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Darwin and the Difference Between Nikes and Reeboks, Part 3

Well, Essentially, I'm an Anti-Essentialist

In the first two parts of this series, I talked a lot about Sharon, a woman who made Reader's Digest fame by walking into a shoe store, pointing at a sneaker made by Reebok and asking, "Do you have this in Nike?" I then argued that, perhaps, Sharon's question wasn't rooted in a lack of smarts, but a combination of individualism and Darwinian anti-essentialism.

In case you've forgotten, essentialism is the view that things have real essences — essences that exist independently of the conceptual divisions we find convenient to impose on the world. Anti-essentialism, then, is the view that things do not have real essences.

According to the anti-essentialist, our unique physical makeup — big brain, decent eyes, weak ears, terrible sense of smell — has endowed us with unique needs and values. These needs and values make it convenient for us to divide up the world according to one set of criteria rather than another. Because most of us have never considered the possibility of alternative criteria, we assume that our conceptual divisions correspond to real divisions in nature, divisions that exist independent of our physical makeup, divisions that would have been there even had we possessed the physical makeup of, say, bats.

The Longer We Tarry, the More Dire the Peril!

Bats? Yes. That's right. Bats. We can gain a great deal of insight into anti-essentialism by thinking about the physical makeup of bats.

Have a look at the Image 1 above and count the number of things you see. Wall, light switch, door and picture, right? Four things, each with its own essence. Or, maybe, wall, light switch, door, door frame, door knob, painting and picture frame. Seven things, each with its own essence. But what if you were a bat and sonar was your only way of acquiring knowledge of the wall?

Seriously, pretend you are a bat. Pretend you're completely blind and rely on sonar for the vast majority of your information about the world.

Image 2 is supposed to be a drawing of a textured wall with nothing on it. (That's what the scribbles are. Texture.) If you were a bat, you would only "see" one thing in Image 2 — a textured wall. Well, take a look at Image 3, which is a duplicate of Image 1 minus the details that are only perceivable via vision. Image 3 is my best attempt at drawing a bat's experience of the wall in Image 1.

Now, if you had the physical makeup of a bat, how many things would you "see"? Your sonar would tell you that there's an 8-foot by 14-foot object nearby, and it would tell you that this object isn't flat. But would you have any reason to think there are any other objects in front of you? Would you have any reason to think there are more objects in Image 3 than in Image 2? You don't know anything about doors, pictures and light switches. In fact, you neither know the words "door," "picture" and "light switch," nor have any concept of what such things are. To you, the only difference between the large, flat objects in Images 2 and 3 would be a difference in texture. But this means that, so far as you are concerned, there's only one thing in Image 1, one thing in Image 2 and one thing in Image 3.

Put in the words of essentialism and anti-essentialism, to you, rather than having essential features in their own right, the door, picture and light switch in Images 1 and 3 are merely accidental features of the wall — like its shape and size, and like the texture in Image 2.

Well, who's right, then? You, the bat, who thinks that the door, picture and light switch are only accidental features of the wall, or you, the human, who thinks that the door, picture and light switch are independent objects, each with its own essence?

According to the anti-essentialist, neither of you is right. Moreover, neither of you is wrong. There's simply no fact of the matter. From the bat's perspective, flies are healthy and delicious; from the human perspective, they're dirty and disgusting. In like manner, from the bat's perspective, the door, picture and light switch are accidental features of the wall; from the human perspective, they're independent objects with their own essences. If anti-essentialism is correct, that's all there is to say.

This is why I said that, perhaps, Sharon's question was partially rooted in anti-essentialism rather than a lack of smarts — because anti-essentialism allows us a lot of freedom in the divisions we impose on the world.¹

Darwin Made Me Do It

Why, then, did I say Sharon's question might also have been rooted in Darwinism and individualism?

I mentioned Darwinism, first, to give credit where credit is due. While Darwin wasn't the original anti-essentialist,² he was the first to clarify and apply the anti-essentialist worldview in such a way that it stuck. As Daniel Dennett says,

Darwin neither invented the [anti-essentialist worldview] out of the whole cloth all by himself, nor understood it in its entirety even when he had formulated it. But he did such a monumental job of clarifying the idea, and tying it down so it would never again float away, that he deserves the credit if anyone does.³

Second, I mentioned Darwinism to leave open the possibility that Sharon asked "Do you have this in Nike?" because she'd been thinking the same things about the metaphysics of clothing-classification as Darwin thought about the metaphysics of mammal-classification. I mentioned Darwinism, in other words, to leave open the possibility that Sharon asked for a Reebok in Nike because she'd actually given some thought to the bearing of the Darwinian worldview on the day-to-day details of her life.

"Individualism," then?

By "individualism," I meant what everybody means by "individualism" — the desire to go around classifying like a maverick, completely irrespective of the way the rest of us divide up the world. I said "individualism" because Sharon was classifying like a maverick, dividing up the world all on her own, like a rebel classifier.

As a matter of fact, most of us don't classify clothing by the criteria "made by either Reebok or Nike" and "made by neither Reebok nor Nike." Regardless of whether or not our criteria carve nature at its joints — that is, regardless of whether or not "Reebok" and "Nike" name real essences, ones that exist independent of human classification — most of us think something that's a Reebok can't come in Nike, and vice versa. This is important because it shows us that Darwinian anti-essentialism itself isn't sufficient to explain Sharon's strange behavior. While Darwinism may have given her the intellectual freedom to ask for a Reebok in Nike, it definitely didn't make her ask for a Reebok in Nike. In addition to being a Darwinian anti-essentialist, she must have been an individualist, for the idea that Reebok's don't come in Nike is perfectly compatible with Darwinian anti-essentialism.⁴

Thus, I said Sharon's problem may have been a combination of individualism and Darwinian anti-essentialism because her being an individualist and a Darwinian anti-essentialist would explain an otherwise inexplicable event in the history of branding and marketing: the fact that Sharon walked into a shoe store, pointed at a Reebok and — by the beard of Zeus! — asked for it in Nike!

Ideas Have Consequences

I'm sorry. That last section was long and kind of boring.

Now that I've demonstrated a relationship between "Darwin's dangerous idea" (to quote Dennett) and Sharon's strange behavior, let me conclude by relating all of this to something important.

Ideas have consequences, and big ideas have big consequences. Darwin's ideas matter outside of church, and outside of biology. They affect the deepest levels of our thought, feelings and behavior. According to Dennett — who, you'll recall, is a huge fan of Darwin — they're an acid that eats through everything, leaving in their wake a revolutionized worldview.⁵

As we've seen, among other things, Darwinism eats through the idea that there's an essential difference between Nikes and Reeboks. It eats through our intuition that there could never be such a thing as a Reenike. And it eats through our motivation to laugh at Sharon's question — it eats through our confidence that it was funny, worth publishing in Reader's Digest.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What do you think about the possible consequences of Sharon asking the store clerk if she could get the Reebok in a Nike?

Join the discussion!

But if Darwinism has corrosive effects on such pedestrian beliefs, sentiments and behaviors as these, then how will it affect the rest of what we think, feel and do? Most importantly, how will it affect the beliefs, sentiments and behavior that give our lives meaning and purpose? What will the acid of Darwinism leave behind?

I was waiting on some customers at the shoe store where I work when I was interrupted by a very determined woman. Pointing to a sneaker made by Reebok, she asked, "Do you have this in Nike?"

I was waiting on some tourists at the zoo where I work when I was interrupted by a very determined woman. Pointing to the guy standing next to me, she asked, "Do you have this in Gorilla?"

As Darwin, Dennett and other thoughtful naturalists would surely agree, we ought to be careful what we believe.