Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain

[The Vegan Marxist]

Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain
By Daniel Tencer
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

Political opinions are considered choices, and in Western democracies the right to choose one's opinions -- freedom of conscience -- is considered sacrosanct.

But recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

A study at University College London in the UK has found (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8228192/Political-views-hard-wired-into-your-brain.html) that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

If the study is confirmed, it could give us the first medical explanation for why conservatives tend to be more receptive to threats of terrorism, for example, than liberals. And it may help to explain why conservatives like to plan based on the worst-case scenario, while liberals tend towards rosier outlooks.

"It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes," Geraint Rees, the neurologist who carried out the study, told the media (http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study-20101229-199hk.html).

Rees, who heads up UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, was originally asked half-jokingly to study the differences between liberal and conservative brains for an episode of BBC 4's Today show that was hosted by actor Colin Firth. But, after studying 90 UCL students and two British parliamentarians, the neurologist was shocked to discover a clear correlation between the size of certain brain parts and political views.

He cautions that, because the study was carried out only on adults, there is no way to tell what came first -- the brain differences or the political opinions.

But evidence is beginning to accumulate that figuring out a person's political proclivities may soon be as simple as a brain scan -- or a DNA test.

In a study (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-10/uoc--rfa102710.php) published in October, researchers at Harvard and UC-San Diego found that a variant of the DRD4 gene predisposes people to being liberal, but only if they had active social lives as adolescents. The "liberal gene" has also been linked to a desire to try new things, and other "personality traits related to political liberalism."

For his part, actor Colin Firth, who hosted the BBC show that revealed the results of the brain scans, has said he wants to see brain scans on politicians to find out if they are telling the truth about what they believe.

Questioning the "liberal" credentials of the head of Britain's Liberal Democratic party, Nick Clegg, Firth said (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/28/political-allegiances-brain-structure-study): "I think we should have him scanned."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/conservatives-fear-center-brain/

[The Vegan Marxist]

I actually like this study and think it's legit. Though, when it comes to determining whether it was political opinions that came first or genetic differences, I'd have to state that it was more so towards the former than the latter. Though, it's definitely possible that genetic differences could've led to certain beliefs, especially political beliefs. I'm not sure how to take it though.

[Widerstand]

See, communism can't work. People are conservatives by human nature!

[ckaihatsu]

But evidence is beginning to accumulate that figuring out a person's political proclivities may soon be as simple as a brain scan -- or a DNA test.




"I think we should have him scanned."


"Okay, folks, games of intrigue are *over* -- let's go, line starts here!"


x D

[The Vegan Marxist]

See, communism can't work. People are conservatives by human nature!

lol, despite the appreciation of humor here, the study doesn't state this. The presence of a larger "fear center" in the brain does not state that one will become a conservative. It rather leaves the individual at risk of being one - it leaves the brain defenseless in other words.

Like in the study where the top 70 serial killers were examined and all 70 came out to have damage upon the frontal lobe. Through the frontal lobe, if undamaged, one is able to decide correct decisions from wrong. Though, when damaged, the brain is left defenseless towards the possibility of making terrible choices. In which, to those of the studied 70 serial killers, we see where their choices led. They were at risk, and so came their actions.

Does this mean that if you have damage to your frontal lobe then you'll be the next serial killer? No. Though you'll be at a greater risk of being so than those who have undamaged frontal lobes. The same process correlates to that of the study here on higher "fear center's" upon the brain.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

Awesome. I'm gonna post this article on Yahoo! Answers. That place has a lot of conservatives.:D

[ckaihatsu]

"fear center"


This just in... The world's *largest* fear center turns out to be the Republican Party National Headquarters in Washington, DC...! Results were obtained from cutting-edge research that used the world's largest MRI scanner....

(: o


= )

[NewSocialist]

I don't know. This kind of research is really suspicious. For one thing, I'd like a working definition of *liberal* and *conservative* from these people. Just like the hype over the "liberal gene" a while back, it seems these researchers seem to be judging things like social conservatism, not peoples views on the economy. I often think in terms of a worst case scenario, does that make me a conservative? According to these people it might.

Jurnalists love stories like these because they grab readers attention. The science itself is really shaky though and it's way too early to think it's trustworthy.

[ckaihatsu]

Jurnalists love stories like these because they grab readers attention. The science itself is really shaky though and it's way too early to think it's trustworthy.


