Hopeless
Anthony Storr
Optimism Lionel Tiger (Secker £6.95) Ten years ago, Lionel Tiger, who is a professor of anthropology at Rutgers, wrote Men in Groups, an interesting study of male 'bonding.' He then collaborated with Robin Fox in The Imperial Animal, which examined human behaviour and social structure from the biological angle. This new book, subtitled 'The Biology of Hope', is in line with its predecessors. Tiger believes that not enough attention has been paid to optimism as an adaptive ingredient in the human condition. 'As mood, attitude, and mode of perceiving life optimism has been central to the process of evolution; it determines to a degree not yet charted the way humans think, play and respond to birth and death.'
It sounds an interesting idea, but, in spite of Tiger's wide reading and undoubted liveliness of mind, what he has produced does not add up to a coherent book. Part of the trouble lies with his style of writing. He constantly tells the reader, 'I will go on to say', or 'I will discuss shortly', and then indulges in a piece of personal reminiscence so long that one has forgotten what it was that he promised to go on to. He is also curiously uncritical. Discussing the presumed optimism of primitive hunters, he assumes that 'persons willing to entertain the idea of a successful foray and tel act on the basis of that idea rather than on the spectre of injury and failure' must have a biological advantage. But it is equally plausible to argue that those who can foresee danger and take suitable precautions to avoid it are more likely to survive.
Tiger was profoundly impressed with the cave-paintings of Lascaux. He therefore drags this in as an example of optimism. 'Presumably these prehistoric people derived satisfaction, perhaps even reassurance, from painting on cave walls.' However, the main point is to describe his own journey through the caves. 'We entered the famous rotunda. Its effect is indescribable.' Building cathedrals is another example. 'Using what demented calculation could an animal build such places? I think we know. An animal with a gorgeous genius for hope.' We rush on breathlessly from religion to sex, from sex to money. 'Sexual intercourse is highly pleasurable,' he informs us. Moreover, 'it is rarely a wholly casual matter.' In Siena he goes to the Patio, and gives us a long description of this ritual contest, though what its relevance to the main theme of the book may be is hard to determine. He doesn't bother to verify his quotations. 'Evidently an acquaintance told Samuel Johnson, "I had wanted to be a philosopher, but cheerfulness kept breaking in." 'What Edwards, a solicitor who had been an undergraduate with Johnson, actually said was: 'I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.'
This book is not so much concerned with biology or with hope as with Tiger's recent reading and travel. At the end of the last chapter Tiger urges us to 'Face the worst cases', in order to remind us that, at the bottom of Pandora's box, hope is still to be found. His choice of what he considers the 'worst cases' begins with a sentence which I find revealing: 'You have suffered some weirdly punishing, inexplicably general shift in the circumstances of your life. Your work has been exposed as false or trivial or pretentious .
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