Right brain left brain, right and left
There was a lot of discussion in this thread yesterday about liberals being right-brained and conservatives left-brained, and/or liberals “feeling” and conservatives “thinking.” I think that’s an oversimplification.
Sorry, but I know lots of very logical and rational liberals, very intelligent, with lots of practical experience in the real world. I think some of them keep their liberal politics separate from their conservative lives, and don’t see the two as clashing (that was true of me when I was a liberal). Still others are against conservatism because they see it as irrational rather than rational, an attempt to control people’s lives for religious reasons, or composed of people not believing in science in general (or in evolution, but instead that man was created by the deity 10,000 years ago). Also bigots.
And listen, let’s be frank: there are strains like that in conservatism. I see it all over the place in the blogsophere. Of course there’s plenty of bigotry on the left, too, and a different sort of anti-scientific thinking (that vaccinations cause autism, for example, or that the government purposely gave black people AIDS, or that the WTC could not have collapsed from the fire on 9/11). Over time, I happen to have observed more rational thinking in general on the right than on left, but not always by any means. And I happen to think that the right’s positions on the nature of man are much more on target, and that the right is more dedicated to individual liberty. But not everyone on the right conforms to that ideal.
Also, “left brain rationality, right brain feelings” is an enormous misunderstanding. People’s brains are organized differently and with more complexity. Lefties, for example (and now I’m referring to handedness, not politics!), can have speech centers in either side of the brain or both. Wiki may be only Wiki, but it’s correct on this score:
Broad generalizations are often made in popular psychology about one side or the other having characteristic labels such as “logical” or “creative”. These labels need to be treated carefully; although a lateral dominance is measurable, these characteristics are in fact existent in both sides, and experimental evidence provides little support for correlating the structural differences between the sides with functional differences…
While functions are lateralized, these are only a tendency. The trend across many individuals may also vary significantly as to how any specific function is implemented.
I don’t believe that politics is inherited, as I wrote in that thread yesterday. And I don’t subscribe to the idea that the difference between liberals and conservatives lies in brain lateralization, either. However, there may be some sort of trend for liberals to value feelings more highly, and to use them more when making decisions, and for conservatives to value rationality and use it more in making decisions. But even that difference is probably quite small.
There is some evidence for that here. If you look at the chart, based on the Myers-Briggs personality test, you’ll see that people categorized as “feeling” (the “F” dimension) seem to be more likely to be Democrats, and those characterized as “thinking” in their style (the “T” dimension) are more likely to be Republicans. But there are tons of exceptions and a great deal of overlap.
I should think the overlap constitutes the well balanced as humans, having the capacity for both feeling and thinking, obviously are meant to make use of both. Certainly liberals and conservatives may be represented generally but with some accuracy on a bell curve.
The question really to be asked: what to make of the the gnostic Arrogantes (our post modern Philosophes)? As far as I can make out, the proof of any claim of being enlightened is always the proposition itself. It’s the circular argument that can never be squared and leads only to another lap around the loop. The example, “I am enlightened because I am for same sex marriage and because I am for same sex marriage proves I am enlightened” — seems to perfectly demonstrate a gnostic urge hinging on neither feeling or thinking but entirely on self-absorption. Anders Breivik was the extreme example of such a character but less extreme examples are found throughout the burgeoning ruling class, Obama and Nancy Pelosi serving as examples. The thing is, I think it would be difficult to come up with such examples of self-assured self-absorption as representing tradition, conservatism, or the Right. Anyone have a candidate?
I don’t understand what you are trying to say. How can one have a discussion if every few moments or sentences one has to qualify a statement or open an opinion with a paragraph like “not everyone is all this or all that” and “I know people on both sides of the spectrum who …” This is what we have been reduced to.
People without a clear understanding of “who they are” are able to be chameleons and change with their surroundings.
Often these attempts to paint people on the Left or Right as a certain type of person are a means to 1) attention for the researcher (money!) and 2) to delegitimize the other side. Usually the other side has the inferior quality or qualities studied and we can point at them and laugh or look down on them with ourselves affirmed.
But Conservatives know better than to do this 😉
>>> But there are tons of exceptions and a great deal of overlap.
No argument on the whole… but I’ve yet to see a liberal who showed a lick of “common sense”, aka Wisdom, as I noted yesterday (haven’t gone back yet to look at any replies).
And anyone who considers socialism to be anything but a soul-draining recipe for defacto totalitarianism has even got a whiff of a lick.
neo –
We are in profound agreement on this. Might as well recall that it was in the course of googling for commentary on this issue that I first came to your website. I liked what you had to say, and stuck around for a little while.
