Researchers Claim Our Elected Leaders Are Literally Addicted To Power

[Left Leanings]

Researchers are claiming that political power, has the same effect on the brain as cocaine:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/9228257/Like-baboons-our-elected-leaders-are-literally-addicted-to-power.html

It's suggested that gaining or being promoted in political power, releases testetorone in men and women, and this in turn triggers other addictive chemicals such as dopamine.

Research in baboons indicates that those lower down in the group hierarchy have less of these chemicals in their brains. Yet when they gain a more dominant position, these chemicals increase.

It's interesting enough, I suppose. Peeps often talk about the 'power trip' lol. Myself, I think the material gains of office and doing the bidding of capital is a sufficient reward for them.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I think we all knew that :D

[Comrade Samuel]

Now think of the high-level politicians who are also addicted to cocaine they must be as high as physically possible!

what suprises me about this research is philosophical Writings from ancient times are being confirmed by modern science.

[Left Leanings]

I think we all knew that :D

Hmmm. I dunno. It's kind of a new theory to suggest literal chemical addiction to power. But if you mean they never want to 'give up the chair', then, well, yeaaaah :)

[Kenco Smooth]

Quite frankly a ridiculous article. Dopamine appears to be a key element in addiction formation but that in no way justifies the recent abundance of articles claiming dopamine = addiction. It's the same thinking which has led Susan Greenfield to attack video games as serious mental health risks and for rags like the telegraph to call homosexuals 'dopamine addicts'. Addiction is much more complex than the activity of one of the most base neurotransmitter systems which is in action in all people.

[Luís Henrique]

I think articles like that prove beyond doubt that researchers are increasingly dissatisfied with politicians. And little else.

Luís Henrique

[Left Leanings]

Quite frankly a ridiculous article. Dopamine appears to be a key element in addiction formation but that in no way justifies the recent abundance of articles claiming dopamine = addiction. It's the same thinking which has led Susan Greenfield to attack video games as serious mental health risks and for rags like the telegraph to call homosexuals 'dopamine addicts'. Addiction is much more complex than the activity of one of the most base neurotransmitter systems which is in action in all people.

Interestingly, psychiatry maintains that an excess of dopamine is responsible for the hallucinations/delusions, common in 'schizophrenia' and related 'psychoses'. But it's also claimed that because anti-psychotic medications act as a dopamine blockade, the neurotransmitters overcompensate, by firing more dopamine.


I think articles like that prove beyond doubt that researchers are increasingly dissatisfied with politicians.

Luís Henrique

Good. They can 'join the club', so to speak :)

[Blanquist]

What would be the effect of artificial testosterone on this? If through hormone-replacement theropy a person was getting the maximum safe testosterone level, what would the effects of power be then? Would they still trigger the same dopamine response?

[Luís Henrique]

Good. They can 'join the club', so to speak :)

Indeed. The problem however is that such dissatisfaction doesn't reach a critical level. And, of course, such naturalisations of social relations can only be actually conservative in their core. If politicians are "addicted" to power, and power in fact is expressed by, or is the expression of, chemical changes in human brains, how are we effectively struggle for the abolition of power, or for an equitative distribution of it?

Luís Henrique

[Railyon]

If this article is to believed this kinda provides a biological foundation to Bakunin's "power corrupts" slogan which is so often slammed as "idealist, non-materialist", no?

I take research with a grain of salt though, especially when dealing with politicians...

[Rafiq]

I'm skeptical. I'd like to see the data myself, and how they tested it, because it seems kind of like shit.

Also, this certainly isn't a biological foundation of the obscure, Bougeois-Idealist term "Power corrupts". These polititians aren't corrupt at all. They are doing exactly what they are assigned to do, and doing it quite well at that. They are not deviating from their real, existing function. They are instruments of the Bourgeois class.

So no, it's not time to start jumping on the bull shit bandwagon of "POWER CORRUPTS!".

[Railyon]

So no, it's not time to start jumping on the bull shit bandwagon of "POWER CORRUPTS!".

I bet Bakunin was prefiguring the idea of "appropriation into the systemic dialectic of capital". Which is basically the same idea, just in Marxist jargon.