I agree. I think they got their results from animal testing...!


x D

[The Vegan Marxist]

I don't know. This kind of research is really suspicious. For one thing, I'd like a working definition of *liberal* and *conservative* from these people. Just like the hype over the "liberal gene" a while back, it seems these researchers seem to be judging things like social conservatism, not peoples views on the economy. I often think in terms of a worst case scenario, does that make me a conservative? According to these people it might.

Jurnalists love stories like these because they grab readers attention. The science itself is really shaky though and it's way too early to think it's trustworthy.

It's not so much that the research would be false, rather what's shaky is how we define such things like conservative, liberal, leftist, rightist, etc. If we were to disregard these terms, we'd have a study that showed certain brains have a larger "fear center" within the brain. Where that could possibly lead to would then be unclear. Just like if we were to have done the frontal lobe studies without terming, nor using those of serial killers. The correlation wouldn't be present, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I think there's a possibility in this study being legitimate, because of how other studies have given results that were similar to that of brain developments leading to certain thoughts and/or actions.

[electro_fan]

I don't agree with this at all and I think there's a real dager that by accepting the validity of studies like this you end up accepting a very deterministic and biologically based view of politics which is definitely not what we want to be agreeing with ... this type of "research" could also be used for the wrong reasons. not good

[electro_fan]

it's in someone's brain, that means that we don't have to waste time discovering any of the social factors for why people believe certain things ...

[Meridian]

Based on the conception that people's beliefs, emotions and so on, may be found in the brain. This is, of course, nonsense.

http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1583

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't agree with this at all and I think there's a real dager that by accepting the validity of studies like this you end up accepting a very deterministic and biologically based view of politics which is definitely not what we want to be agreeing with ... this type of "research" could also be used for the wrong reasons. not good

So we should reject the results of scientific enquiry if it doesn't conform to our worldview? Fuck that shit.


it's in someone's brain, that means that we don't have to waste time discovering any of the social factors for why people believe certain things ...

Nonsense. Just because there is a physiological component to peoples' worldviews does not mean that social factors can be safely ignored.

[Red Future]

Questioning the "liberal" credentials of the head of Britain's Liberal Democratic party, Nick Clegg, Firth said (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/28/political-allegiances-brain-structure-study): "I think we should have him scanned."

lol

[piet11111]

So we should reject the results of scientific enquiry if it doesn't conform to our worldview? Fuck that shit.

But we can not put people in brain scanners and go "you have a liberal brain therefore your vote goes to the liberals" based on such studies either.

[Sean]

Study shows that all americans are either right wing or really right wing. It didn't mention that all Ron Paul supporters have a special "libertarian gland" which they use to squirt ink and escape predators.

[Palingenisis]

The actual relationship between chemical production in our brain and emotions, thoughts, etc I think is more subtle than crude biological determinists make out however I do firmly believe that is there is a correspondence between correct political lines and psychological health (one only has to look at what the politics are of those luxuriate in self-pitying and self-destructive behaviour in real life). Also rightists do show a strong emotional need for an enemy to fear....Now that the USSR and the Provies are gone they hype up a hardly existent Islamic threat in my their minds. Quite sad.

[gorillafuck]

That sounds like bullshit.

Also,


And it may help to explain why conservatives like to plan based on the worst-case scenario, while liberals tend towards rosier outlooks.Conservatives definitely don't plan for worst case scenarios. When they invade countries they're opposed to having a plan for how to even get out.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Holy shit, it's amazing how people are disregarding the concrete results of the study where a larger presence of the "fear center" within the brain of some and rather pay more attention to the loosely hypothetical conclusion that it might lead to conservative thought. Though, as everyone here points out, it doesn't actually go into really defining the terms "conservative" or "liberal". These are what we call presumptions. For all we know, this could very well be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy!

Though, having said that, it doesn't take away the fact that, despite the possibility of B not being a result of A, A was still a concrete find within the study. The study shows, without a doubt, that, due to biological defects, one's brain is left defenseless against the increase of fear and paranoia. This is a large risk to put on someone and very unhealthy. And, as the study proposes, there's a possible correlation between that and political thought - whether or not that being conservative or liberal is a question all in itself.

[Palingenisis]

Conservatives definitely don't plan for worst case scenarios. When they invade countries they're opposed to having a plan for how to even get out.

There is a difference between Imperialist planners and your common garden conservative. I would presume that the study is refering to the latter who do support invading countries generally out of fear.

