The Human Animal by Weston La Barre
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Weston La Barre's work of evolutionary psychology (sociobiology) is an entertaining work. The reader will learn much about the process of evolution and the biological mechanisms of several species that will broaden their scientific perspective and provide several fresh and powerful analogies. That said, La Barre strays too far into the realm of psychoanalysis. The strong influence of Freud is unavoidable and at times off-putting. The reader must constantly remind themselves La Barre is a product of his time, but still, some of the arguments he makes are so shockingly sexist and outdated that you cannot help but develop skepticism for the overall worth of the book. Honestly it is not one that I will read through again. But I did enjoy it. His description of ants, the sequence of different animal families, and expansion on Freud's ideas of the spectrum from culture-to-pyschosis are all interesting and worthwhile.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment