This Is Your Brain on Politics. Any Questions?

[DeSwiss]

This Is Your Brain on Politics. Any Questions?

By Swopa on Thu Jul 12, 2007 at 01:46 pm
From the Los Angeles Times on Monday:

Drew Westen, a genial 48-year-old psychologist and brain researcher, was talking to a rapt liberal audience about the role of emotion in politics, how to talk back aggressively to Republicans, and why going negative is not to be feared. Example: When President Bush recently refused to allow Karl Rove to testify under oath about his role in the sacking of federal prosecutors, Westen said, Democrats blundered. Instead of insisting Rove testify under oath, they simply should have said (over and over), “Mr. Bush, just what is it about ‘So help me God’ that you find so offensive?“

In his new book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, Westen, who is not affiliated with a particular candidate, lays out his argument that Democrats must connect emotionally with the American electorate — and that he can teach them how.

He writes that when Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts let a Swift-boat veterans group drag his reputation through the mud (2004), when Al Gore put a nation to sleep with his talk of lockboxes and Medicare actuaries (2000), and when Michael S. Dukakis said he didn’t believe in the death penalty even in the event of his wife’s rape and murder (1988), Democrats were exhibiting their single worst tendency: intellectual dispassion. That style is ballot-box poison, said Westen. “The political brain is an emotional brain,” he said. “It prefers conclusions that are emotionally satisfying rather than conclusions that match the data.”

When Westen and his Emory colleagues conducted brain scans during the 2004 presidential campaign, they found that partisans of either side, when presented with contradictory statements by their preferred candidates, would struggle for some seconds with feelings of discomfort, then resolve the matter in their candidates’ favor.

more: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/12/this-is-your-brain-on-politics-any-questions/

[orleans]

1. yes, bush has made us all fucking crazy! n/t

[DeSwiss]

3. My thoughts about Bush & Cheny....

...don't bear to be spoken.

[cui bono]

2. Whoo-hoo! I'm 2 weeks ahead of Firedoglake!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1209730

[DeSwiss]

4. Thanks for the link. That was a terribly enlightening thread!!

And the paradox in all this is mind-boggling, but reminiscent.

In some way or other, even before the epoch of civilization, we've always had those who used reason in dealing with problems -- and those governed by their emotions, who often chose to make war on their problems. It's genetic. Unfortunately, the war guys predominate.

But the fact that we now at least recognize all this, and what's at work, I suppose is cause for hope. No matter how rare optimism might be these days....