Will We Achieve Sustainability? Brain Chemistry Plays a Role
A colleague from England, Gary Tulie, sent me something yesterday that he knew you and I would find interesting, given that it has a direct relationship to achieving sustainability on this planet. He writes:
Hi Craig, Having read this article about implicit bias being an unavoidable part of the human condition, and how recognising this can allow us to rise above it, I wondered how this might apply to politics. No party or organisation has a monopoly on good ideas, nor is it immune from flawed or bad ideas. Can we learn to rise above our partisan prejudices to appreciate good ideas from those we generally disagree with? If we can, will there be greater areas of cross party consensus, and consequently, a greater unity of purpose re: those things where the two sides broadly agree?
There is no doubt that this is a very real and super-important phenomenon in all our lives. An even more fundamental principle is that we’d all rather confirm than disconfirm our hypotheses, which is why progressives watch “Democracy Now!” and conservatives watch Fox News. Regardless of one’s political stripes, it’s more fun and less stressful to absorb information that supports what we already believe.
Having said that, I have a couple of theories:
• Studies of brain chemistry and physiology have shown that the self-described liberals’ and conservatives’ brains are “wired” differently; in particular, conservatives are more controlled by their amygdalas (fight or flight) (pink dot in photo above) than liberals. This is one of the reasons that I don’t hate people on even the ultra-right-wing (though I do feel somewhat sorry for them), i.e., they can’t help reacting to many different types of social stimuli with terror and revulsion.
• I don’t believe that any rational analysis of this “implicit bias” (or any other analysis of anything for that matter) is going to change more than a very few people’s thinking and behavior. It might be good if that were not the case, but I’m afraid it is. This is the reason it’s a waste of time to use rational argumentation to convince people that global warming is real, or that Trump represents a grave danger to the U.S. and the rest of the world. If they haven’t figured this out for themselves, reason is not going to get them there.
• I think the only path towards civility and decency lies in education. At a very basic level, education is about reason and science. It lies in opposition to irrationality, superstition, and other beliefs for which there is no empirical evidence. I don’t comment publicly on religion, but I don’t have a problem quoting people on this subject. Referring to religion generally, Voltaire said, “Those who believe in absurdities can be counted upon to commit atrocities.” Perhaps there is no single form of absurdity more powerful and lethal than the notion that “my God is better than yours, and therefore I’m going to kill you.”
Ignorance is the real enemy to kindness, inclusion, peace, and, ultimately, to the survival of the human species. I include this last item because it’s looking increasingly probable that environmental issues like climate change, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, etc. are going to exterminate our race if we can’t find a way to empathize with one another and develop at least some sense of kinship and modicum of cooperation.
• Now, of course you could say that I have an “implicit bias” towards education and compassion. You might be right, but I don’t see how that’s a threat to humankind’s getting along, and cooperating with one another based on a new-found perception of the “humanness” we all have in common.
Thanks for thinking of me, as always.
It is always remarkable when science confirms our (liberal) bias.
“Conservatives are wired for flight or flight.” Ie motivated by fear and out of fear, hording, greed, distrust and war.
“the only path towards civility and decency lies in education.” ie enabling them to be less fearful and more like us.
And then religion is loosely referred to as “absurd.”
While I appreciate the attempt the logic is extremely self serving. Trying to view an opposing perspective through your own eyes admits defeat before you start. Rather wisdom tells us to walk in their shoes to see the world as they see it. Do we somehow imagine that a conservative thinker is somehow going to be enticed into a dialogue by being told that they must give up their religion and become more educated.
This is not, “I’ll meet you halfway or lets discuss our differences,” but “we can have a dialogue only when you think like me.”
What would be better? Instead of promising with “we are wired differently” and then suggesting their faults only, even the structure of the sentence begs for a statement of how liberals are “wired.” Given the same stimulus what are they using instead? As it is liberals are defined by not being conservatives. Yet if we were to try and determine how many people are motivated primarily by fear, “I fear” it would include a preponderance of the population and then the number of “liberals” would be hardly worth mentioning. As it is this this definition seems somewhat lacking and at least demands a fuller explanation.
