In the end, one wonders whether Literary Darwinism isn’t, at its core, the result of a deep-seated (and misplaced) fear common to those who use phrases like “our moral compass,” the sorts who worry about this or that position leading to “anarchy.” Gottschall writes, “Instead of philosophical despair about the possibility of knowledge, [literature professors] should embrace science's spirit of intellectual optimism. If they do, literary studies can be transformed into a discipline in which real understanding of literature and the human experience builds up along with all of the words.”
But Mr. Gottschall, literature is already a place where real understanding of the human experience can be found. I’m sorry that the insights to be found are not tidy enough for you. But we’re an untidy species. There are surely biological causes for that untidiness but locating them doesn’t do anything to clean up the mess. If you want to get closer to that mess, if you really want to face the immense clutter of the human-all-too-human, literature is a good thing to acquaint yourself with. If not, well … there are so very many professions.-Unnatural Selection
Or, How I could have told you why people like Emma.
