Keeping the Faith... under control!

I have long noticed a strong correlation between stupid people and people who don't agree with me.  Perhaps you've noticed the same phenomena?

The English actor Colin Firth noticed the same thing but in an almost tongue-in-cheek experiment took it further.  He decided that people who strongly opposed his views must have something wrong with their brains, so he funded MRI scans for a group of them!  How English!

And lo and behold the experiment showed he was right!

Now, Colin Firth holds strong liberal views – that is, Liberal as opposed to Conservative views – as most actors do.  What the MRI scans revealed about those with strong conservative views was that they all had enlarged amygdalas.  Now the amygdala is part of the ‘limbic system’ – that part of our brain which is emotionally wired and evolved for black and white decision-making. 

Limbic brain thinking demands fast and clear decisions – right/wrong, good/bad, run/don't run.  In situations where immediate decisions are essential, for example the rhinoceros is charging at you, weighing up the pros and cons and talking through all the options is probably not in the best interests of your survival.  The limbic brain demands closure – knowing that there are lions about but not knowing exactly where, is not a question to let slip from the mind or to be left for another time.  And the limbic brain is an evolutionary attribute of all mammals – it is emotionally wired, it provides rapid (almost instant) awareness of what others of our kind are doing and how they are reacting and therefore deals with herd instinct, its good at self-programming for automated responses and developing specific physical skills through repetition and practice.  And it’s the part of the brain that can be consciously reprogrammed by some types of personal development work.

Over the top of the limbic brain we humans have evolved the cerebral cortex – the part of our brain that deals with complexity, language, maths and higher cognitive functions.  It gives us the ability to think about thinking, to reflect, to create, to socialise – and to form our own views on reality.  Of course, as humans we all have both the limbic system and the cerebral cortex, but it appears that one can dominate the other.  It's easy to demonstrate that under the influence of alcohol or stressful situations the cerebral cortex becomes impaired and we revert to the more basic limbic responses… well at least I do!

What Colin Firth's experiment gave a glimpse into is an exciting recent discovery called neuro-plasticity, meaning that our brains change physically to provide more and better of the type of thinking that we habitually employ.  The implications are huge!  Suddenly we have an insight into why some otherwise intelligent people can continue to hold views that deny science, for instance.

When the limbic brain dominates, it becomes most important for us to know what ‘we’ believe, to run with the herd, to keep the faith, and most importantly to resist taking any non-herd-conforming decisions or actions.  In short, go for the minimum personal risk option – think and act conservatively.  And to read from the prayer book of what ‘we’ believe, is to reinforce the authority of those beliefs – recent psychological studies have shown that the most powerful influence on conservative thinkers is the need for ‘authority’.

It's not that climate deniers, to label one group, are stupid – rather it is that if they were to accept specific scientific facts as valid it would directly threaten the integrity of their dominant thinking system.  And since that system does not deal in reasoning, the acceptance of inconvenient facts can threaten identity itself.  If my ‘limbic identity’ is threatened I will automatically revert to herd survival behaviour – I immediately switch to instinctual responses and become impervious to ‘facts’.

So the limbic system directs the cerebral cortex to argue for authoritative conservation of the status quo.  And what we hear then is rationalisation of primitively-formed limbic beliefs rather than any form of evidence-based reasoning.

And thanks to neuro-plasticity, the more the amygdala is used, the bigger and more powerful it becomes – and the more we want simple answers to complex questions:

• ·         Carbon tax – are you for or against?
• ·         Economic growth is essential to prosperity – right?
• ·         Our religion is the only true religion – right?

So, does the size of your amygdala determine your voting preferences?  According to a new book, ‘The Republican Brain’ by Chris Mooney the answer is ‘Yes, but it’s not quite that simple’.  It’s our psychological profiles that underpin all our life choices and choices are also influenced by circumstance – well at least that’s true if the cerebral cortex is in charge!

At this time in history we can ill-afford to be run by our amygdala.  We should have a healthy integrated emotional connection with others, but our cerebral cortex surely needs to be driving.

How can you tell what’s driving your thinking?  How strong is your need for closure; your need for simple answers; your need for an external authority to believe in; your need to belong to a group; your need to support one football team; your need to vote for the same old political party?

And if you find a strong need lurking in examples such as those, what would you have to let go of in order to free up that powerful free-thinking cerebral cortex? 

Blind faith is easy – its thinking that’s hard, but that’s what the world needs now!

