The Paradoxical Primate

    Colin Talbot

    January 2005, 96 pages
    ISBN 0 907845 851 (paperback), £8.95/$17.90

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    'Talbot's ambition is admirable. He wants to free the study of government from narrowing models of behaviour, especially dessicated "rational choice" theory promoted by economics; it's not much use, becuase it has no room for the complexities of organisational life. We need a framework that can simultaneously encompass individualism and concern for collective wellbeing -- an impeccable third way ambition, one might observe.'  Public
    "Talbot's project in The Paradoxical Primate is admirable and worthy of attention."  Metapysychology
    Human beings have an evolved but highly adaptable nature. This book sets out to establish a new framework for understanding human nature, from an evolutionary perspective but drawing on existing social sciences. It seeks to explain how human beings can appear to be so malleable in their nature, yet have an inherited set of behavioural instincts.

    When the founder of sociobiolgy, E. O. Wilson, made a plea for greater integration of the physical and human sciences in his book Consilience, there was an underlying assumption that the traffic would be mainly one way -- from physical to human science. This book reverses this assumption and draws on a new branch of human sciences, paradoxical systems theory, to reconceptualise some of the most innovative developments from physical sciences -- the related fields of evolutionary psychology, ethology, and behavioural genetics. The new approach is also applied to politics, economic and public policy approaches.

    Dr Colin Talbot is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Nottingham where he is Director of the Nottingham Policy Centre. He has worked as an advisor to UK and others governments and published over 50 articles and book chapters and has two other books appearing shortly.

    Talbot has taken on a difficult task in pulling together so many different threads in such a short book and as such The Paradoxical Primate is an entertaining and thought-provoking read.  Caspar JM Hewett, Culture Wars

    Introduction

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Preface

    Introduction: Paradox & Evolution

    Part I: EXPLORATIONS
    ====================
    Chapter One: Beyond Rational Management
    1. Trust Me, I’m a Guru
    2. Paradigm Shifts and the Tyranny of Boston Boxes
    3. The Emergence of Paradox
    4. Organisational Paradoxes: Real, Metaphorical and Imagined

    Chapter Two: A Treatise Concerning Civil Government
    1. Human Nature and Government
    2. Administrative Argument
    3. Paradoxical Proverbs
    4. Research I: Decentralising the Civil Service?
    5. Research II: Strategy
    6. Paradoxes, Pendulums and Tides

    Chapter Three:  The Organisation of Hypocrisy
    1. The Evolution of Morality
    2. White Lies and Social Hypocrisy
    3. Paradoxes of Everyday Life
    4. Tolerating Ambiguity: Religion in Japan
    5. Organisational Hypocrisy

    Part II: EVOLUTIONS
    ===================
    Chapter Four: The Whisperings Within
    1. Hypothesising Paradoxical Instincts
    2. Aggression and Peacemaking
    3. Conformity and Autonomy
    4. Altruism and Selfishness
    5. Cooperation and Competition
    6. Conclusion

    Chapter Five: The Descent of Man
    1. Instincts, Emotions and Intellects
    2. Paradoxical Instincts and Individual Adaptability
    3. Yobs, Hippies and Paradoxical Primates
    4. Paradoxical Instincts and Social Formations: Fission-Fusion Societies

    Chapter Six: Climbing Mount Paradoxical
    1. Evolving Paradox
    2. Modelling Paradoxical Instincts Redux
    3. Dynamics of Paradoxical Systems
    4. Paradoxical Instincts, Institutions and Intelligences
    5. Towards Consilience: The Role of a  Paradox Theory?

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