Between 2005 and 2009 there was a huge kerfuffle in the political science literature over genopolitics, pitting the ferocious advocates Alford, Funk, and Hibbing against the tireless and brilliant Evan Charney (who teaches at Duke). Charney crushed them almost single-handedly (he did get a submission backing his claims from a couple of well-regarded biologists).
Charney is a great writer, and if you get an opportunity to head over to his webpage and his linked publications, you’ll have some wicked-fun reading to pore over.
Let me add also that Charney is at the front-lines of the battle over the “new genomics,” a paradigm shift in how to understand genes and their relation to heritability and trait expression. Two recent books outline the implications of this – James A. Shapiro’s “Evolution: A View from the 21st Century” and Eugene V. Koonin’s “The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution.” Richard Francis’s “Epigenetics” is pretty good too (if you can ignore his annoying political observations).
In short: the neo-Darwinist paradigm is already passe; we just don’t know it yet.
ISTJ here…
I USED TO BE A LEFTY.
SO WERE MY BROS AND MOM.
WE ALL MOVED RIGHT.
OUR BRAINS DIDN’T CHANGE.
OUR EYES OPENED.
ONCE RATIONAL PEOPLE SEE BOTH SIDES THEY MOVE RIGHT.
THE LEFT KNOWS THIS; THAT’S WHY THE LEFT ATTACKS RUSH AND TALK RADIO AND FOX.
THEY DON’T WANT THEIR BLINDERED ADHERENTS TO SEE THE LIGHT – WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SEE BOTH SIDES.
LEFTISTS AREN’T DUMB; IT’S JUST THAT EVERYTHING THEY KNOW IS WRONG.
AND THEY CAN;T SEE THIS AS LONG AS THEY REMAIN IN THE COCOON.
MAMET’S BRAIN DIDN’T CHANGE.
NEITHER DID KRISTOL’S OR PODHORETZ’S OR REAGAN’S OR SO MANY OTHER FAMOUS FOLKS WHO WENT FROM RIGHT TO LEFT.
VERY FEW GO THE OTHER WAY.
IGotBupkis: well, I know plenty of liberals with plenty of common sense.
And I believe that I had just as much common sense when I was a liberal as I do now—whatever amount that might be :-).
Eva Ritchey: how can you have a discussion like that? Well, if you want to use the truth to make points in your discussions, and not just exaggerate and generalize to make your points, then you have to have a discussion like that, with qualifiers. I try to make my discussions as accurate as possible.
Conservative, independent INFP here. Thanks for that link, neo: I have read a great deal about typology, but I don’t remember having seen before a political-party affiliation analysis like that.
I used to participate on a forum dominated by INFPs, and most of them struck me as being reflexively liberal, almost to the point of epitomizing the INFP stereotype of brainless twit.
The left vs. right brain concept is utter pop psychology BS. Our brains are not bipolar and left-right are not independent. Its nonsense.
I have an earnestly liberal friend (yes!) who urged me to vote for a particular mayoral candidate – whom he knew – … because he was fiscally conservative. Yet my friend votes reliably liberal at the state and Federal level. Someday I will understand this.
Imagine the fun I have with such people, as an atheist professor of chemistry. Good times.
ENFJ…and rock-ribbed conservative who came from the Lib-Left over 30-years ago. A “neocon” tried and true.
I thought this issue was settled by that great scientist Jeremiah Wright a few years back. Dare we question him?
I thought this issue was settled by that great scientist Jeremiah Wright a few years back.
Scientist, theologian, and philosopher!
Brain lateralization in the pop sense is utter BS. That’s why we all have a corpus callosum.
My interest in the concept of nature versus nurture is rooted in the deep differences between my two brothers and me. Same parents, same house, same extended family, same school, same teachers, and yet we are as different as night and day. Our environment was virtually the same. How to account for the differences except genetics. Maybe some of the theories of the differences in the child’s position in the lineup – first, middle, or last has some bearing. That seems a less likely explanation for me than genetics.
Our differences have created difficult relationships. We try to have a relationship but are so different in our beliefs and personal conduct that a smooth, caring relationship eludes us. Genetics and right brain/left brain differences seem the likely answers to me.
My neighbor is a liberal, of sorts, and while I don’t agree with him about much I do find him rational. He’s actually pretty sympathetic with me when I talk about the evils of “big government”. He acknowledges the evils, but says that as much as he distrusts big govt, he distrusts monied / corporate interests even more. I part company with him here, but I don’t think he’s being irrational about anything. He’s not your typical liberal though and he occasionally even sounds a bit like Ron Paul.