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In building his argument, Mr Brooks, a columnist on the New York Times, uses as his framework the lives of two imaginary characters, Harold and Erica, whom he follows from cradle to grave. This deliberate homage to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1762 work, “Emile: or On Education”, is not a success. Rousseau’s book was banned and burned by angry readers. Harold and Erica are not that interesting, and they do get in the way of Mr Brooks’s otherwise intriguing argument.
The author’s aim is to show how recent research has illuminated the complex processes of the brain. “We have inherited an obsolete, shallow model of human nature,” he argues. Study after study, many of them little known, show that people take decisions about their jobs, relationships, actions and morals in ways that involve a complex interaction between the conscious and the unconscious mind. The most important decisions begin in the realm of the unconscious, although they are often influenced by the conscious.
The shaping of this delicate balance begins early in life: the children who were best at leaving their marshmallow on the plate tended to come from stable, organised homes. Culture and the community in which a child is raised help to build the way the conscious and unconscious intertwine. Mr Brooks recounts a survey of diplomats who failed to pay parking fines in New York. By far the worst non-payers came from countries where corruption is endemic: Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria and so on. By contrast, diplomats from Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Israel, Norway and Canada had no unpaid fines at all. “Thousands of miles away from home,” Mr Brooks writes, “diplomats still carried their domestic cultural norms inside their heads.”

A. 어휘
framework 뼈대, 구조물, 기구. lives 生涯(생애).
imaginary characters 架空(가공)의 인물. cradle to grave 요람에서 무덤까지.
deliberate 고의적인, 深思熟考(심사숙고)한. homage 존경, 敬意(경의).
ban 금지하다. that interesting=so interesting.
get in the way of 방해하다. intriguing 흥미를 돋구는, 음모를 꾸미는.
illuminate 照明(조명)하다. inherit 물려받다. obsolete 사라진, 퇴화된.
shallow 얕은, 천박한. complex processes 복잡한 처리과정.
interaction 상호작용.
the conscious and the unconscious mind 意識(의식)과 無意識(무의식).
realm 領域(영역). shaping 形成(형성). plate 접시.
stable, organised homes 안정되고 질서 있는 가정.
intertwine 交織(교직)하다, 서로 얽히다. recount 再論(재론)하다, 다시 계산하다.
diplomat 외교관. fines 벌금. endemic 병처럼 퍼져있는, 風土病(풍토병).
domestic 국내의, 가정의. norms 규범, 표준.