PASSIONS WITHIN REASONThe Strategic Role of the...

PASSIONS WITHIN REASON

The Strategic Role of the Emotions

by Robert H. Frank (Norton: $19.95) Far more relevant to our lives than its mysterious title might suggest, this book is actually an attempt to calm our nagging fear that “to do the right thing, as opposed to the selfish thing, is to be a chump.” Even the most cynical social and natural scientists are unable to find selfish motives in every act, Cornell economist Robert Frank assures us, for “the plain fact is that many people do not fit the me-first caricature. . . . They donate bone marrow to strangers with leukemia. They endure great trouble and expense to see justice done, even when it will not undo the original injury. At great risk to themselves, they pull people from burning buildings and jump into icy rivers to rescue people who are about to drown.”

Frank’s intent is not only to debunk the notion that “people always act efficiently in the pursuit of self-interest,” but to undermine the argument that opportunistic behavior begets the richest material rewards. “In many situations,” Frank argues, “the conscious pursuit of self-interest is incompatible with its attainment.”

While a simple theory of self-interest might suggest that we leave a skimpy tip in a restaurant that we are unlikely to visit again, Frank explains, it is actually in our best interest to tip fairly, for failing to do so “will make it difficult to sustain the emotions that motivate (us) to behave honestly on other occasions.” People will sense this change in our emotional makeup, Frank contends--pointing to studies that show how telling our facial expressions can be--and will be reluctant to accord us the trust and empathy we need to succeed in life.

For all of his “probability densities,” “threshold signal valves” and other analytic techniques, however, Frank’s theories do not “scientifically” prove, as he suggests, that altruists reap more material rewards than opportunists. Even if it is true that people need to “sustain” emotions such as honesty and altruism, opportunists can easily find ways around this, avoiding social interactions when it is not in their interest to be giving, for instance. Frank’s definition of “self-interest” also seems too literal, not considering theories from cognitive science that argue that rescuers jumping into an icy river are indeed acting out of self-interest: They are seeking to reaffirm their own self-images as caring and capable and to strengthen their bond with the human community (Frank sees the act as “self-interested” only if the probability of the rescuer drowning is 1 in 20 and the chance that the victim will someday return the favor is greater than 1 in 20).

Despite some questionable premises, however, “Passions Within Reason” addresses issues that are undeniably central to our lives and often does so with remarkable insight, if not with scientific objectivity. Frank might not be hot on the trail toward a more benevolent society, but he is warm.

BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.

The True Story of Rock in Russia

by Artemy Troitsky (Faber and Faber: $9.95) Many American students who have traveled to the Soviet Union in glasnost- era exchange programs have remarked that rock music is the great social mixer: While student dorms might seem alien in their hugeness and impersonality, differences fade in the dorm rooms, as Russian students play Elton John, the Beatles, and Russian rock for their visitors. This insider’s view is further proof that rock taps into a youthful spirit common to our two cultures--and rouses the same suspicions among older generations in the process.

Art Troitsky is Russia’s foremost expert on rock, a dissident who became officially accepted because of glasnost and because of his work organizing a benefit rock concert for the victims of Chernobyl, which convinced older Soviets that rock was not altogether decadent and earned Troitsky a reputation as “the Russian Bob Geldof.” His writing is as witty as that of any Western rock critic, though more heartfelt and a trifle more naive.

The counterculture revealed here for the first time is at once strikingly similar to our own--From 1970-72, Troitsky reports, Gorky Street was jammed with long-haired kids in mini and maxi skirts, “all decked out in beads and badges with slogans in English like ‘Make Love, Not War’ “--and strikingly different: In the 1950s and 1960s, writes Troitsky, records were printed on the only affordable source of plastic--X-ray plates, rounded at the edges with scissors, of chest cavities, spinal cords and broken bones.

Under glasnost, Troitsky reports, more rock records were officially published in 1987 than in the entire preceding decade. Ironically, however, Troitsky believes this new legitimacy has only stripped Russian rock of its former boldness. While lyrics once challenged authority (“No one believes that / there’s no wind on Earth,” wrote one band, “even if they’ve banned the wind”), recent official concerts have been “a parade of rich costumes . . . completely lacking raw energy or inspiration.” “Too few bands dare to test glasnost , Troitsky writes. “There are articles in the central press every day that seem more courageous and more angry than the songs of our radical rockers! And this is sad. It seems that the long-awaited sunlight has blinded most of the creatures crawling out of the underground.”

ADULTERY

An Analysis of Love and Betrayal

by Annette Lawson (Basic: $19.95) Wellsprings of tradition, from Leviticus to the oral history of Africa’s Ashanti and Tellensi tribes, have long held adultery to be a sin punishable by death. In today’s America, however, “having affairs” or “becoming involved with someone” seems to end only the public life of some political and religious leaders. Many marriages survive it, some even encourage it, and between 25% and 50% of American women have practiced it, according to surveys in these pages.

In studying how our traditions have come to change, Annette Lawson, a sociologist working at UC Berkeley and Stanford, writes honestly and unpretentiously, drawing not so much on sociology (for she finds many of its explanations, such as “deviance theory,” to be inadequate), but on practical examples from feminist texts, on popular films and myths, and on her own observations of friends in “happy marriages” who were nevertheless tempted to have affairs.

From her friends’ experiences Lawson suspected that adultery was more than a channel for lust and balm for marital discontent; after a study of 600 middle-class Britons, she found her suspicions confirmed. Adultery, for one, is a form of fantasy play, she writes, in which “each partner can make the lover represent anyone or anything.”

More than mere fantasy, though, adultery allows men and women to re-create relationships of dependency that also paradoxically permit autonomy: Men want “the freedom to be vulnerable and dependent,” Lawson explains, while women “want simultaneously to be magically transported and to determine their own fate.”

Many of Lawson’s theories are inconclusive (she cannot say whether adultery is on the rise, for instance), but on the whole, this is an absorbing, intricate study, not only of love and infidelity, but of changing conceptions of power. Just as society has gone from valuing physical prowess to emphasizing mental ability, so too, Lawson argues, have intimate relations changed from times when women were viewed as men’s property, to our information age, when power is wielded in relationships by telling or withholding the secrets of carnal knowledge.

LEGENDS, LIES &

CHERISHED MYTHS

OF AMERICAN HISTORY

by Richard Shenkman (Morrow: $15.95) Richard Shenkman, a Salt Lake City TV news reporter, has compiled a treasure-trove for America’s irreverent majority, debunking myths and legends at the heart of our national consciousness. Most historians have mixed feelings about books like this, for while they make history palatable to a TV generation, they present it in pieces too tiny to capture historical cause-and-effect. Collectively, though, Shenkman’s vignettes tell incisive stories, revealing, for instance, how American culture has modified facts over time to convince us that our society, in its present form, is the one the Founding Fathers had intended to create.

We are inclined to believe that the Fathers favored democracy as we practice it today, for example, but Shenkman points out that the Fathers not only were opposed to the general public electing Presidents directly, they didn’t want the electoral college to make the decision either--and didn’t think it would. Shenkman also shows the many ways myths have rose-tinted the past, debunking, for instance, John F. Kennedy’s contention that his PT-109 had been rammed during combat. Members of Kennedy’s crew insist that it was struck during a lull, Shenkman writes, when Kennedy and everyone else on board were caught napping.