Research from the burgeoning field of neuropolitics supports the claim that political violencesuch as the recent uprising in Braziloriginates in a primitive part of the brain, linked to humans' fight-or-flight instinct. Political scientist and former biologist Matt Qvortrup explains. Courtesy of AP Newsroom.

by Matt Qvortrup|February21,2023

Why do people take part in insurrections, like the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the storming of the presidential residence in Sri Lanka, or Januarys sacking of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in Brazil?

Sometimes, that question is answered by pointing to precipitating eventselections and their results, protests that descend into anger, or the speeches of powerful demagogues. On other occasions, we blame insurrections on prejudices, or bigotriesracism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, white nationalism.

Id suggest that we think about insurrections differentlybecause they originate in our brains.

Indeed, Id suggest that the insurrections in Washington, D.C. and Brasilia are due to overactivity in the limbic system in the braina primitive part of the brain that evolved millions of years ago, which we share with rats and cats and lizards and other creatures.

Social scientists used to focus on rational actions. But in recent years we have made great advances in understanding what goes on in the brain when we think politically. The biology of radical politics is no exception.

Scholars have explored why people rebel as long as there has been political science. In the early 1970s, one sociologist hypothesized that the reason was poverty, or relative deprivation. Political scientists and economists, using sophisticated mathematical models, also tried to explain rebellion, but found it hard to come up with a rational explanation. Very few people, the math showed, had any personal incentive to risk life and limb for the rather abstract benefits of overthrowing a government.

From a rational point of view, rebellions seem pointless. A political scientist even coined the phrase the paradox of revolution.

Enter neuroscience.

Since the early 2000s we have been able to look at what happens inside our heads when we think. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans which measure changing blood flow to brain cells, we can now see which parts of the brain get activated when we engage in various activities, like shopping, thinking about sex, and feeling remorse.

I started out as a biologist before becoming a political scientist. Together, those two different academic fields offer a similar lesson: To prevent rebellions and insurrections, we should avoid angry and polarized debate.

This perspective has also entered into the realm of political analysisfinally putting the science in political science. Of course, fMRI isnt useful for studying rebellions in real time; theres no way to scan peoples brains at the moment they storm the palace. But we can design experiments that observe how people who share insurrectionist views react to hate-speech and views that are articulated by politicians on the far right. Presenting subjects with statements about vulnerable minority groups during some brain scan studies, and showing them photos of political candidates they didnt agree with during others, researchers could literally see what happened in would-be insurrectionists brains.

When neurologist Giovanna Zamboni and colleagues conducted such an experiment a little over a decade ago, they found that a part of the brain known as the ventral striatum, which is associated with the limbic system, was activated when individuals who were identified by psychological tests as radicals were exposed to hate-speech statements or other intolerant assertions about other groups or minorities. These studies have been replicated in recent years and their findings confirmed and refined.

That the ventral striatum was activated is remarkable. This part of the brain is one of the oldest, in evolutionary terms. It is what makes animals respond positively to simple rewards in social situations and to negative stimuli in dangerous moments, such as fear that they might be attacked. The ventral striatum is linked with amygdala, the fight-and-flight center in the brain. When people hear statements aboutor see images ofgroups or individuals that they fear, the brain reacts as if it is attacked.

In contrast, study subjects who, based on personality tests, were identified as moderate or conservative used parts of the brain that only humans have evolved, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for planning and working memory and associated with listening, speaking, and reasoning. In another study, from 2011, young people with far-right views showed greater activation of amygdala, indicating that they were less likely to reflect on political statements and more likely to revert to fight-or-flight mode.

The most interesting part of this body of research: Generally, brains respond differently to politics than to policy. Scans show that when people think about politicsas in the rough and tumble partisan strugglethe fight-and-flight amygdala gets activated. But when people are exposed to questions about policy, they use the more advanced parts of the brain. In fMRI studies dating as far back as 2009, scientists found that the dorsolateral frontal cortex lit up in people exposed to arguments about economic policy.

I started out as a biologist before becoming a political scientist. Together, those two different academic fields offer a similar lesson: To prevent rebellions and insurrections, we should avoid angry and polarized debate. And when possible, we should avoid political hot-buttons and instead talk about the policy issues that affect our lives.

Biological research suggests the advantages of such an approach go beyond de-polarizing the public square. When we really listen to each other in debates about policy and related politics, we learn new things. And learning new things may make us less likely to develop degenerative conditions like Alzheimers and Parkinsons.

Humans are the product of 8 million years of evolution. We have the capacity to use the powers with which we have been endowed, namely to learn by being attentive, and through open deliberation. Human evolution hardwired us to process information, and make progress, through listening. But when we engage in hate speech and angry rebellion we revert to an evolutionarily primitive stage.

Neuropolitics shows us a way out of the current polarized debate and into a better future.

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What Neuroscience Tells Us About Insurrections | Essay - zocalopublicsquare.org