Part of walking in someone’s shoes is putting yourself aside for the moment and actually listening to them. Perhaps one reason we don’t do this more often is out of fear that we will actually become like them. We want change but we don’t want to change.
How do we encourage others to accept change in their lives? By listening to their hopes, showing our own willingness and not overly entertaining their fears or our own.
“Ignorance is the real enemy to kindness…” but not just ignorance in others, or in the world, but in ourselves. A bit of wisdom suggests we “remove the plank in our own eyes before trying to remove the splinter in others.”
You have a good point here. Thanks.
Re: the study (there are actual several) I encourage you to read a bit on this; the brain chemists do a much better at describing this than I do. It does have a lot of validity from what I can discern.
Breath,
Well said, very well said !
Thanks Craig, I am sure it will be very interesting reading and I am looking forward to it. Although I am at more of a loss with the squishy stuff, I am a bit chagrined that I didn’t yet look at the referenced article.
Referring now to the referenced article, it appears to start in one place and disappointingly finish in a completely different place.
We all use shortcuts in our response systems. The obvious example are automatic reflexes. When I feel something hot or sharp I will pull my hand away quickly. Having this as a reflex without requiring thought can avoid injury. Boxers will attempt to train those reflexes … “when he drops his shoulder I will put up my guard… without thinking.”
But we also use shortcuts in our mental processes. I see one two or three people approaching and I take note of the number. But if I see a crowd I don’t have to count them to know it is a crowd. We jump to another level of thinking. A computer by comparison would have to count the individuals and compare it to a definition. We have thousands of these second level shortcuts.
One of them is to take anything that is familiar and pay less attention to it. Magicians and frauds take advantage of this by lulling us with the familiar and hiding the operative part of their tricks. Survivalists and Spys train themselves against this trend to take careful detailed notice of the typical.
The article postulates that the unfamiliar is “dangerous,” and they suggest a pre-civilization environmental stimulus to develop this kind of a perspective. But this is a speculation not a scientific study.
Rather it may be simply mental shortcuts that are generally useful. It may be only the unusual that is potentially “dangerous” while the unfamiliar and unusual both require more mental work on a primary level. Rather than do the work it is something we simply avoid as we reject the input. This is one reason why we don’t really listen to people we don’t like, (Emotion tunes our interest and attention level) but will give rapt attention to others.
If we want to change our attention levels we need only change our emotional involvement. Unfortunately the article doesn’t make this connection. It bases bias on our evolutionary past and then makes an unconnected leap to flagging troubled students and then applying counselors to rectify the situation. It is a complete non-sequitur.
Rather it is the emotional involvement that tells failing students that they matter as much as making obvious changes to their curriculum. This is the same formula that has been used in AA, other multi step, and mentoring programs.
So all up it is an interesting article that does not go into bio-chemistry at all, starts out with an unsupported premise and jumps to an unconnected conclusion.
The second article “conservative and liberal brains…” gets a little closer to understanding that what we consider “thinking” is actually a symbiosis between emotion and thought. I like that attempts to consider the human condition, but it is all over the place with speculations and comes to no conclusion. All in all a mildly useful article to encourage some thinking on the subject.
The last reference on the The amygdala is actually an interesting brain chemistry site. It supports some of what I mentioned earlier about reflexive thinking. It references some of the newer research that “thinking” is a combination of electrical impulses and chemical markers. A collective like an ant or bee colony “thinks” with chemical markers. There is some suggestion that infections in the body “think” with chemical markers.
As an aside, we are wonderfully trainable beings. It is possible to train yourself to not react to loud noises with typical responses and to wait for cognitive functions to kick in.
Breath,
I was going to reply observing that pseudo-science like this is about as valuable as phrenology, when I saw your excellent observations.
Having read your response,i realise anything I may add would be gratuitous.