'WE" has a dark side?

The ‘WE’ that I’ll refer to in this article is a phenomenon that applies to any group of three or more people – “Three actually is a crowd!”  Among 3 people there are 6 relationships in play (count them); among 10 people there are 90 relationships in play; if a group grows to 101 active members then there are 100 times more relationships than there are people in the group. 

The ‘WE’ I refer to then, is the energetic average of all that relationship energy – and for better or for worse it’s a much stronger force than any of its participating members.

That energetic average quickly becomes the culture or the ‘status quo’ of the group.  We have all been immersed in our society’s status quo from birth as an invisible context for living.  ‘WE’ provides a supportive structure that nurtures, develops and shapes us into adults who can contribute to its continued existence.  Of course a ‘WE’ the size of society is not homogeneous – there are many flavours and textures within a society that allow each of us to find our own place of belonging within the greater whole. 

But every ‘WE’ also does all it can to limit its members to that unwritten ‘status quo’ charter.  In fact every ‘WE’ has a dark side, whose motto is “Death to nonbelievers!”  Now while that may only be literally true for some religious fanatics, for every ‘WE’ there is a dark side that leans in that direction and does whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.

It's easy to discover the dark side of any ‘WE’ you belong to – for example:

• get personally involved with someone from a different culture and test your family’s reactions
• come out as being gay, or green, or even organic
• question the rational basis of your religious upbringing
• question the ethics of your company’s profit motives
• step outside the public service C.A.R.E. policy (cover arse, retain employment)
• join a personal development movement

Here’s how the dark side works to maintain the status quo:

• at first it resists – “You’re crazy!”
• then it tolerates – “You’re the odd one out in our group”,
• then it isolates – “Go to your strange meetings but don’t try converting us”,
• then it marginalises – “You do know it’s a cult and that you’re being brainwashed don’t you – cults are dangerous”,
• then it outlaws – “The authorities are investigating their possibly illegal activities”,
• and finally it eliminates – “We’re moving to ban fringe activities like this for the protection of… the status quo!”

Self-preservation at a collective level I guess.  The sad point is that the dark side does not distinguish between what is aiming to enhance life and what is aiming to diminish life – it only notices distance from its gravitational centre!

It seems that the only way that ‘WE’ changes is generationally – every 22 years or so there is a very significant shift, not brought about by some wise higher authority but by natural evolution.  Each new generation sets out to change the status quo in an entirely predictable way.  They reject the obvious excesses that the previous generation (their parents) stood for, and move to correct that.  But at the same time they fail to appreciate the subconscious drive that was also established by the parents’ generation, which has been the status quo since the new generation’s birth.  Such a generational shift is happening right now.

Gen Y is leading the current generational shift and using ‘social media’ and ‘occupy’ and ‘Anonymous’ as ways to assert the power of the collective over the individualistic win/lose excesses of the previous generation.  The previous generation still has the hold on power even though its ways are becoming more and more obvious, and less and less acceptable.  Its days are numbered and many conflicts of value systems are certain.  This is evolutionary, unavoidable and subconsciously driven, but there’s a very interesting side effect...

When we reject an old status quo for a new one, we tend to ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’.  The rejection of the old individualistic values also rejects the value of singular truth – that is, truth arrived at through scientific rigour (what we used to call ‘facts’) – in favour of a truth agreed by collective beliefs.  Published, formal scientific research becomes ‘just another opinion’, carrying no more weight than what the collective can talk itself into, aided of course by marketing spin, conspiracy theories, rumour, hope and huge amounts of projection!

No-one has a greater need to identify with and represent the rapidly shifting status quo than our politicians – their careers are built on it.  As collective belief becomes the dominant power it becomes easier to dismiss any ‘facts’ that might impede a desired reality – like man-made climate change, an unsustainable economic model, or anything else that portends an unpalatable future.

Mind you, the new status quo will centre on the primacy of the collective and bring many good things to that collective over the next 10-15 years, such as rebuilt public infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, an end to the excesses of corporate greed and the paucity of ineffective government.  But we have a long and rough road to traverse between here and there.

So meanwhile politicians try to identify with a powerbase of fickle collective belief influenced by the tweet of the day, rather than a personal vision for the country or an objective policy strategy.  When the status quo is in transition, the dark side will try to eliminate both the good and the bad aspects of the old order. 

Stay aware – and don’t be tempted by the cookies!