the whole story. For as =
soon
as we appreciate false belief, we realise that mistakes can be made =
through
not understanding the true situation: in terms of the standard test of =
false
belief, that Anne will look in the wrong place for the marble that she =
saw
Sally put in a drawer, say, but that since Anne left the room Sally has
already taken out and cached under the bed. 51 In Dr. Seuss's story, we =
not
only want Horton to achieve his goal, to save the Whos, we also want =
the
other animals to discover that their belief was false, that it is they =
and
not Horton who acted on false belief.=20

The Standard Model of Cultural Critique presupposes the limitations of =
any
particular historical or social outlook. To many this has seemed to =
offer a
more independent, more sophisticated, more historically sensitive way =
of
looking at works of art. But in fact it ignores both the largest =
historical
context, the evolutionary one, and the fine-grained detail, the =
close-up on
history in the making, on the moment of decision, on the artist as an
individual problem-solver. In its preoccupation with the group, whether
society or era, it overlooks both the species and the individual, and =
it
remains indifferent or even hostile to the artfulness and the power of =
art.=20

An evolutionary approach by contrast can explain the appeal of art in
general and of particular arts and particular works of art. It stresses =
the
individual organism as trying to cope with its own problem situation, =
which
for Dr. Seuss, here, is before all else to interest an audience, and =
only
then, if he can manage it, to help the cause of electoral democracy in
Japan. To stress the importance of everyone's participating in the
democratic process, he comes up with the idea of the unimaginably tiny
individual voice that nevertheless makes sufficient difference, indeed =
saves
a whole people, a whole world. The fantastic, attention-catching idea =
of the
minute Whos, in their miniature world, who cannot be heard unless every =
one
of them shouts together, violates our expectations of the physical =
world,
but in accord with our readiness to overattribute agency. For the sake =
of
the attention-catching contrast, Dr. Seuss then sets against the Whos =
the
hugest of land animals, an elephant, Horton, [End Page 208] whom his =
earlier
Horton Hatches The Egg has already characterized as generous and =
protective.
52 Because of his big ears, Horton can hear the Whos when others =
cannot, and
from this, all the rest follows.=20

The model assumed by Cultural Critique underplays artists as individual
problem-solvers and ignores the solutions, the ingenious appeals to our
attention they make through human cognitive universals, even as the =
most
confident simultaneously intensify their own idiosyncrasies in order to
catch attention by their difference from other artists. Cultural =
critique
therefore overlooks what makes art worth attending to, and attention is =
the
very life of art.=20

Even if we limit ourselves to transmittable meaning, Cultural Critique, =
with
its assumption of isolated particular perspectives, ignores how art can
transcend them, how it could ever speak to anyone else. In search of an
appeal to all, Dr. Seuss overcomes the limitations of a particular
perspective, the limitations, perhaps, of the Ted Geisel of the 1940s. =
In
trying to engage the imaginations of children, he appeals to human =
ethical
universals, to values of individual and community, of independence and
interdependence, of support for the weak and for the strong, that are =
in
fact common to Japan and the United States, and to human beings =
everywhere.
In his search to engage children just coping with false belief, he
encourages them to accept that there might be more to the world than we
first can see, a possibility, indeed, that is built into the very =
nature of
story and that has been crucial to the development of human culture, at
first, at the level of unseen agents, such as gods and spirits, but =
then at
the level of forces that act in unagentlike and even unobjectlike ways, =
such
as microbes and molecules. And in his search to engage the attention of
children through his own idiosyncrasy, through his jolting rhythms and
jauntily invented creatures, Dr. Seuss, like all art, reminds us how we =
can
share enough in imagination to take us to new worlds or to remake the =
old
one on our own terms.=20

=20


------------------------------------------------------------------------=
----
----


University of Auckland=20

Notes=20
1. After writing this I discovered that "cultural critique" was the =
favored
term for the supposed state of the art in literary criticism, in the =
Preface
and Introduction to the massive (2624 pp.) new Norton Anthology of =
Theory
and Criticism, ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. (Norton: New York, 2001), =
pp.
xxxiii ("theory--or 'cultural critique,' as it is more descriptively
termed"), p. 5 ("recent theory and criticism of literature have moved =
on to
cultural critique"), p. 7 ("literature conceived as social text or =
discourse
calls for cultural critique").=20

