Totally understand where you are coming from Natalie. I often wonder if there is ANYTHING that would dissuade Trump supporters. Their ability to disregard anything approaching normal/reasonable and embrace extremist/unreasonable explanations is alarming. It doesn't seem like his base is willing to hold him accountable, and would really prefer to blame others. Fox News certainly is complicit in feeding this trend. If Trumpers weren't allowed to listen to far right biased information sources (Alex Jones, Breibart, Fox News) and had to listen to news sources that were centrist, they might be able to recognize and pull out of this self destructive nose dive.
But that requires a LOT of empathy, and there seems to be precious little of that being exhibited by his base. As a society, the divisions are running deep and tribes are forming strong. This isn't good for the overall health of the country. It may be that if weather changes due to polar ice melting (and shifting winds) cause the center part of the country to be a dust bowl, they'd have to uproot and seek the aid of others outside their tribe. By doing that, "them" becomes "us". And it is that connection that will, ultimately, win out and save us.
If it comes down to it I will definitely help people no matter their political affiliation if they are in need, but I am disgusted by the trumpers nonetheless. Maybe they will reap what they sow, but they drag us all down with them and we have to fight incredibly hard to make sure that they're perverse vision of the world is defeated. Imagine if no one fought back, our species would be gone far sooner than we'd think. I do get fired up and angry and I don't mean to, but honestly it's hard to help it.
I think this sums it up for the "healers" of the world in the here and now....(especially those of us of the appropriate "vintage" to know/love Super Chicken)
Found several article of scientific studies that show the difference in brain and reactions between conservative and liberals.
I’ve posted a couple here, but was amazed by the amount of studies dedicated to this subject. Maybe it will help someday to bridge the gap between fearful trumpees and the rest of the planet.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce-political-wars/
Hi Laura,
That was an excellent post on social conservatives. What is the "Great unmentionable", though, is that these differences, from ordinary human beings, date back to the ice age, and are actually physiological and genetic. We are dealing, here, literally with "Mutants" who went through "Epigenetic stress" due to the severe conditions of the ice age, and became a rather nasty, savage, and dominant sub-species of "Standard Humans". Yup, those NAZI's and "Conservatives", are genetic freaks. people simply do not wish to face up to the scientific reality of the genetics and behavioural instincts of these critters. But we have to. Basically, we are dealing here with a sub-race of genetically altered people who are very dangerous, aggressive, and hostile to others, and have little or no socialisation. They are in fact, asocial, and anti-social, by nature. They are genetically programmed to be that way. The "Ice-age Gene", is not a myth. It is a reality. Their social existence involves primarily their preying on others. Welcome to the Ice-Age ancestors of the Nazi's, and the American Right.
All of this may horrify people, but we have to face, realistically, the truth, and to start thinking about how such people can be contained, and the huge amount of social damage they do, limited. At the moment, any discussion of this is not even happening. in the meantime, their primitive "Hunter-Gatherer instincts" are destroying the planet. Anybody got any ideas?
I think step one is to name it/them. You can't fight an enemy, an ideology or an issue if the greater population doesn't even know it exists. People who subscribe to a fear-based and authoritarian mindset need to be recognized by the greater society as an existential threat. I would address it more as a way of thinking than as a genetic kind of thing (which can smack of a lot of stuff that is usually directed at other people BY this very group).
Thank you Zoron. There is so much I have to say about this. I have long known that the brains of conservatives and liberals are wired differently, but my own experience tells me that people exist more on a spectrum than on absolutes. My father growing up was always conservative, annoyingly so, voted conservative in Canada, liked the Republican party when he moved to the states etc.... But he was never immune to reason, when Trump came along he couldn't stand him and then decided that he couldn't stand any one else that was running in the Republican primary (he also didn't like Bernie or Hillary, so I really get confused as to who he would like now), and he had well thought out reasons for his dislike of each individual. He still adhered to conservative trickle down economic theory, but all of a sudden he became aware of police brutality on minorities and began to lecture me about how terrible it was every time I'd visit. He is an example of a conservative who can be persuaded. I have other examples of people who absolutely cannot be persuaded and live in a reality of fear, self loathing, and just hell. But on the note about anxiety being one of the character traits of these people, I have to say that I used to suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks, so bad that I couldn't function. Medication helps me with this, but otherwise my hard wiring and/or upbringing makes me unable to really function optimally. And I am a hardcore bleeding heart lib, one of those snow flakes the right wing loves to taunt - except that I can give as good as I get.