Marco, you have taken what you could and and focused on what you wanted from the article and my comments. Silent has done the same. You appreciated the analysis and attempt at dispassionate critical thinking. Silent appreciated the level of discussion and a thread of inclusion rather than rejection. Both are impressive. Each of you found some inspiration and neither focus has to be exclusive of the other. I was somewhat critical of the original post because of its implied exclusion and bias while discussing overcoming bias. That was not to imply that the attempt is fruitless, only that the the discussion was flawed.
Later on the referenced article, I was even more critical of the logic, but found some of the elements interesting. Overcoming the personal human condition is an obstacle any conscious critical thinker eventually encounters and it is an interesting subject.
Gary thanks for sharing this interesting and thought provoking article….have heard similar theories from time to time.
On the surface I myself find favor and agreement with it as it helped me to find a place in the middle where I could accept , tolerate and learn to reach out and bridge the gap by expressing understanding of those where there is deep differences in either cultural or socio political perspectives and views and lifestyles.
Some famous Warrior or Student of War said that Before you can defeat the enemy one must learn how to understand them …..and in doing so like those spies Breath alluded to …one catches onto the most telling details and nuances of the so called enemy , challenger or stranger. This requires patience and time and the ability to over come one’s own self limiting biases …very important.
when one can do this with precision one can over come the enemy. As for a non confrontational or warlike situation – primarily a difference in political views that lead to different social and economic positions, the patience it takes provides the opportunity to really Open Up and let in the humanness of the other person and one will soon see just how much they are motivated by Fear….diffuse the Fear and the Gap narrows and each can find some human commonness that takes over and neutralizes the political differences. .
Successful diplomats have this Human trait to bridge over the cultural divides first and allow the situation to diffuse or disarm the obvious differences.
Breath wrote and spoke to this Post in a 100,000 Ft above the ground manner and included good analytical points on perhaps the limitations of the original post. Well spoken.
The human condition is messy for sure and it is easy for us to make it all nice and tidy and just say Its a Cain and Abel world and that explains the fear in conservatives and the openness in liberals. It makes it simple to process and deal with and we tend to want a simple quick fix answer that neutralizes our own internal fears etc.
so I can appreciate Breath’s depth of response as he points out the layers of complexity perhaps in these matters.
Your words that we are wonderfully trainable beings. I find profound and in that statement lies many answers when it is expounded upon with Clarity and real Purpose in some earnest search for Truth.
In my own personal development I have had to learn the Arts of getting Along as I was raised in a conservative oriented area and thru my formative years coupled with fine Christian Brothers education and spirit of collective Love for others it caused me to begin to question the order of things early on.
My pathway to Progressism Side and Liberal (more open ways – actually don’t like the word or belong as many liberals are just people that like the easy stuff but are spineless in the hard matters and very clique’s or too politically correct and judgmental as are many conservative types) was the end result of exposure to more science and education and immersement that helped me to shed fears….fears of the other.
I learned to be able to Harmonize even with those who are much different.Conservatives . I made a decent living selling and recruiting participation in programs from some very different , narrow and fear minded , racist, bigoted , anti liberal types of people in the Deep South and onto the wind swept Prairies of the USA Heartlands reaching market penetration levels of 90 % . By practicing what I said earlier in this .
On many occasions I looked in the rear view mirror and jokingly said to myself its nice to do business with these goober fellas but I could never ever live here or hang around too long – the gaps were real wide and rough. But learned to selectively pick out two or 3 things that were good about the interaction and the other, that led to greater acceptance and less differences.
As Gary said some of us reach a point that we stop trying to change others and just let it go as many people of conservative ilk have their own comfort zone and will only change if they somehow are given reason to do so and on their own terms. they got to their place on their terms or were channeled that way. many of those have Epiphany’s and break out but on their terms. Getting others to explain the why in their positions after trust has been established leads to deeper connection from which common benefits can derive.
