Why do people take part in insurrections, like the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, the storming of the presidential residence in Sri Lanka, or January's sacking of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace in Brazil?
Sometimes, that question is answered by pointing to precipitating events -- elections and their results. On other occasions, we blame insurrections on prejudices, or bigotries -- racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, white nationalism.
I'd suggest that we think about insurrections differently -- because they originate in our brains.
Indeed, I'd suggest that the insurrections in Washington, DC and Brasilia are due to overactivity in the limbic system in the brain -- a primitive part of the brain that evolved millions of years ago, which we share with rats and cats and lizards and other creatures.
Social scientists used to focus on rational actions. But in recent years we have made great advances in understanding what goes on in the brain when we think politically. The biology of radical politics is no exception.
In the early 1970s, one sociologist hypothesised that the reason was poverty, or "relative deprivation". Political scientists and economists, using sophisticated mathematical models, also tried to explain rebellion, but found it hard to come up with a rational explanation. Very few people, the maths showed, had any personal incentive to risk life and limb for the rather abstract benefits of overthrowing a government.
From a rational point of view, rebellions seem pointless. A political scientist even coined the phrase "the paradox of revolution".
Since the early 2000s we have been able to look at what happens inside our heads. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans which measure changing blood flow to brain cells, we can now see which parts of the brain get activated when we engage in various activities.
This perspective has also entered into the realm of putting the "science" in political science. There's no way to scan people's brains the moment they storm the palace. But we can design experiments that observe how people who share insurrectionist views react to hate speech and views that are articulated by politicians on the far right.
When neurologist Giovanna Zamboni and colleagues conducted such an experiment a little over a decade ago, they found that a part of the brain known as the "ventral striatum", which is associated with the limbic system, was activated when individuals who were identified by psychological tests as "radicals" were exposed to hate-speech statements or other intolerant assertions about other groups or minorities.
That ventral striatum was activated is remarkable. This part of the brain is one of the oldest, in evolutionary terms. It is what makes animals respond positively to simple rewards in social situations and to negative stimuli in dangerous moments, such as fear that they might be attacked. The ventral striatum is linked with amygdala, the fight-and-flight centre in the brain. So, when people hear statements about -- or see images of -- groups or individuals that they fear, the brain reacts as if it is attacked.
In another study, from 2011, young people with far-right views showed greater activation of amygdala, indicating that they were less likely to reflect on political statements and more likely to revert to fight-or-flight mode.
Scans show that when people think about politics -- as in the rough and tumble partisan struggle -- the fight-and-flight amygdala gets activated. But when people are exposed to questions about policy, they use the more advanced parts of the brain.
I started out as a biologist before becoming a political scientist. Together, those two different academic fields offer a similar lesson: To prevent rebellions and insurrections, we should avoid angry and polarised debate. And when possible, we should avoid political hot-buttons and instead talk about the policy issues that affect our lives.
Biological research suggests the advantages of such an approach go beyond de-polarising the public square. When we really listen to each other in debates about policy and related politics, we learn new things. And learning new things may make us less likely to develop degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Humans are the product of 8 million years of evolution. Human evolution hardwired us to process information, and make progress, through listening. But when we engage in hate speech and angry rebellion, we revert to an evolutionarily primitive stage.
Neuropolitics shows us a way out of the current polarised debate and into a better future. ©2023 ZÓCALO PUBLIC SQUARE
Matt Qvortrup is a professor of Political Science in Coventry, England. His new book is 'Complementary Democracy: The Art of Deliberative Listening' (De Gruyter, 2022).
