The Paradoxical Primate

Citation

Lawton, A. (2005), "The Paradoxical Primate", International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 579-580. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513550510616788

“This is a little book about a big subject – why humans are weird”. So begins this new book from Colin Talbot. He argues that human instincts and behaviour are permanently contradictory, i.e. paradoxical: he recognises that there is nothing new in such a statement but claims to synthesise the work of others in ways that were not previously connected. An ambitious aim in 100 pages, and the author proceeds to engage with sociology, political science, economics, political philosophy, ecology, psychology, genetics and management thinking. Along the way we also learn something of the author's political leanings and his intellectual journey.

Part 1 explores paradox in organisation and management thinking, government and public administration, and in society more generally. The author takes us through a quick tour of some of the management literature, finding that successful organisations are those “which mesh most effectively with, and take advantage of, these paradoxical individual characteristics” (p. 18). He finds a growing, and persuasive, literature that seeks to explain paradox in organisational life. He also finds examples of paradox in public institutions in particular and is critical of those authors who find contradictions in, say, the simultaneous push to centralisation and decentralisation that we find under New Public Management, but fail to offer paradox as an explanation of why such contradictions might actually work.

Talbot then turns his attention to the question of why humans are consistently moral and hypocritical. The answer is, of course, that humans are fundamentally paradoxical. In the space of eight pages, Rawls is dismissed, Darwin is introduced, Hofstede and Brunsson are visited and we are left breathless with the author's experiences as a consultant where individuals within organisations confide the contradictions in their work whilst seeking to present a rational and coherent picture to an outside world.

Part II of the book is concerned with evolution – how have we ended up as “paradoxical primates”? Drawing upon behavioural psychology and ecology and economics, the paradoxical human instincts of aggression‐peace making, conformity‐autonomy, altruism‐selfishness and cooperation‐competition are explored. Talbot then goes on to explore instincts, intellect and emotions before returning to a discussion of society in terms of fission‐fusion, i.e. forms of social organisation in which groups follow patterns of breaking apart and coming together again, perhaps in new groups. We have evolved social mechanisms for coping with our paradoxical nature. Yet, according to Talbot, because of our rationalist dogma we have failed to explore this feature of our existence. To conclude, Talbot then offers a research agenda for evolutionary psychologists, behavioural geneticists, sociologists, political scientists, economists and organisational researchers. A “little book” but certainly not a modest one!

It is not clear who the book is for, given that the author has strayed from his usual terrain of public management. He has skipped along different fields, never pausing for too long to admire the well‐ploughed field or the established flowerbeds. One of the most enduring paradoxes in popular culture in the UK is how Dr Who's mode of transport, the Tardis, is so small on the outside (an old‐fashioned telephone box) and yet contains so much more. Despite the ambition, the book fails to offer enough to encourage different research communities to embrace a new research agenda.