Just the reality that Facts don’t seem to matter to many in political discourse requires constant diligence not to get off from Center as it is so easy to do. My circle as I have said before we use the label gomers to describe those we believe to be just ignorant and sorta like to be ignorant conservatives. We know there are enlightened conservatives and they make for great intellectual wine drinking sessions. Its judgmental and quick fix label but we believe it, the ART is in not letting that prevent us from bridging the GAP, To this day I interact still with many GOMERS and successfully so it can be done. Just sold along with a Hispanic partner a $ 50,000 solar / insulation and other energy package to a RED Neck Red voting Ranch family that openly expressed disdain for liberals and environmentalists and Green seekers, etc. Why did they buy all these improvements – To SAVE money, To keep More of their Money They emphasized before the liberals come and take it away…such is the GAP and the Gulf in the heartlands – there is a Great Divide and perhaps that Divide will grow …I will strive not to widen it…but I will make a stand on principle if forced to make a decision. The price point for me is Spiritual and there is a Values based line that is not to be crossed lest we become like them the Cain brains the lot.
After we returned to our base camp , My Hispanic partner and our crew celebrated our venture into Red neck land and counted their Green dollars while we cooked , drank and enjoyed smoking green treats from Mexico! We also played progressive radio and reveled in our success in taking the RED oriented clan’s money. So they step out as do we. Fair business can be a great healer and uniter!
We are sure the Sun will not discriminate its energy rays ! neither should we! Merchants of Venice live on!
Kudos and Thanks Craig Great Post from Gary and articulate and thought provoking concepts from Breath on the Wind.
later on….
Silent,
I think you missed the point of Breath’s message.
You seem to be a very tribal kinda guy. The idea of “walking in another shoes “, is not to be as a kind of sf spy, but to understand an respect the values of others.
Of course this is difficult if you have never shared their experiences and your object is to gain some selfish advantage.
Viewing your fellow citizens as members of a different and enemy tribe, is both disrespectful and close-minded, after all it’s not impossible they may be right and you could learn something if you were more open minded and receptive.
I suggest that it’s you are also fearful. That why you label people as belonging to one tribe or another, and give describe them them disrespectful labels, to justify your enmity.
Very few people are all one thing. Many people hold a wide range of views and opinions, often conflicting and often changing with time, circumstance, aging and events.
Thankfully, few people hold the same opinions at 80 as they did at 20, we all change.
I never enjoyed much of a relationship with my father, probably because I was still too young to understand what had made him the man he was.
However, he did give me one piece of valuable advice when I joined the Army (probably the best advice of my life) .
He told me to study every individual, both superior and subordinate and find the one thing about each individual I could respect and admire. He observed has some admirable trait or skill.
He advised once I found this trait, I should show my appreciation, but it must be sincere, perceptive and genuinely expressed. If I took the time to follow his advice, it would make acceptance of orders and criticism more bearable from superiors, while allowing subordinates feel better about accepting criticism and discipline from me.
I learned me the value of respect.
In my life it’s worked well. Only once I found an individual so detestable, so depraved I could find nothing to praise or respect. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough, because 6 weeks after I first encountered this individual he saved his entire patrol by an act of selfless courage.
The patrol of 15 men found itself in an old and unmarked minefield. Catasrophy struck when the radio operator stepped of a mine, heard the click and froze in terror. The R/T was safe as long as he doesn’t releasethe pressure. Once the pressure’s released, all the hidden mines explode. While the pressure remains, escape is possible for 14.
The individual concerned, being the rear guard, was the only man outside the blast zone, yet he carefully moved forward and took the place of the radio operator, allowing the r/t and other 13 others to escape.
Once they were all safe he stepped of the mine and was killed.
His sacrifice saved 14 people. What even more heroic is most of those 14 despised and rejected him. He was someone about whom could I find no redeeming qualities!
Yet, when it counted, he was the better man.
Everyone does what they can and we rightfully acknowledge the heroic aspect of sacrifice. Even as you relate the story it points to more than just the obvious conclusion. A clever solution rather than a brutal sacrifice is a story that points to different possibilities.
Breath,
Sadly in life, there are often no clever solutions, only sacrifice.
