Book Review — The Strawberry that Grows Beneath the Nettle

A Darwinian Analysis of Strong Imagination

In many ways, Daniel Nettle’s 2001 Strong Imagination is truly a riveting and revolutionary book. Dialectically structured, eloquently penned, and undeniably persuasive, his arguments for the correlation between creativity and madness within both the human genome and the human psyche are a testament to the insightfulness and value of interdisciplinary scholarship.

In the Introduction, Nettle reasons that “if the genes that predispose people to madness can also cause positive attributes such as enhanced creativity, then there would be a force keeping them in the gene pool. Madness would persist in our species because, although it is disadvantageous in itself, it is closely linked to a trait — creativity — which is highly advantageous. This is the answer I shall be putting forward to the question of why madness exists” (Strong Imagination 10).

For reasons that will soon become clear, I must admit that I find it extremely difficult to disagree with Nettle’s assessment from either an anthropological or sociological perspective. The obvious and essential role of creativity in the cultural evolution of human civilization all but confirms his initial presumption(s). However, what serves as the linchpin to his cultural argument is…