[gorillafuck]

Chile is more conservative than Venezuelan. Do Chileans have a larger fear center in their brain than Venezuelans?

[Pretty Flaco]

The research is a load of bullshit.

[electro_fan]

i've met a lot of lefties who i'd say have a pretty big "fear centre" in their brains ...

[The Vegan Marxist]

Chile is more conservative than Venezuelan. Do Chileans have a larger fear center in their brain than Venezuelans?

Does the study state that there's concrete evidence between the two? Did the study define the terms "conservative" and "liberal"? No and no. So what was concrete about the study? That some brains holds larger amounts of "fear center's" than others. What does this concretely tell us? That, through biological defects, some are more at risk towards fear and paranoia than others. Are you going to completely disregard the concrete evidence of this study by replacing it with mere semantics?

[Apoi_Viitor]

As far as I know, this is a pretty well documented phenomena. Rhetoric about 'crime', 'justice', etc. just seem to highly appeal to certain segments of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

[gorillafuck]

Does the study state that there's concrete evidence between the two? Did the study define the terms "conservative" and "liberal"? No and no.
Well this study made allegations about a difference between conservative and liberal brains.


So what was concrete about the study? That some brains holds larger amounts of "fear center's" than others. What does this concretely tell us? That, through biological defects, some are more at risk towards fear and paranoia than others. Are you going to completely disregard the concrete evidence of this study by replacing it with mere semantics?I'm not reducing it to "mere semantics", I'm saying that this study didn't prove what it claims it proved.

[electro_fan]

it works both ways, none of this "research" - at least the way that it's reported in the capitalist media anyway - addresses the very complex set of reasons why people believe these things. at worst, it could introduce a bit of a genetic deterministic type element into the whole thing, which totally ignores environmental factors why people believe this stuff, such as growing up in a dysfunctional family or even society - see for example the fact that a few years ago there was some research about a "gene" for being racist - can anyone spot the irony here? it's so much easier to dismiss someone's opinion if you can find some "scientific" bullshit reason for doing so

it may be fun to look for a bit and go "ha, ha, conservatives have something wrong with them!" but something about this type of "research" always struck me as a bit fucked up to be honest

[electro_fan]

As far as I know, this is a pretty well documented phenomena. Rhetoric about 'crime', 'justice', etc. just seem to highly appeal to certain segments of the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html
that's not necessarily just a right wing thing though, is it?

[The Vegan Marxist]

Well this study made allegations about a difference between conservative and liberal brains.

I'm not reducing it to "mere semantics", I'm saying that this study didn't prove what it claims it proved.

The overall suggestion that it's emitting is the high possibility of specific political ideals being embraced through mere brain defects on the increased presence of amygdala. We know that amygdala is connected to what we know as fear, along with other emotional traits:


In complex vertebrates, including humans, the amygdalae perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Research indicates that, during fear conditioning, sensory stimuli reach the basolateral complexes of the amygdalae, particularly the lateral nuclei, where they form associations with memories of the stimuli. The association between stimuli and the aversive events they predict may be mediated by long-term potentiation, a sustained enhancement of signalling between affected neurons.[3]

Memories of emotional experiences imprinted in reactions of synapses in the lateral nuclei elicit fear behavior through connections with the central nucleus of the amygdalae and the bed nuclei of the stria terminalis (BNST). The central nuclei are involved in the genesis of many fear responses, including freezing (immobility), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), increased respiration, and stress-hormone release. Damage to the amygdalae impairs both the acquisition and expression of Pavlovian fear conditioning, a form of classical conditioning of emotional responses.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala#Emotional_learning

I don't think we should quickly disregard this study as "bullshit", or what I'm sure others may think as "propaganda".

[Vanguard1917]

Of course, contrary to the claim, today's "liberals" are some of the least optimistic and most scare-mongering people out there, and are in the frontline of various movements (from environmentalism to censorship to gun control) which rely on fear and pessimism in order to win support. It would be my guess that "studies" like this do not enlighten us a single bit as to why people hold the political opinions they hold.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I find the article below a lot better than the one provided through Raw Story:

Brain thickness determines political leaning: study
December 29, 2010

Neuroscientists are examining whether political allegiances are hard-wired into people after finding evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of left-wingers.

Scans of 90 students' brains at University College London (UCL) uncovered a "strong correlation" between the thickness of two particular areas of grey matter and an individual's views.

