Today’s Post
Last week we began looking into the current wave of pessimism that seems to be embedding itself into our social fabric. As Johan Norberg clearly delineates in great detail in his recent book, “Progress”, by almost any measure (and he cites nine distinct ones) we are living in an unprecedented ‘golden age’ of human welfare, but from the incessant negative chatter on Twitter, Facebook and the other faces of social intercourse, the world is increasingly seen to be heading to the dogs and our institutions can no longer be trusted. The recent political trend toward nationalism in the West suggests a similar dissatisfaction with the current state of the state. Does this trend suggest that an inevitable side effect of our collective evolution is the souring of our outlook?
This week we will take a closer look at this phenomenon.
Isn’t This Just More ‘Progressophobia”?
We took a look at the history of pessimism in the West last Fall, citing the historical trends of ‘progressophobia’ as reported by Steven Pinker, and briefly exploring the threads of pessimism woven into Protestant theology and Freudian psychology, but here we’re dealing with something quite different. The pessimism we are now addressing, while containing overtones of the above influences, is much more intimate and prevalent, therefore more difficult to grasp.
Last week we identified an age-old condition of the human psyche, ‘indignation’ as complicit in this trend. But we noticed that there’s nothing new about this mental state, simply a ubiquitous emotion we attach to disapproval of the actions of others, so why would we see this as a factor in today’s trend toward a deeper, more intimate, and potentially more dangerous form of pessimism?
The Amplification and Reinforcement Loop of Social Media
One thing that is clearly different today than in the past is the phenomenon of the internet. Via this new technology, we are not only able to connect with many more other persons, our thoughts and opinions are available to thousands, and their approval, their ‘likes’, are instantly available to us. Thus, social media is not only an amplifier of our opinions, it provides feedback which tends to reinforce them.
Russ Douthat, pundit for the New York Times, notes that in just a few years, the Internet as a new manifestation of our culture has morphed from a “just enough (interconnection) to boost economic productivity, encourage social ferment, challenge cultural gatekeepers, and give lonely teenagers succor” to “an addictive dystopia for everyone.”
Such reinforcement can easily boost our feelings of ‘being correct’, reinforcing our biases and diluting self-criticism. This reinforcement cycle is very effective at supporting a ‘dogmatism’ in which every issue is painted in black and white, and addressed only at the extremes. Indignation therefore works to different degrees, from the logical observation and simple disapproval of actions which we do not approve, to the extreme cited by David Brin, author and social critic:
“.. knowing, with subjective certainty, that you are right and your opponents are deeply, despicably wrong.”
Even the most casual read of current social media shows the prevalence of such extreme thinking. The proof of such a conclusion is only reinforced by the volume of ‘likes’ that flow back in and complete the reinforcement.
It is even clearer in our social and political activity. Opponents are demonized, cataclysmic consequences are predicted from their proposals, pronouncements are structured to insure a maximum of outrage, conspiracies are spun and reinforced, and it is all amplified and reinforced through the power of the internet.
Why Should It Feel So Good to Feel Bad?
There are several studies that can be found on the internet that show the direct relationship between anger, indignation and rage, and the increase in activity of dopamine and other pleasure-inducing ‘messenger’ chemicals in the brain. Several of these studies show that, for those who frequently give in to rage (an extreme form of indignation), “nothing makes them happier than getting angry. Rage can actually feel quite exhilarating.” The pleasurable sensation at work in such feelings is generally ascribed to the effects of dopamine.
The secretion of these drugs is no longer a mystery. It is generally understood that the production of these ‘neurotransmitter’ drugs emanates in the ‘lower’ brains (those formed earlier in evolution), and is therefore common to all vertebrates. Their importance to evolution is also clear: they provide pleasurable feedback to activities essential to survival and therefore continued evolution. While much pleasurable feedback stems from the body itself (sex, eating, etc), dopamine provides pleasure from just thinking about such activity. Since some activity which insures survival requires anger (defensiveness), it is not surprising that anger should activate the production of these neurotransmitters.
Since these ‘messenger chemicals’ are provided to the neocortex brain, the center of objective reasoning, there can be competition between the pleasurable sensation invoked by the neurotransmitters and the objective process of reasoning which tries to establish the appropriate response to the external stimuli which set off the response to begin with.
I may initially respond to a casual comment from a friend with the sensation of anger arising from the vagueness of the comment. “Have I been insulted?” This sensation arrives at the neocortex much quicker than it can process the appropriate response. “What exactly was said? What is he intending? Should I be angry?”
One way to look at the skill of such neocortex activity required for the appropriate response is to recognize that as we grow, the lower brains begin to stimulate our neocortices long before they are mature. The neocortex is generally considered to mature by age twenty, but we are embedded in the often confusing context of families, friends, and schools for most of those twenty years. If our environment is consistently filled with fear, anger and danger, the influence of the ‘lower brains’ on our eventual neocortex skills will be much stronger than if we are more surrounded by affection and safety.
I have suggested several times in this blog that one of the critical skills necessary for our continued personal evolution is that of using our neocortex brains to modulate the stimuli of the lower brains. Here we can see such a process clarified in neurological terms. Other human thinking processes also are clarified as well, such as thinking with both sides of the brain to avoid dualisms, and thinking objectively to avoid egoism. In both cases the neocortex is required to ‘ride herd’ on the stimuli rising from the lower brains in order to manage a perspective which is appropriate to the objective reality which is at the base of the external stimuli.
That said, how can we quantify the ‘evolutionary risk’ of ‘indignation’? What difference does it make if we allow ourselves the pleasure of basking in the glow of our neurotransmitter activity?
The Next Post
This week we took a look at how our instinctive responses to things we disapprove of can be pleasurable, and how there can be a conflict between such ‘knee jerk’ reactions and reactions more appropriate to the external stimuli.
Next week we will look into how this natural and common phenomena can turn into practices which can jeopardize our continuing evolution.