2. Die R=FCckseite des Spiegels: Versuch einer Naturgeschichte =
menschlichen
Erkennens (Munich: Piper, 1973), p. 199; trans. Ronald Taylor, Behind =
the
Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge (London: =
Methuen,
1977), p. 148.=20

3. Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York: Norton, 1997), 524.=20

4. Thierry Lenain, Monkey painting (1990; rev. ed., London: Reaktion, =
1997),
24: "Lorenz [Vergleichende Verhaltunsforschung: Grundlagen der =
Ethologie,
Vienna:1978], . . . describing the aerial arabesques delineated in =
flight by
corvids, not only felt justified in using the word 'art,' but went as =
far as
stressing that it had to be taken in its proper sense: 'I am using the =
terms
"creative" and "artistic" deliberately without putting them in =
quotation
marks, for it is most likely that the processes involved here also
constitute the roots of all human artistic activity.'"=20

5. Ken Marten, Karim Shariff, Suchi Psarakos, and Don J. White, "Ring
Bubbles of Dolphins," Scientific American, August 1996, pp. 64-69. The =
term
"air art" comes from Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
(London: Little, Brown, 2000), p. 295.=20

6. See Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the
Origins of Human Violence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), pp. 252-55. =


7. Wolfgang K=F6hler, The Mentality of Apes (1925; trans. Ella Winter,
Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1957), pp. 266-67.=20

8. See Marc Hauser, Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think (London: =
Allen
Lane/Penguin Press, 2000); Stanislas Dehaene, The Number Sense: How the =
Mind
Creates Mathematics (London: Penguin, 1997); John Tyler Bonner, The
Evolution of Culture in Animals (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980); Frans de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural =
Reflections of
a Primatologist (New York: Basic Books, 2001).=20

9. See Alison Gopnik and Andrew N. Meltzoff, Words, Thoughts, and =
Theories
(Cambridge: Bradford/MIT Press, 1997), p. 131; Henry W. Wellman, and =
Susan
A. Gelman, "Knowledge Acquisition in Foundational Domains," Handbook of
Child Psychology, vol. 2: Cognition, perception and language, ed. D. =
Kuhn
and R. Siegler (New York: Wiley, 1998), p. 543.=20

10. Iren=E4us Eibl-Eibesfeldt, "Warfare, Man's Indoctrinability, and =
Group
Selection," Zeitschrift f=FCr Tierpsychologie 60 (1982): 177-98.=20

11. This is not to suggest that we consciously strive for attention or
status in order to improve our prospects for survival and reproduction, =
any
more than we enjoy sweet foods to improve our energy intake or sex to
increase offspring. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists =
distinguish
between ultimate causes (improved survival and reproduction over the =
long
term as a consequence of a certain behavior) and proximal causes (the
pleasure we anticipate the behavior will immediately produce).=20

12. See Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, =
Infants,
and Natural Selection (New York: Pantheon, 1999), pp. 81-82; 110-12.=20

13. Iren=E4us Eibl-Eibesfeldt, "The Biological Foundation of =
Aesthetics," in
Ingo Rentschler, Barbara Herzberger and David Epstein, eds., Beauty and =
the
Brain: Biological Aspects of Aesthetics (Basel: Birkh=E4user Verlag, =
1988),
pp. 29-68; esp. 55-58.=20

14. Thomas A. Sebeok, "Prefigurements of Art," Semiotica 27 (1979): =
3-73.=20

15. See Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of =
Language
and the Human Brain (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1997); Elkhonon
Goldberg, The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind =
(Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001).=20

16. Our voices are under conscious control, but we cannot articulate =
two
streams of air as songbirds can, or produce as wide an acoustic range =
as
cetaceans can. Yet unlike them we can supplement vocal sound with =
sounds we
can produce with our hands and what we can hold or make with them, =
including
instruments that amplify vibrations produced by our breath.=20

