You've Heard of Right and Left Brains

This Is About Right-wing and Left-wing Brains

“Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.”   – Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914.

In the first half of the 19th Century “phrenology” was all the rage. Its premise was that all the activities of human behavior have their origin in the brain, and in specific parts of the brain. Phrenology, as it was defined then, has been debunked for over a century now, but there is a modern version of this theory, based on a much clearer understanding of the various parts of the brain and how they interact.





Illustration courtesy of Wikipedia

 We now know that the human brain has evolved, and that certain structures are older – that is, they’ve been with us longer on our trip up the evolutionary ladder – than others.



The oldest brain is the brain stem, which sits atop the spinal cord like the thick top of a tapering cane. It is the mechanism that keeps the heart beating and the lungs breathing. Atop that is the limbic system, which acts as a sort of gateway for sensation, performs basic memory functions, and is the seat of emotions. Next is the cerebellum, which helps regulate the way our bodies move. All these are “old” brain parts. Even some very rudimentary animals have something comparable to a spinal cord and a brain stem; more complex ones have developed something like the limbic system; yet more advanced ones have a cerebellum.

But the most recent part of the brain, evolutionarily speaking, is the cerebrum. Only the most advanced animals have it, and only in human beings is it so extremely large. This is the brain structure that allows us to reason and speak and have self-awareness. This is what makes us human.

A new study by London neuroscientists indicates that conservatives and liberals have different portions of their brains enlarged that correspond with their political attitudes. You might call this “neophrenology.” I find this discovery disturbing, but enlightening.

The testing that was done included 90 “healthy young adults” in London. They were asked to describe their political preferences on a five-point scale from very conservative to very liberal. The parts of their brains were then measured through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Remember, this is in England, where there are both Conservative and Liberal parties, which do not precisely correspond to our Republican and Democratic parties, but presumably the two basic concepts are similar in both places.

The study found that conservatives tend to have larger amygdalas and liberals larger anterior cingulate cortexes. The amygdala is in the limbic system and is apparently where the decision is made to fight or flee when danger is perceived. The anterior cingulate cortex is part of the cerebrum, and is thought to “monitor uncertainty and conflicts.”

There are a couple of cautions that should be made at this point. First, we don’t know if people think and act as they do because certain parts of their brains are enlarged, or if those parts are enlarged because they think and act as they do. Secondly, the science of brain function is far from complete, and even though we can identify, to some extent, what kinds of thoughts are processed by various structures in the brain, we don’t have full knowledge of how all those structures work together.

I have to restrain myself further, as well. I am tempted to accept this one study as proof of a sort of theory of everything political. I will try to avoid doing so.

But oh, this really seems to explain a lot! Conservatives have an emotional connection to politics and liberals a rational one. That would explain why some people don’t respond well to logical dialogue, why “intellectual” is a pejorative term in some circles, why Faux News’s appeal to fear and hate has so much traction, and a lot of other things that have perplexed me over the years.

I’m tempted to wonder whether conservatism can be “cured,” but I’m sure there are others out there wondering if there’s a “cure” for liberalism. But if nothing else, political operatives from both sides will be looking for ways to phrase their arguments to convince those with the other kind of brains.

Horses, for example, depend greatly on their amygdalas. They are quick to flee in the face of frightening or uncommon or confusing situations. Horse trainers know this and adjust their methods to avoid those situations. Perhaps we liberals could try to sway conservative opinion by similar methods. Perhaps conservatives would have more luck with us using rational discourse instead of fear- and hate-mongering.

What I can say for sure is that future discoveries in the area of “neuropolitics” will be fascinating. It’s hard to say how far this could go. It could be in the future that a person is informed that he didn’t get a job because his anterior cingulate cortex is too small or his amygdala is too large.

We often hear the proposition that there are two kinds of people. What if it’s really true?