Self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion while their political opponents from the opposite end of the spectrum had thicker anterior cingulates.

The research was carried out by Geraint Rees director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience who said he was "very surprised" by the finding, which is being peer reviewed before publication next year.

It was commissioned as a light-hearted experiment by actor Colin Firth as part of his turn guest editing BBC Radio's Today program but has now developed into a serious effort to discover whether we are programmed with a particular political view.

Professor Rees said that although it was not precise enough to be able to predict someone's stance simply from a scan, there was "a strong correlation that reaches all our scientific tests of significance".

"The anterior cingulate is a part of the brain that is on the middle surface of the brain at the front and we found that the thickness of the grey matter, where the nerve cells of neurons are, was thicker the more people described themselves as liberal or left wing and thinner the more they described themselves as conservative or right wing," he told the program.

"The amygdala is a part of the brain which is very old and very ancient and thought to be very primitive and to do with the detection of emotions. The right amygdala was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative.

"It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes."

Mr Firth - who recently declared he had ended public support for the Liberal Democrats - said he would like to have party leader and now Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg subjected to the tests.

"I think we should have him scanned," he said.

He said the coalition made him "extremely uneasy" but would not rule out voting Lib Dem in future.

"I would have to see what identity they took on because I don't recognise them at the moment. I think all three parties are in a state of re-evaluation."

Talking about the experiment, he said: "I took this on as a fairly frivolous exercise: I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don't agree with me and see what scientists had to say about it and they actually came up with something."

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study-20101229-199hk.html

[Amphictyonis]

Some one must have told this to Glen Beck.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Some one must have told this to Glen Beck.

Glenn Beck would take this as some "commie-scientist conspiracy".

[Apoi_Viitor]

that's not necessarily just a right wing thing though, is it?

Well, the point is, that there is scientific evidence that supports a correlation between certain patterns within the brain, and the acceptance of particular political parties. It's not that these people are specifically going to support the capitalist system, it is just that these people tend to be more easily persuaded by traditional conservative capitalist rhetoric. The practical conclusion of these studies, shows that it is not 'human nature' that certain people will be right-wing conservatives, but that they are innately drawn towards the rhetoric they use. This means that it is a strategic necessity that we utilize discourse that is also attractive towards these types of people.

[ckaihatsu]

I want to see a scientific study that identifies a person's genetic and biological predispositions to accepting scientific studies that posit genetic and biological factors as the basis for individual character traits....


( 8 p


= )

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'll provide another article that was written in 2007 on a similar study towards neurological correlations with that of political beliefs.


Liberal and Conservative Anterior Cingulate Cortices
September 10, 2007, by Chris

Reading an article in the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,5982337.story) today, I learned something exciting: political differences in thought happen in the brain. At least that's what a new study published in Nature Neuroscience(1 (http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/09/liberal_and_conservative_anter.php#polbrain1)) purports to show, though I hear that the next issue of the journal will contain critical responses from Descartes, Malenbranche, and Eccles.

Seriously though, the paper by Amodio et al. takes as its launching point the large body of evidence that political conservatives and liberals differ on personality dimensions related to openness to experience, tolerance of uncertainty, and cognitive complexity. It stands to reason that such differences in cognitive style manifest themselves in the brain (pace Descartes), but it doesn't really suggest where in the brain. However, the relationship between these differences and conflict monitoring (a much more tenuous relationship, in terms of empirical support, I should note). Conflict monitoring is, in turn, seen as a form of cognitive control, or self-regulation, and is associated with a specific brain region: the anterior cingulate cortex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_cingulate_cortex) (ACC; the blue part in the image below), part of the prefrontal cortex. Perhaps liberals and conservatives show differences in the activity of the ACC, then?

http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/ACC.JPG

Wait, what's conflict monitoring? Some researchers have hypothesized that there's a system in the brain tasked with looking for conflicts in information processing. This system is necessary, they argue, because with all of the processing going on inside our heads in parallel, there's an inherent risk of "crosstalk interference" (2 (http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/09/liberal_and_conservative_anter.php#polbrain2)). That is, two streams of information that start out in different places might, at some point, cross paths. This leads to competition, conflict, and ultimately interference that can negatively affect performance. It's important, then, to keep track of such conflicts, or potential conflicts at least, so that they can be avoided.