[Os Cangaceiros]

There have been quite a few studies done that indicate that people often exhibit some rather negative traits once they occupy a position of authority over other people, actually. Another interesting study was done (by MIT, I believe) in which they hooked up the world's most powerful brain scanner to people and then told those people that they were going to get some money. The part of the brain that "lit up" was the oldest part of the brain, the part responsible for the desire for food and sex. I thought that was really interesting.

It was shown on a NOVA special about the financial crisis.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Personally I don't think that recognizing that positions of power often attract narcissists and those who really don't care much at all about their "constituents" is somehow incredibly damaging to left-wing politics. I don't actually buy the "tabla rasa" theory of human brain chemistry, though. The thing is not having mechanisms in place so that one person or a small group of people can be in a position to abuse their authority in arbitrary ways. I'm not really a fan of Lenin, but the measures he suggested in "State and Revolution" are things I mostly agree with as far as limits and checks on power.

[Ostrinski]

Sometimes I fantasize about having power. Is that abnormal?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Sometimes I fantasize about having power. Is that abnormal?

Not at all. Sometimes I, too, fantasise about bending people before my demented will.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Sometimes I fantasize about having power. Is that abnormal?

No, just come join the Marxist-Leninists so we can start the purges on our quests for the throne!!! :rolleyes:

[Os Cangaceiros]

No, I don't think so. (re: is fantasizing about power abnormal)

Sometimes I day dream about being an absolute tyrant who entertains himself by lecturing various political prisoners about how life's only purpose is to accrue as much power for yourself as possible. Like a lord Voldermort mixed with colonel Qaddafi-type figure.

I like to think that's perfectly normal. Honestly I should never be allowed near power, neither should most if not all of the people on this website.

[Luís Henrique]

Sometimes I fantasize about having power. Is that abnormal?

Nurse, bring the straight jacket. We have a potential lobotomy case here.;)

Luís Henrique

[pastradamus]

Two words: Henry Kissinger.

[Rafiq]

I bet Bakunin was prefiguring the idea of "appropriation into the systemic dialectic of capital". Which is basically the same idea, just in Marxist jargon.

Such a concept doesn't have any relation to the nonsense of "Power corrupts". It may, on the other hand, tell us that Power within capitalist social relations will always end up serving capital, of course. Though, capitalism has existed for some centuries, while power itself has existed since the existence of the agricultural revolution (As we know of).

Bakunin, on the contrary, believed that in principle, all power corrupts. Marxists recognize this as being unique to capitalist social relations, if even in existence at all.

[Left Leanings]

Sometimes I fantasize about having power. Is that abnormal?


Nurse, bring the straight jacket. We have a potential lobotomy case here.;)

Luís Henrique

Oh, I don't know. That's a bit drastic. I'm sure the administration of intramuscular anti-psychotics, will be more than adequate in addressing the issue :rolleyes:

[Revolution starts with U]

There have been quite a few studies done that indicate that people often exhibit some rather negative traits once they occupy a position of authority over other people, actually. Another interesting study was done (by MIT, I believe) in which they hooked up the world's most powerful brain scanner to people and then told those people that they were going to get some money. The part of the brain that "lit up" was the oldest part of the brain, the part responsible for the desire for food and sex. I thought that was really interesting.

It was shown on a NOVA special about the financial crisis.

There was one recently where they did a prisoner/guard expiriment and were somehow amazed with the speed at which the "guards" started treating their "prisoners" like sub-humans. I rather see it as more of power being intrinsic to human relations, the only question being who uses what power in what way.

We must use power to overthrow our oppressors every bit as much as they use power to dominate us.

[Sinister Intents]

Researchers are claiming that political power, has the same effect on the brain as cocaine:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/9228257/Like-baboons-our-elected-leaders-are-literally-addicted-to-power.html

It's suggested that gaining or being promoted in political power, releases testetorone in men and women, and this in turn triggers other addictive chemicals such as dopamine.

Research in baboons indicates that those lower down in the group hierarchy have less of these chemicals in their brains. Yet when they gain a more dominant position, these chemicals increase.

It's interesting enough, I suppose. Peeps often talk about the 'power trip' lol. Myself, I think the material gains of office and doing the bidding of capital is a sufficient reward for them.

Cool lol:) this made me laugh