Far From the Tree

by Solomon, Andrew

  “This definition makes ’person’ close to what Fletcher meant by ’human,’ except that it selects two crucial characteristics—rationality and self-consciousness—as the core of the concept. Quite possibly Fletcher would agree that these two are central, and the others more or less follow from them. In any case, I propose to use ’person’ in the sense of a rational and selfconscious being, to capture those elements of the popular sense of ’human being’ that are not covered by ’member of the species Homo sapiens.’”

  1038 Peter Singer’s statement beginning “If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal . . .” occurs on page 128 of his article “Sanctity of life or quality of life?,” Pediatrics 72, no. 1 (July 1983). In full: “Once the religious mumbo-jumbo surrounding the term ‘human’ has been stripped away, we may continue to see normal members of our species as possessing greaten capacities of rationality, selfconsciousness, communication, and so on, than members of any other species; but we will not regard as sacrosanct the life of each and every member of our species, no matter how limited its capacity for intelligent or even conscious life may be. If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant. Only the fact that the defective infant is a member of the species Homo sapiens leads it to be treated differently from the dog or pig. Species membership alone, however, is not morally relevant. Humans who bestow superior value on the lives of all human beings, solely because they are members of our own species, are judging along lines strikingly similar to those used by white racists who bestow superior value on the lives of other whites, merely because they are members of their own race.”

  1039 The story of the Miller family’s ordeal comes from the Supreme Court of Texas opinion in Miller v. HCA, Inc., 118 S.W.3d 758 (Tex. 2003),http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/2003/sep/010079.pdf; see also Kris Axtman, “Baby case tests rights of parents,”Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 2003.

  1040 See Not Dead Yet et al., “Brief of amici curiae in support of respondents,” Miller v. HCA, Inc., Civil Action No. 01-0079 (Supreme Court of Texas, filed March 21, 2002), http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/millerbrief.html.

  1041 “Many disability rights advocates believe that the Millers’ suit promotes infanticide . . .” comes from Dave Reynolds, “Who has the right to decide when to save the sickest babies?,” Inclusion Daily Express, June 14, 2002.

  1042 The quotations from Ellen Wright Clayton (“I think that it is really inappropriate . . .”) and George Annas (“The truth is, no one really knows . . .”) come from Kris Axtman, “Baby case tests rights of parents,” Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 2003.

  1043 The excerpt from the New York Court of Appeals decision in Becker v. Schwartz, 46 N.Y.2d 401 (1978), is quoted in Pilar N. Ossorio, “Prenatal genetic testing and the courts,” in Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights, edited by Adrienne Asch and Erik Parens (2000), page 320.

  1044 This passage is based on my interview with Julia Hollander in 2006 and subsequent communications, as well as her book When the Bough Breaks: A Mother’s Story (2008).

  1045 The quotation from Julia Hollander beginning “In Limbo, the babies have died” comes from her book When the Bough Breaks: A Mother’s Story (2008), page 22. The quotation beginning “One night in the dark” comes from page 69.

  1046 All quotations from Tania Beale come from her article with Julia Hollander, “A tale of two mothers,” Guardian, March 8, 2008.

  1047 The quotations from Chris Borthwick come from pages 205 and 207 of his article “The proof of the vegetable,” Journal of Medical Ethics 21, no. 4 (August 1995).

  1048 For an exploration of the Jewish concept of God in relationship, see Martin Buber, I and Thou (2000); e.g., page 49: “Spirit is not in the I, but between I and Thou.”

  1049 The quotation from Maggie Robbins (“Consciousness is not a noun, it’s a verb”) comes from a personal communication in 2010.

  1050 For more information on parenting in animals, see Susan Allport, A Natural History of Parenting: A Naturalist Looks at Parenting in the Animal World and Ours (1997).

  1051 The quotations from Annie Leclerc (“the profound taste we have for children”) and Daphne de Marneffe (“not only to her recognition . . .”) occur on pages 90 and 82, respectively, of Daphne de Marneffe, Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life (2004).

  1052 The quotation from Sigmund Freud (“parental love, which is so moving and at bottom so childish, is nothing but parental narcissism born again”) occurs on page 91 of On Narcissism: An Introduction (1981).

  1053 For Anna Freud’s thoughts on the mother-child relationship, see The Harvard Lectures (1992), especially Lecture Five (pages 65–78), “Stages of development.”

  1054 See Rozsika Parker, Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence (1995, 2005). The quotation “the Scylla of intrusiveness and the Charybdis of neglect” occurs on page 140, while the quotation about “a sort of sadness” occurs on page 45.

  VIII: Prodigies

  1055 The quotation from Raymond Radiguet (“Child prodigies exist . . .”) occurs on pages viii–ix of his novel Count d’Orgel’s Ball (1989).

  1056 The statement “A prodigy is a group enterprise” occurs on page 121 of David Henry Feldman and Lynn T. Goldsmith, Nature’s Gambit: Child Prodigies and the Development of Human Potential (1991).