17. See Michael Tomasello and Joseph Call, Primate Cognition (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 405: "In the social domain, on the =
other
hand, we see qualitative differences between human and nonhuman =
primates
soon after birth. Two behaviors highlight this difference. First, as
outlined by Stern (1985), Trevarthen (1979) and others, from soon after
birth, human infants engage in 'protoconversations' and 'affect =
attunement'
with their caregivers. Protoconversations are social interactions in =
which
the parent and infant each focus their attention on the other--often in =
a
face-to-face manner involving looking, touching, and vocalizing--in =
ways
that express and share basic emotions. Moreover, these =
protoconversations
have a clear turn-taking structure. . . . in one form or another they =
seem a
universal feature of adult-infant interaction in the human species
(Trevarthen, 1993). Second . . . human neonates also display skills of
imitation. Meltzoff and Moore (e.g. 1977, 1989) have discovered that =
from
soon after birth, human infants reproduce some of the facial =
expressions and
head movements of adults. . . . it is also possible that this reflects =
a
deeper tendency of the infant to identify with conspecifics."=20

18. See Ellen Dissanayake, Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began =
(Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2000).=20

19. See note 7. "Folk sociology" or social cognition has been less =
studied
than the others.=20

20. See Wellman and Gelman 1998 for a compact summary.=20

21. But see, for instance, "Consider the Source: The Evolution of
Adaptations for Decoupling and Metarepresentation," by Leda Cosmides =
and
John Tooby: "Although social interactions may have played a role, we do =
not
believe that social competition was the sole driving force behind the
evolution of human intelligence (as in the Machiavellian hypothesis,
Humphrey 992; Whitten [sic] & Byrne, 1997). We certainly do believe =
that
humans have evolved sophisticated adaptations specialized for social =
life
and social cognition . . . but what is truly distinctive about human
intelligence encompasses far more than the social. For example, the =
causal
intelligence expressed in hunter-gatherer subsistence practice appears =
to be
as divergent from other species as human social intelligence"--in Dan
Sperber, ed., Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective =
(Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 55. Two points: (a) the argument =
above
does not depend on human social intelligence as being the unique =
driving
force behind the evolution of human intelligence, only on its being a =
major
step beyond non-human cognition; (b) human causal intelligence seems =
most
likely to be explained through the increased ability to coordinate =
attention
toward and eventually, with language, to discuss causal problems.=20

22. See Gopnik and Meltzoff, 1997, esp. pp. 185-216.=20

23. de Waal, 2001, pp. 352, 357.=20

24. de Waal, 2001, p. 355.=20

25. See Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes =
(1982;
rev. ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) and =
Good-Natured:
The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1996).=20

26. Gopnik and Meltzoff, 1997, p. 151: "These experiments demonstrate =
that
at 18 months, infants can read a complex goal from failed attempts, =
attempts
that contradict the spatio-temporal contact theory, as well as from
successful ones. . . . These examples again confirm our earlier claim =
that
infants immediately apply their theory of action to the actions of both
themselves and others."=20

27. Robin Dunbar, Anna Marriott, and N.D.C. Duncan, "Human =
Conversational
Behavior," Human Nature 8 (1997): 231-46.=20

28. See Richard Dawkins and J.R. Krebs, "Animal signals: information or
manipulation?" in Behavioural Ecology, ed. Krebs and N.B. Davies =
(Oxford:
Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1978), pp. 282-309; Dawkins and =
Krebs,
"Arms races between and within species," Proceedings of the Royal =
Society of
London, B 205 (1979): 489-511; Michell Scalise Sugiyama, "On the =
Origins of
Narrative: Storyteller Bias as a Fitness-Enhancing Strategy," Human =
Nature 7
(1996): 403-425.=20

29. Dr. Seuss [Theodor Seuss Geisel], Horton Hears a Who (1954; London:
Collins, 1998).=20

30. Richard H. Minear, Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II =
Editorial
Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel (New York: New Press, 1999), pp. =
260-64.=20

31. Seuss, quoted in Minear, p. 263. Horton Hears a Who was dedicated =
to "My
Great Friend, Mitsugi Nakamura of Kyoto, Japan."=20

32. For a summary by the leader in the field, see Andrew N. Meltzoff, =
"The
Human Infant as Imitative Generalist: A 20-Year Progress Report on =
Infant
Imitation with Implications for Comparative Psychology," in Cecilia M. =
Heyes
and Bennett G. Galef, Jr., eds., Social Learning in Animals: The Roots =
of
Culture (San Diego: Academic Press 1996), pp. 347-70.=20

33. See Daniel Stern, The First Relationship: Mother and Infant =
(Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1977); see also Hrdy 1999 and Dissanayake =
2000.=20

