Psuedo Didactic

Going through my ever growing list of bookmarks, I re-encountered the article Left brain, right brain from September’s Prospect.

In a nutshell, the article talks about the various findings of the behavioral and neurosciences that can be brought to bear not only on answering (at least partially) questions of why we act the way we do, but in how those actions and responses are initiated from within the brain and which ones seem to be fundamental properties or modes universal to all of us.  It also discusses how those findings match up to differing ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ behaviors, outlooks, and theories.

While that is all very interesting –and it is not the first article, particularly in the last year or two, to discuss how political affiliation and worldview are indeed reflected in our brains in fairly deep ways– another point in the article really resonated with me.  Neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and the increasingly popular behavioral economics all seem to be reaching points of maturity –relatively speaking, as they are all young in their ways– where at least some of the gnarly political and social issues and arguments we are confronted with can begin to be addressed on factual bases, with recourse to an actual body of knowledge; that is, versus so much of what has historically been and is still largely the classes of justification used for decisions:  what we ‘ought’ to do, what is ‘right’, etc.

I think at least part of the power behind my reaction is that I have a deep-seated ‘little boy’ awe for the possibility of a ‘scientific’ government where policy is not (always) a matter of, “Well, let’s give this a try and see what happens.”  The article also talks about how both Left and Right can happily greet some of the findings as they support some of both sides historical social and political stances; that is important, obviously, because findings that run counter to political ideologies always have much, much steeper climbs.  I greet it happily with the thought of how wonderful it would be to live in a world where laws, policy and large scale social interactions “made sense.”

And that is something that I hope everyone can get excited thinking about.