I also want to delve deeper into this ice age gene. I believe you Zoron when you say that this is where it comes from, but then how do you explain the behaviors of people who's ancestors never experienced the ice age, namely populations in the middle east and sub Saharan Africa. There are plenty of right wingers among them too. Is this gene related to the neanderthals and our interbreeding with them? Is there any way to cure someone of this genetic tendency? I just have so many questions.
Hi Zoron,
Thank you, I appreciate your comments! I have been trying to find a way to understand these unfathomable (at least to me, lol!) people and their behaviors. I recently re-read "People of the Lie" by Scott Peck and the way he describes his scientific observations of what he called evil in people ties in to what you said about a genetic component of how this group of people are in their behaviors and brain structures.
As to your question, I saw one article that talked about a study that took such things as climate change as a subject and presented it to conservatives in a way that climate change was described to them as a "threat to American way of life" and the study noted more were willing to sign petitions that were about the stoppage of drilling in the Arctic, as an example. It seems that perhaps, and I'm only guessing, if language were used that triggered their brains to respond in a way that would be favorable toward cooperation and problem solving it might have an impact. I have been looking for ways to effectively communicate with these people and find it nearly impossible. "Never the less, I persist" ?
Right wing organizations like the NRA have tapped into this "fear factor" quite well. They are now floundering because they don't have a specific target to point people towards such as President Obama or Secretary Clinton. And, the high school students are - as Rachel said last night - shining a light and the cockroaches are scattering. I have hope that NRA and other RWO's can be greatly diminished through the determination and anger of the youth who are currently showing up. Might we somehow co-opt this kind of manipulation - for that is surely what it is - for the good of everyone, including those who are hardwired for lack of empathy?
Hi Natalie,
Your observations are good ones, but a number of studies have found that conservatives have a slightly larger right side of their amygdala which then reacts to threats or perceived threats more readily. I have found studies that show that they can be persuaded to change and even become more empathetic with training and a willingness to learn. I too, have anxiety that my neurologist, who is also a researcher, indicated has a genetic component to it and I too, and a "bleeding heart" libtard, lol!
That said, I feel compelled to say something in defense of Neanderthals. It has recently been discovered through improved carbon dating techniques that cave drawings found in caves such as the Ardales cave in Spain are older than originally thought. They were thought to be within the time when modern homo sapiens was in that area were drawn by HS. Instead they have now found that those paintings are twice as old as originally thought - 64,000 years old and only Neanderthal hominids were in that part of Europe on up through the Neander valley in Germany at that time. So the question is - who influenced who? Of all the studies I have read on the culture and anthropology of early humans - Neanderthal, Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Denisovians, it appears that Neanderthals had a fairly cohesive community with culture and ritual which is more than was originally credited to that group.
Out of curiosity, a few years ago I did the National Geographic Genographic project DNA test 1 and 2.0. 2.0 test is specifically to determine how much Neanderthal and Denisovian gene variants are in one's genetic make up. They have discovered that many humans can carry as much as 1-2 % of DNA variant that trace to these two groups. My results came back 2 % Neanderthal (average in their test population of 888,000 is 1.3%) and 2.7 % Denisovan (average in test population is 2.1%).
So from an intuitive view, my sense is that Neanderthals and Denisovans who existed before modern humans arrived on the scene were more intuitive, more connected to earth and the beings they coexisted with and hunted. I get the sense that perhaps these two groups co-existed peacefully prior to the arrival of Homo Sapiens. Homo Sapiens didn't arrive in Europe until 30-40,000 odd years ago and perhaps they had the larger right amygdala that pushed their threat sensitivity way off the scale compared to what the other two groups had. It was a harsh environment for all living hominids, so all would have had a high sensitivity to threat, but perhaps there was something else that was in HS that was not in the other two groups. There was about a 10-20,000 year overlap between all three groups before Neanderthals in particular died out at about 30,000 years ago. It would be very interesting to see what the Genographic 2.0 test would show for those in this group. It might be interesting to see if there is a higher or lower percentage of these to genomes in people who are highly intuitive. Perhaps my genome, despite the anxiety, has me wired in a way that contributes to my liberalism.
wow, have yet to fully read this conversation (this also totally applies to my alien RV) but I am busy now ... But I am studying Ken Wilber's integral philosophy which so far gives me the greatest comfort in how to integrate the "ice-age" thinking of a large population... check it out, it keeps me sane right now and tells me we do have an evolutionary advantage (yet how to get the social and economic upper-hand?)