34. Anne Fernald, "Human Maternal Vocalizations to Infants as =
Biologically
Relevant Signals: An Evolutionary Perspective," in The Adapted Mind:
Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, ed. Jerome H. =
Barkow,
Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (New York: Oxford University Press, =
1992), pp.
391-428.=20

35. Frederick Turner and Ernst P=F6ppel, "Metered Poetry, the Brain, =
and
Time," in Rentschler et al., 1988, pp. 71-90.=20

36. Note that Dr. Seuss also pays children the compliment of assuming =
they
understand the absurdity of the date when applied to these jungle =
animals: a
detail that evokes the devices of realism only to undermine or toy with =
it
and affirm the power of imaginative play.=20

37. B. Berlin and P. Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and
Evolution (Berkeley: University of Californai Press, 1969); see also =
Roger
N. Shepard, "The Perceptual Organization of Colors: An Adaptation to
Regularities of the Terrestrial World?" in Barkow et al., 1992, pp. =
495-532.


38. John Halverson, "The First Pictures: Perceptual Foundations of
Paleolithic Art," Perception 21 (1992): 389-404.=20

39. See Konrad Lorenz, "Ganzheit und Teil in der tierischen und =
menschlichen
Gemeinschaft," Studium Generale, 1950, trans. as "Part and Parcel in =
Animal
and Human Societies," in Lorenz, Studies in Animal and Human Behaviour,
trans. Robert Martin, vol. 2 (London: Methuen, 1971); Stephen Jay =
Gould, "A
Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse," in The Panda's Thumb: More =
Reflections
in Natural History (1980; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983).=20

40. See Simon Baron-Cohen, Mind-Blindness: An Essay on Autism and =
Theory of
Mind (Cambridge: Bradford/MIT, 1995).=20

41. See Scott Atran, Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards =
an
Anthropology of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); =
Janet
Wilde Astington, "Narrative and the Child's Theory of Mind," in B. =
Britton
and A. Pellegrini, Narrative Thought and Narrative Language (Hillsdale, =
New
Jersey: Erlbaum, 1990), pp. 151-71.=20

42. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The =
Embodied
Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, =
1999).=20

43. Andrew N. Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore, "Imitation, Memory and the
Representation of Persons," Infant Behavior and Development 17 (1994):
83-99, and "Infants' Understanding of People and Things: From Body =
Imitation
to Folk Psychology," in The Body and the Self, ed. Jos=E9 Luis =
Berm=FAdez,
Anthony Marcel, and Naomi Eilan (Cambridge: Bradford/MIT Press 1995), =
p. 52.


44. See Philip W. Blythe, Peter M. Todd, and Geoffrey F. Miller, "How =
Motion
Reveals Intention: Categorizing Social Interactions," in Gerd =
Gigerenzer,
Peter Todd et al., Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart (New York: =
Oxford
University Press, 1999), pp. 257-86.=20

45. Gopnik and Meltzoff, 1997, esp. pp. 150-60.=20

46. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); "Cognitive Tracks of
Cultural Inheritance: How Evolved Intuitive Ontology Governs Cultural
Transmission," American Anthropologist 100 (1999): 876-89.=20

47. Richard J. Gerrig, Experiencing Narrative Worlds: On the =
Psychological
Activities of Reading (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), =
demonstrates
that default responses are engaged even without belief, and even on =
repeated
tellings.=20

48. No=EBl Carroll cogently criticizes the notion that the audience's =
relation
to story protagonists is one of identification: see, for instance, The
Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart (New York: Routledge, =
1990)
and A Philosophy of Mass Art (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998).=20

49. No=EBl Carroll discusses the engagement of the moral emotions as a =
key
component of narrative art in A Philosophy of Mass Art.=20

50. And in the human case, with understanding of even complex goals: =
see n.
24.=20

51. For an account of the traditional standard Sally-Anne test and =
recent
extensions, see Simon Baron-Cohen, Michelle O'Riordan, Valerie Stone, =
Rosie
Jones and Kate Plaisted, "Recognition of Faux Pas by Normally =
Developing
Children and Children with Asperger Syndrome or High-Functioning =
Autism,"
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29 (1999): 407-18.=20

52. 1940; rept. London: Collins, 1998.=20

             =20