Are Republican Brains Different?

From AlterNet:

For Republicans, the region of the brain that was most active during risky behavior was the right amygdala. This region of the brain is primarily responsible for producing fear, although it can also create anticipation of reward. It’s the part of the brain that teenagers often rely on to make decisions, one of the reasons that teens are more impulsive and aggressive than adults. The larger role of the amygdala in teenage brains—a role that diminishes as people reach their mid-20s—is one of the justifications for laws that prohibit people from drinking alcohol and doing other things until their early to mid-20s. (Apparently the U.S. military still doesn’t care whether its soldiers have brains that are able to mitigate impulsivity and aggression.) This higher level of activity in the amygdala in Republican brains is something that scientists have observed before, although not directly in this risk environment. 

So, what does this mean? Is this a blank check to write off Republicans’ decisions as rash and fear-inspired? Not exactly, although it does begin to give us some clues into the human behavior that could be behind some of this year’s most important political battles. If anything, it helps put into context the insane debt ceiling / fiscal cliff / sequestration cut controversy, which is pretty much screaming Amygdala, Amygdala! 

More here.

Years ago, I heard about a US psychological study done in the 1950s aimed at figuring out why the Soviets vetoed so many US sponsored UN resolutions.  It looked at Russian child development issues to glean some insight into why as adults they would be so inclined to say "nyet" all the time.  Of course, it was a bunch of bullshit.  The Soviets simply saw things differently.  They had different concerns, a different understanding of how the world works, all of which was entirely reasonable from their perspective.  Unwilling to try to walk a mile in their shoes, however, the US establishment was truly befuddled by Soviet obstinance, and did stupid shit like psychoanalyzing them instead of making good faith efforts to work things out with the understanding that different peoples have different priorities and concerns.

These articles I've been reading in the liberal blogosphere over the last few years about the conservative brain remind me of this Cold War folly.  Now don't get me wrong.  I do think this is interesting and potentially valuable research.  But what the hell are we supposed to do with it in the political realm?  Okay, maybe this kind of information can help us craft better and more persuasive arguments, which is what Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff seems to doing, but the overall sense I get from most of these pieces is more of a pseudo-scientific triumphalism: conservatives are wrong because their brains are inferior to ours!  These articles never come right out and say it, but they almost always focus on how right-wing brains seem to deviate from the norm, with liberal brains implicitly offered as what's normal.

This is dangerous for multiple reasons, with increased political and cultural tribalism being but one of them.  But what really frightens me is that, when you're able to dismiss your political opponents' views as being psychologically deviant, there's no reason to do the hard work of better understanding those views so as to convince the other side to adopt yours.  That is, when political ideology can be branded as mental illness, there can be no democracy.

Over the many years that I've been a liberal, I have readily agreed that, as with conservatives, there are definitely totalitarian strains on the left.  These liberal-psychology-is-better articles appear to be a manifestation of those strains.  And I don't like it one bit.

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