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A couple of years ago I read a book called 'Animals in Translation' by Temple Grandin. It is an excellent book whether you are interested in animals or not. A great deal of it discusses HUMAN animals and the how's and why's of the way we think. That book introduced me to the theory of the Triune Brain as developed by Paul McLean.
In a nutshell, McLean's Triune Brain theory states that we have three distinct brains which work in cooperation with each other. Your primitive brain works at a very basic level. It generates 'gut' reactions of fear and aggression, keeps you moving, etc. It's our reptilian brain and its the brain we had when we were about as developed as a lizard.
Your intermediate brain deals with organizing your emotions. In this brain, everything is either good or bad. It handles flight or fight, your instincts, sex, attraction and social interaction. It is our mammalian brain and is the brain we had when we were about as developed as, say, wolves.
Your higher brain or neocortex is your thinking brain. It organizes the other brains, produces abstract thoughts and allows us to think about being rather than just being. The neocortex in man is approximately 2/3 of our brain and accounts for why our brains are so much larger than other species. A mouse with its neocortex removed would appear pretty much normal. A human with its neocortex removed is a vegetable. To paraphrase Temple Grandin, "We breathe and eat with our reptilian brains, form emotions and social bonds with our wolf brains and write poems about it all with our neocortex."
All of that is to lead up to the point that the leaders of the GOP do everything they can to stimulate the primitive brains of their constituency. At best, they never try to go above the intermediate brain. They try to hit on gut reactions and the stimulation of aggression and fear. And it works perfectly because we are hardwired to FIRST attend what our less developed brains are telling us. They are the brains of survival. AFTER we listen to those, we analyze the reaction in our higher brains. Run first, ask questions later.
So, hell, let's ROLL with that. A lot of people here keep saying, "It's about the issues." Respectfully, NO, it isn't. It is about the gut reaction people have to the issues. The Obama campaign has to frame OUR issues in such a way as to tap those lizard brains. It is about the fear of war, it is about the fear of loss of livelihood, it is about the fear of losing dominance. THAT is what Obama needs to campaign on. Our higher brains might find that distasteful, but it is reality.
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