  1057 See Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body (2006).

  1058 Psychologist Anne Fernald of Stanford University has conducted pioneering research in the role of singsong “baby talk” in child development; see Anne Fernald, “Four month olds prefer to listen to motherese,” Infant Behavior & Development 8 (1985); and Anne Fernald and P. Kuhl, “Acoustic determinants of infant preference for motherese speech,” Infant Behavior and Development 10 (1987).

  1059 The quotation from John Blacking (music “is there in the body . . .”) occurs on page 100 of his book How Musical Is Man? (1973).

  1060 For a cross-cultural study of musical communication of emotion, see Thomas Fritz et al., “Universal recognition of three basic emotions in music,” Current Biology 19, no. 7 (April 2009).

  1061 Robert Garfias’s identification of music as a “primary means of sustaining a process of socialization” occurs on page 100 of his article “Thoughts on the process of language and music acquisition,” in Music and Child Development: Proceedings of the 1987 Biology of Music Making Conference, edited by F. Wilson and R. Roehmann (1989).

  1062 Geéza Reéveész refers to Handel’s singing before he could talk on page 7 of The Psychology of a Musical Prodigy (1925). The story may, however, be apocryphal; Handel’s earliest biographer, John Mainwaring, does not describe Handel’s infancy.

  1063 Arthur Rubinstein describes his early habit of expressing his desires in song on page 4 of My Young Years (1973). In the case of the mazurka, the child was engaging not only in precocious musicality, but also in precocious punning; the word mazurka refers to both a traditional Polish folk dance and a dense Polish cake with fruit and nuts.

  1064 The quotation from John Sloboda (“Musical idioms are not languages”) occurs on page 106 of his essay “Musical ability,” in Ciba Foundation Symposium 178: The Origins and Development of High Ability (1993).

  1065 All quotations from Leon Botstein come from my interview with him in 2010 and subsequent communications.

  1066 This passage is based on my interviews with Evgeny Kissin, Emilia Kissin, and Anna Pavlovna Kantor in 1996, and on a subsequent interview with Evgeny Kissin in 2008, as well as other communications. The 1996 conversations formed the basis for my article “Questions of genius,”New Yorker, August 26, 1996; for another profile of Kissin, see Vadim Prokhorov, “The prodigy (Evgeny Kissin),” Guardian, January
2, 2004. Evgeny Kissin maintains a website at http://www.kissin.dk.

  1067 Evgeny Kissin’s Carnegie Hall debut garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews: see Allan Kozinn, “Recital by Yevgeny Kissin, a young Soviet pianist,” New York Times, October 2, 1990; Peter Goodman, “Sparks fly from his fingertips,” Newsday, October 2, 1990; Harold C. Schonberg, “Russian soul gets a new voice at the keyboard,” New York Times, October 7, 1990; and Michael Walsh and Elizabeth Rudulph, “Evgeny Kissin, new kid,” Time, October 29, 1990. In fact, one of the earliest American reviews of a Kissin recording refers to his performance as “astonishing”: K. Robert Schwarz, “What happens when prodigies grow up,” New York Times, September 4, 1989.

  1068 The quotation from Anne Midgette comes from her review “Kissin is dexterous but lacking in emotion,” Washington Post, March 2, 2009.

  1069 This passage is based on my interview with Yefim Bronfman in 2010. For another profile of Bronfman, see Anne Midgette, “A star who plays second fiddle to music,” New York Times, December 15, 2007. Bronfman is depicted in Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain (2000).

  1070 Peter Kivy discusses Plato’s concept of genius throughout the first chapter (pages 1–13) of The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius (2001). Consider also Plato’s doctrine of anamnesis, or recollection, which holds that knowledge is innate, bestowed by the gods, and that learning is a matter of recalling what one already knows; this idea is elaborated most notably in his dialogues Phaedo and Meno, in The Works of Plato, 4 vols., translated by Benjamin Jowett (New York: Random House, 1937).

  1071 See Longinus, On the Sublime, translated by Thomas R. R. Stebbing (1867), page 4: “Can Sublimity be taught?”: “Now the question which meets us at the outset is this: whether elevation of style and the reverse can be reduced to rule, since some think it an utter delusion to apply the precepts of art to this kind of subject. For sublimity, they say, is the gift of Nature, not the result of teaching, and the only art which leads to it is native genius. The effects of natural abilities, they think, are impaired and altogether weakened under the debilitating influence of systematic rules. But I maintain, that to be convinced of the contrary, one has but to consider that what Nature loves in impassioned and exalted moods is a general independence, not a random course without plan or direction; and that while Nature supplies in all cases primary and archetypal elements of production, it is system which avails to point out the needful limitations, the seasonable opportunity, in short, to bring together all the proprieties of use and practice; and that genius without science, left alone with no ballast or ought to steady it, upon its own mere impulse and undisciplined impetuosity, has an inherent liability to shipwreck. For genius, be assured, requires the curb as often as the spur. For as Demosthenes remarks of life in general, that ‘chief among blessings is good fortune, but second thereto, or even equal, is good counsel,’ seeing that men without the latter must inevitably forfeit also the former, so might we say as to the use of language, that natural talent answers to good fortune, and the teaching of art to good counsel. And indeed for the leading fact itself, that there is that in oratory which Nature can alone supply, we are indebted to none other than as I said, of these particulars, the censor of the studious will no longer, I believe, deem the investigation of our present subject superfluous or unprofitable.”