Now, this isn't quite the definition of conflict monitoring that Amodio et al. put forward in their paper, but given that it's the definition that the literature on conflict monitoring itself uses, and that the major theory linking cognitive control (and thus, self-regulation) to conflict monitoring uses this definition as well, I'm going to go with it. And to be honest, it's not immediately clear how conflict monitoring in that sense and differences in liberal and conservative personality are related, but I can let that pass for now... OK, no I can't really. Let's face it, the intro to this paper, which is necessarily short because it's only a "brief communication," is terrible. I have no idea why they hypothesized a relationship between, say, tolerance for uncertainty and conflict monitoring. That hypothesis feels about as non sequitur as this:


Given that these associations between political orientation and cognitive styles [those described above - Chris] have been shown to be heritable, evident in early childhood, and relatively stable across the lifespan, we hypothesized that political orientation may be associated with individual differences in a basic neurocognitive mechanism involved broadly in self-regulation. (p. 1)

Well alrighty, then. Eye color is heritable, evident in early childhood, and relatively stable across the lifespan, but I've never seen someone associate it with self-regulation. Anyway, whatever the hidden logic behind the association of differences in cognitive style related to political orientation and conflict monitoring, here's what they did.

They first had participants complete a political questionnaire, which included a question about whom, if anyone, they voted for in the 2004 presidential election, along with a scale ranging from -5 ("extremely liberal") to 5 ("extremely conservative"). In previous research, that scale has correlated very strongly with voting behavior, and in their sample (43 right-handers), it was strongly correlated with 2004 voting. So it's a pretty good measure of political orientation to the extent that liberals vote for Democrats and conservatives for Republicans.

Next they had participants complete a Go/No-Go task. In their version, participants were shown an M or a W, and told to respond only to one or the other by pressing a key (half the participants responded to M's, and half to W's). Responding to the target letter is the Go part, and not responding to the other letter is the No-Go part. In order to make responding the default, 80% of the 500 trials each participant saw were Go trials. This makes is so that when a No-Go trial pops up, participants face potential crosstalk interference. One system, the one that treats Go responses as the default, is trying to make the participant press the button, while the other system, recognizing that the No-Go letter has appeared, is trying to inhibit a response. As a result of this interference, the conflict monitoring system should kick in.

Now, we know that conflict in these sorts of tasks leads to increased activity in the ACC, so to look for differences between liberals and conservatives, Amodio et al. measured event related potentials (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event-related_potential) (ERPs) there. And since they published the paper, you can probably guess that they found differences. Specifically, during the No-Go tasks, when the conflict monitoring system should be active and screaming, "Oh shit!" they found more neural activity in the ACC in liberals than in conservatives. Consistent with this, liberals were more accurate in the No-Go trials than conservatives. Thus they conclude:


Our results are consistent with the view that political orientation, in part, reflects individual differences in the functioning of a general mechanism related to cognitive control and self-regulation. Stronger conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with less neurocognitive sensitivity to response conflicts. At the behavioral level, conservatives were also more likely to make errors of commission [i.e., pressing the button in No-Go trials -Chris]. (p.2)

Exactly what this means, I can't really say. I'm not sure that it says much about the relationship between political orientation and self-regulation, but if it does, perhaps it provides a clue to the cognitive mechanisms underlying the personality variables associated with openness and uncertainty. The behavioral differences that result from those personality variables might also be related to this studies findings. Are conservatives more likely to make errors of commission in a wide variety of situations in which habitual responses are in place, for example? Only future research will tell. It shouldn't, however, be taken as saying anything about the relative levels of intelligence of liberals and conservatives (though I'm pretty certain that it will, by people on both sides). So far, all it really says is that differences in thinking happen in the brain.

UPDATE: The Neurocritic gets all neurocritical (http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2007/09/error-of-prognosticating-political-view.html).

1. Amodio, D.M., Jost, J.T., Master, S.L., & Yee, C.M. (2007). Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism (http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn1979.html). Nature Neuroscience.

2. Botvinick, M.M., Braver, T.S., Barch, D.M., Carter, C.S., & Cohen, J.D. (2001). Conflict monitoring and cognitive control (http://content.apa.org/journals/rev/108/3/624). Psychological Review, 108(3), 624-652.

http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/09/liberal_and_conservative_anter.php

[Ol' Dirty]

:laugh: I'm going to admit, I'm skeptical, but this is pretty fascinating.

