When I saw the photograph of a bloated and angry looking John Sununu accompanied by his equally if not more unattractive words of utter disrespect aimed at the President of the United States, I thought to myself again, “we are in deep shit with the erosion of civil discourse in the nation.”
How it is that seemingly intelligent people could have watched and listened to Mitt Romney during the presidential debate and come away with incredibly different perceptions of his presentation as we have seen reported in MSM, blogs and with casual conversation between co-workers, family and friends? I have been pondering this along with the state of the Nation as I do on a slow, cloudy Saturday afternoon from time-to-time.
My hypothesis is thus, it’s all about the neurological wiring in our brains. The issues of class, race, gender, culture, religion, small government vs. services, “takers vs. givers,” personal responsibility vs. societal connectedness are all metaphors! These issues are actually symbols……metaphors for the deep divisions in our society. We “seem” to have expansive, tangible and troubling differences about class, race, gender, culture and religion, etc., when these differences may in fact be more about differences in brain functioning than the issues themselves.
Yes, what I am saying is, “It’s all in our heads.” I studied brain and behavior, neuro-anatomy, biology and psychology while an undergraduate at one of MA’s finest universities. What I learned fascinated me as it still does today. Science has revealed in recent decades and years that our brains function as unique complex organs that are not fully understood.
Many lay-persons know that left brain dominance leans toward a traditional/conservative patriarchal power structure – hierarchy. Right brain or mixed hemisphere functioning (which is apparent with greater corpus callosum (CC-linked) activity) tends toward a blended and multidimensional female power structure – collaboration. Mitt Romney and Scott Brown are uber-left brain, white, male hierarchical candidates (“black and white thinkers, good vs. evil”) while President Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren are literally mixed heritage, multidimensional, multi-cultural thinkers (“multi-colored, blended-rainbow thinkers”) multi-hemisphere thinkers.
People who are attracted to those different sets of qualities tend to vote for the corresponding candidates. It is about “likeability” but it is not superficial likeability, pertaining to what the color the candidate is wearing or s/he is using hair dye…..it is more about what we are comfortable with because our brain is more familiar with one of the differing but not necessarily opposing styles of thinking and processing.
Perhaps if we could get to an improved understanding that people come to their political perspectives along the unique voyage of life that is shared with 7 billion other unique people on the planet, or ~320 million other citizens in the United States, we might get to seeing some respectful solutions developed. In conclusion, I think that the fate of democracy in our country depends on which brains show up to the polls in November…..Left, Right, CC-linked or AWOL. Not that the POTUS election will decide the “fate of democracy” per se, but the results will influence the leaning of Congress and even more importantly the selection of future SJC Justices.
Your thoughts?
…the left brain controls the right side of the body while the right brain controls the left, thus the saying, “Only left-handed people are in their right mind!” The left brain also tends to control logic and reason while the right controls creativity and emotion. I believe about 90% of us are right-handed and thus left-brained, but we don’t see that disproportion in our politics, plus if anything it seems left-brained would also be reality based by that logic. I’m personally about as left-brained as they get in part because of a thankfully extremely mild case of cerebral palsy affecting my right brain, the most obvious manifestation of which is limited left hand functionality, but alas I am not a conservative. I’m open to the idea that there may be some correlation, but I wouldn’t go too far.
The correlation between brain hemispheres and “handedness” are not straight lines. Neither are the absolutes/black-white (conservative) mindset or the abstract/multi-colored (liberal) mindset. The interplay between hemispheres across the corpus callosum (CC) is the key element.
My hypothesis is that elevated corpus callosum activity (communication between hemispheres) may be an indicator of blended thought processing that might be manifest in progressive or liberal thinking. Conversely, less corpus collosum activity may be an indicator of more rigid conservative thinking.