  1072 John Locke’s statement “I imagine the minds of children as easily turn’d this or that way, as water it self” occurs on page 2 of his work Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1695). In full: “I imagine the minds of children as easily turn’d this or that way, as water it self: and though this be the principal part, and our main care should be about the inside, yet the clay-cottage is not to be neglected. I shall therefore begin with the case, and consider first the health of the body, as that which perhaps you may rather expect from that study I have been thought more peculiarly to have apply’d my self to; and that also which will be soonest dispatch’d, as lying, if I guess not amiss, in a very little compass.”

  1073 Kant’s statement “If an author owes a product to his genius, he himself does not know how he came by the ideas for it” occurs on page 175 of Critique of Judgment (1987). In full: “What this shows is the following: (1) Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other; hence the foremost property of genius must be originality. (2) Since nonsense too can be original, the products of genius must also be models, i.e., they must be exemplary; hence, though they do not themselves arise through imitation, still they must serve others for this, i.e., as a standard or rule by which to judge. (3) Genius itself cannot describe or indicate scientifically how it brings about its products, and it is rather as nature that it gives the rule. That is why, if an author owes a product to his genius, he himself does not know how he came by the ideas for it; nor is it in his power to devise such products at his pleasure, or by following a plan, and to communicate to others in precepts that would enable them to bring about like products. (Indeed, that is presumably why the word genius is derived from [Latin] genius, the guardian and guiding spirit that each person is given as his own at birth, and to whose inspiration those original ideas are due.) (4) Nature, through genius, prescribes the rule not to science but to art, and this also only insofar as the art is to be fine art.”

  1074 See E. F. J. Payne’s rendition on page 391 of The World as Will and Representation (1966), simplified here. “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see” is a translation of Schopenhauer’s statement “Das Talent gleicht dem Schützen, der ein Ziel trifft, welches die übrigen nicht erreichen können; das Genie dem, der eins trifft, bis zu welchem sie nicht einmal zu sehen vermögen”; the original occurs on page 391 of Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. 2 (1844). E. F. J. Payne’s more formal rendition of the sentence occurs (coincidentally) on page 391 of The World as Will and Representation (1966): “Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target, as far as which others cannot even see.”

  1075 See Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius (1869).

  1076 Lewis Terman’s research reports include “A new approach to the study of genius,” Psychological Review 29, no. 4 (1922); Genetic Studies of Genius, vol. 1, Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand Gifted Children (1925); and The Gifted Group at Mid-Life: Thirty-Five Years Follow-Up of the Superior Child (1959).

  1077 Scott Barry Kaufman offers a critical review of Terman’s work in his article “The truth about the Termites,” Psychology Today, September 2009.

  1078 Paul Popenoe’s statement “no son of an unskilled laborer has ever become an eminent man of science in the United States” occurs on page 134 of his book The Child’s Heredity (1929).

  1079 For in-depth investigations of the contribution of the British and American eugenics movement to the development of Nazi racial policies, see Henry P. David, Jochen Fleischhacker, and Charlotte Hohn, “Abortion and eugenics in Nazi Germany,” Population & Development Review 13, no. 1 (March 1988); Timothy Ryback, Hitler’s Private Library (2010); and Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (2004).

  1080 Alfred Kroeber considers the subject of genius in Configurations of Culture Growth (1944).

  1081 This passage is based on my interviews with Leon Fleisher and Julian Fleisher in 2010 and subsequent communication. For more on Fleisher, see his autobiography, My Nine Lives (2010); Karen Wada’s article “A hand fate dealt him,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2007; and the documentary Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story (2006).

  1082 The quotation from Daines Barrington occurs on pages 285 and 286 of his “Account of a very remarkable young musician” (1780), reprinted in 2008 by the Mozart Society of America. The passage in its entirety: “His astonishing readiness, however, did not arise m
erely from great practice; he had a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of composition, as, upon producing a treble, he immediately wrote a base under it, which, when tried, had a very good effect. He was also a great master of modulation, and his transitions from one key to another were excessively natural and judicious; he practised in this manner for a considerable time with a handkerchief over the keys of the harpsichord. The facts which I have been mentioning I was myself an eyewitness of; to which I must add, that I have been informed by two or three able musicians, when Bach the celebrated composer had begun a fugue and left off abruptly, that little Mozart hath immediately taken it up, and worked it after a most masterly manner. Witness as I was myself of most of these extraordinary facts, I must own that I could not help suspecting his father imposed with regard to the real age of the boy, though he had not only a most childish appearance, but likewise had all the actions of that stage of life. For example, whilst he was playing to me, a favourite cat came in, upon which he immediately left his harpsichord, nor could we bring him back for a considerable time. He would also sometimes run about the room with a stick between his legs by way of horse. I found likewise that most of the London musicians were of the same opinion with regard to his age, not believing it possible that a child of so tender years could surpass most of the masters in that science.”