[Luís Henrique]

This merely confuses different meanings of the word "conservative". We label "conservative" a political position to the right of center; we also call "conservative" a certain method of approaching problems. The former is opposed to "liberal" or "progressist"; the latter is opposed to "daring".

A far-left revolutionary can be "conservative" is his assessing of the prospects of a revolution in a given country, while a conservative leader may be very non-"conservative" (ie, daring) in his actions against revolution.

May be "conservatism" in the sence of being cautious and wanting to take all factors into consideration can have some biogenetical causes; but "conservatism" in the political sence certainly hasn't. If for no other reasons, because "conservatism" as a political position is a few centuries old, while the human brain is a few thousand centuries old.

Luís Henrique

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't know, this reeks of pseudo-science to me. People's political ideas change, and even the connotations of certain mainstream political categories change, so I fail to see how there could be any biological correlation to a specific set of political ideas. Suddenly during the French Revolution everyone's brains and DNA changed?

Last week I was watching daytime TV and the "Today" show had a couple of "scientists" from Cosmo magazine telling their audience that there is scientific proof of inherent male/female behavioral and attitude differences. According to these quacks, when women talk about plans, blood drains from part of men's brains. There is a "chattyness" gene that all women have and no men and that's why men aren't "chatty". Well that's funny since 200 years ago the stereotype was that men like to talk and brag with other men and women were seen and not heard. It's also funny since there stereotype of women being chatty but also a stereotype of gay men being chatty - I guess they have this "female" chatty gene too. I wouldn't have been surprised if they claimed there was a gene for watching Monday Night football and leaving the toilet seat up.

In other words, I think most of these attempts to find genetic answers to behaviors - that when it comes down to it are not even consistent within our contemporary culture not to mention among all cultures through various different forms of society - are bunk and just used in attempts to make insane things about modern capitalist society seem "natural" and "inherent" and unchanging.

In this particular case, I think there is a desire among some liberals - or just plain semi-rational and aware people - to know why far-right-wing politics seem so dominant over the last generation. It's more convenient for newspaper-writers and scientists to think that irrational politics dominate our country because a chunk of people literally have thick skulls than to look into why the Democrats don't actually peruse a real political opposition to the right, why business has, since the 1970s, put a lot of resources into right-wing think-tanks, astro-turf organizations and lobbyists and even bought-off scientists to make it seem like there is a legitimate scientific debate about creationism or a lack of man-influenced climate change.

[ckaihatsu]

In other words, I think most of these attempts to find genetic answers to behaviors - that when it comes down to it are not even consistent within our contemporary culture not to mention among all cultures through various different forms of society - are bunk and just used in attempts to make insane things about modern capitalist society seem "natural" and "inherent" and unchanging.


Besides this bias inherent to the bourgeois political worldview -- resulting in politically skewed approaches to scientific topics and investigations -- I'll go even further and suggest that, on the "leading" edge of a rapidly decaying capitalist world economy, within its already-bullshit "service sector" paradigm, we are currently witnessing the artificial inflation of the *medicalization* phenomenon within the service paradigm, much like (and parallel to) the financial speculative bubbles that swell valuations of *non-productive* private property like real estate.

Note all of the recent attention paid to health care as President Obama's largest domestic policy issue -- throughout the early 2000s domestic socio-political concerns, and government bailouts, ranged from telecom to energy and such, but now it's health care, accompanied by the regular status quo whirlwind of hype that accompanies such subsidized, spiraling valuations.

This regime of economics colors the normative *social* paradigm in overwhelmingly deterministic ways, yielding this regular "medicalization" of personal, social, and political phenomena, in lieu of economic motivations to look into their *factual*, *material* bases of causation and functioning...(!)

[Nolan]

Horseshit. People on the mainstream political spectrum can't really be placed in one box or the other, (forget about libertarian types, especially the secular ones) and there's really no question now that liberals and libertarians can be just as demagogic and panicky as neocons.

[ckaihatsu]

Furthermore -- if you will -- I'll add that the capitalist definition of 'productivity' is likewise spoiled by the inclusion of such non-productive (non-manufacturing) components as a range of "services" which are all chalked up as valid economic activity....

(Please note the central, point-like nexus of concentrated attention and activity in the two diagrams, attached -- the first one can be thought of as 'BEFORE', and the second one as 'AFTER'.)


Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

http://postimage.org/image/2cvo2d7fo/


[8] communist economy diagram

http://postimage.org/image/1bvfo0ohw/