Lest we Forget
To Marco, you wrote
Silent,
I think you missed the point of Breath’s message.
You seem to be a very tribal kinda guy. The idea of “walking in another shoes “, is not to be as a kind of sf spy, but to understand an respect the values of others.
Of course this is difficult if you have never shared their experiences and your object is to gain some selfish advantage.
Viewing your fellow citizens as members of a different and enemy tribe, is both disrespectful and close-minded, after all it’s not impossible they may be right and you could learn something if you were more open minded and receptive.
I suggest that it’s you are also fearful. That why you label people as belonging to one tribe or another, and give describe them them disrespectful labels, to justify your enmity.
Very few people are all one thing. Many people…….
My response to your over reach in excessive judgement is
Yo mate you are so full of judgement you completely contradict your self .
Once again you either dont understand clear English or you just like to turn things around Your style.
I spoke to the matter quite nicely indeed! talked about Bridging Gaps and the like …but perhaps some of my Truth Sharing is just too REAL for your roots and it upsets you so you lash out….not the first time either.
Your negativity and comments are dismissed as Aristocratic Arrogance musings at best. They bring a smile and lots of peace within-
The con man trumper has his Art of the Deal – I regret that the Art of the Deal which I could share with you does not resonate well with you, well that’s the way it goes.
It is written in the Stars that not All Soils can Bear All Things
And it is more than Sicilian Wisdom – Eternal Returns Unfolding / Enfolding
to be able to Discern differences amongst people and their good convictions or to recognize their self imposed negative ones. Wisdom Mate.
Have you ever in your work garnered 91 % of a market place thru hard work, ethics, creativity ,delivering a real value solution and delivered it with Good Humanity to a wide differences in Audience including good folks and low life racist and bigoted conservative red necks. It takes much more than simplistic chameleon tactics but rather a Sincere Purpose .
Marco its called having Standards beyond money or power or fame. or status its called having and seeking Grace!
As Craig said many Posts ago – what alternative universe does he ( you) dwell in in response to one of your contrarian tirades .. I respond that you ..articulate and well thought out …but speak with an Aristocratic Arrogance and Dismissal for those who don’t kneel or genuflect to some Old Order based on top down authority and economics not to leave out control.
Spent much time evading and out maneuvering and over coming the old order Mate, its been a blast of fun too! Like a Spiritual revival as well. Our circles are numerous diverse and full of Kindness as they are as Cornucopia full of life and as Colorful as a Kaleidoscope!
Its good you lived to tell the tale of the minefield. Poignant Story and good Outcome , May the spring come early and your Garden Bloom early and often. You Be well.
To Good Wine !
Silent,
I wasn’t one of the 15. I was in no danger, but as regimental adjutant I processed the soldier’s posthumous award.
To Breath On Wind,
I appreciate your in-depth review and further analysis of this interesting , complex yet not empirical finite rules of the mystery to various human behavior especially political views.
Interesting.
You point out both sides of the position so you are being thorough and it is worth the time to read and then re read your contribution.
My closing point is for those of us who seek Higher Ground which means we make a sincere effort to reach outside our own personal bias bubble and seek out other views that on the surface may challenge our belief systems etc. But by doing so we expand our persona and knowledge and GROW.
As a general statement or baseline I would say that its been my experience over the years that progressive people who are grounded and centered tend to be more tolerant and can live with other the opposite point of views of ultra conservatives.
Ultra conservatives tend to be in bondage to some sort of inner belief system that causes them to cling to scientifically or technically inaccurate positions or positions that limit other peoples level of Inclusion. Perhaps it is accurate to label it FEAR. ????
This platform which Craig created allows us strangers the opportunity to test the extension and publication of some of our most deeply held beliefs centering around sustainability , energy , environmental and the politics related to that are in them selves quite complex and perhaps some of us show bias …or maybe its real life and industry experience that has sharpened our swords and shaped our Johari’s Window.
Thank you Breath – your thoughtful postings tend to motivate one to deeper level contemplation in a positive manner which is refreshing.
have Good days