A Scientific Understanding of Human Nature and a Revolution in Political Thought

In Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 analysis of the history of scientific progress, he describes a Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by which science does not progress linearly but is segmented by abrupt upheavals, or what he calls “paradigm shifts”. In the field of scientific psychology, the shift to an increasingly neurocognitive foundation has been described as just such a ‘revolution’. In other words, the study of how we perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems is increasingly focused on the brain itself. Empowered with a variety of sophisticated instruments, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), cognitive psychologists have managed to discover how these activities arise mechanistically from physical structures within the brain.

These activities--perceiving, remembering, thinking, speaking, and solving problems--are all central to politics. Accordingly, interest in their neurocognitive bases is growing within some circles of political science. Yet as a whole, the field remains reticent toward, or even dismissive, of materialist perspectives on the mind. Skepticism at new, “revolutionary” ideas is a healthy scientific practice. However, this idea is not new in the slightest. In 1754, the Enlightenment-era luminary Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed, “Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; it even combines those ideas in a certain degree; and it is only in degree that man differs, in this respect, from the brute....[P]hysics may explain, in some measure, the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; ...”. Unfortunately, this insight was lost from the canon of modern political philosophy, which has clung more tightly to the caveat that followed. Rousseau continued, “...but in the power of willing or rather of choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing [in the mind] is to be found but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the laws of mechanism.”

In his private notes, the great naturalist Charles Darwin asserted, “Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.” For a variety of reasons--cultural, historical, and religious--Western culture has shirked conclusions which compromise a deeply held faith in the dualist separation of mind from body. This distinction defines who we are, as divine, spiritual beings only temporarily inhabiting a physical form. Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 asserts, “[T]he Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ and man became a living soul.” Whether the motivation was to preserve the sanctity of an idea which stands at the foundation of the Christian faith, or just plain pride, Western culture--political scientists included--has remained stubborn in the face of virtually any evidence to the contrary.

An exhaustive, exegetic study of origins and tenacity of dualism in Western culture is beyond the scope of this essay. However, I felt it necessary to provide some contextual background to a belief that, to this day, has real and practical implications for both politics and the study of politics. As a practical matter, ideas about human nature are a fundamental prerequisite to any further thinking on governance. Insofar as government is the systematic organization of human potential for a common purpose, governmental systems must rely on some assumptions of the characteristics of human beings. Just as an engineer could not build an engine without ideas about how gases, liquids, and metals behave, theorists of government must rely on comparable knowledge of what makes humans tick--how humans perceive the world, their motivations, how they reach judgements, and how their motivations can be manipulated to influence their judgment to behave like good citizens. Thus, the forms of government that we create are a function of our beliefs about human nature. If you share Hobbes’ view that the pains of privation, jealously and fear ensnare human beings in a desperate, frenzied quest for wealth and power, then your cold realism will find reason the doctrines of conservatism. Alternatively, if you believe like Rousseau that humans are inherently good--that they are noble in their innocence, and learn corruption only reluctantly to survive under the oppressive inequality of an unjust civilization--then you may find hope in the liberal creed that when societies are re-engineered to maximize justice, perpetual peace will follow.

The modern governments of today are the product of Enlightenment ideas about human nature. Constitutional democracy and capitalism, as the hallmarks of political modernity, are built upon the assumption that individuals are endlessly motivated by insatiable material desires. Like wise engineers, Enlightenment luminaries recognized the energy potential of greed as a fuel to drive the engines of society. In the 1987 film Wall Street, the ruthless corporate raider cum anti-hero Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) gave a stirring appeal to this principle. Before the indignant board of directors of his latest acquisition, Gekko stridently observed the righteousness of his hostile take-over, “

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

The remarkable expansion of human civilization since the dawn of the Enlightenment era is a testament to the brilliance of its luminaries' insight into human nature. It may then be all too easy treat these men as prophets, not men—albeit great ones—of their times. However brilliant, these insights were reached in times still ignorant of the innumerable scientific discoveries the political systems they designed would help to bring about. Among these discoveries, are a preponderance of data showing that the mind is exclusively the emergent property of an immensely complex physical organ, the human brain, a biological machine custom-crafted for specialized adaptive functions over eons by the forces of natural selection. Today, cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists are uncovering and deciphering its blueprints. In some cases, scientists are harnessing these blueprints to build artificial minds.

Yet as these new fields continue to produce new insights into human nature, political thought, particularly in the arenas of public policy and institutional theory, have not advanced. This, I argue, is a dangerous situation. Akin to the challenge of global warming, we will not be afforded the luxury of ignoring the inconvenient truths that rub against our fragile, cultural sensibilities. This knowledge exists, and knowledge is power—perhaps never so literally as in this case. If political systems do not rely on the best knowledge of human nature to generate positive social utility, individuals may rely on that knowledge to exploit the system, generating socially negative, privately positive utility.

This is already happening. Amidst the cacophonous raucous of modern telecommunications, savvy political and economic actors are engaged in an all out war for the mind of voters and consumers. In their arsenals are powerful, multi-media tools capable of manipulating psycho-emotional systems adapted by evolution in order to cope with very different threats. For example, political campaign advertisements exploit the associative, stimulus-respondent nature of memory with the presentation of symbols that “prime” viewers in ways to render viewers more supple to their persuasion and resistant to that of their competitors. Through repetition, it is possible to create associations between juxtaposed objects that will permanently bias thinking and reasoning processes, confounding them together with instinctual behavioral mechanisms. For example, in an advertisement targeting evangelical Christians, the subtle presentation of a crucifix between the lines of a bookcase behind the candidate may serve to affix the sense of a shared group identity. Alternatively, the presentation of a competitor juxtaposed with symbols of threats to that group identity (e.g., images of Osama bin Ladin and a collapsing World Trade Center) may affix an association of the competitor with a hostile outgroup. Direct physiological measurements of stress can confirm that in former case remain calm, relaxed, indicating a sense of security, while in the latter case viewers may exhibit symptoms of stress, such as accelerated heart rate, sweaty palms, and stress hormone levels. These measurements suggest the activation of instinctual fight-or-flight mechanisms, which in laboratory settings can be shown to induce psychotropic effects making subjects that impair faculties for critical reasoning and judgment.

What does all this portend for political science? First, the above reasoning draws into sharp relief the imperative for political psychologists to more proactively engage in the normative discourse. The nature of our subject matter does not afford us the luxury of scientific dispassion. Our findings have real implications for the lives of people and society. If we do not lead the way to more enlightened forms of government, then all we are doing is showing electioneers how to “hack” the political system by exploiting neurocognitive vulnerabilities in human beings. Secondly, the new science of human nature must be incorporated into the field of political science at foundational level; i.e., as a prerequisite to upper division coursework in an undergraduate political science major.

It is not uncommon to hear a young student in the zoological sciences grumble over having to take organic chemistry, lamenting what an excruciating exercise in futility it is to learn skills they are unlikely ever to use. Yet organic chemistry is the basis of life, and thus defines the basis of the life sciences at all levels of analysis. Indeed, zoologists may not do o-chem as part of their daily routine, but as they advance in their careers they frequently come to appreciate its importance, and show gratitude to the professors who forced them to learn it by forcing their students to do the same. Like organic chemistry in the context of a biology degree, I emphasize that a modern, scientific understanding of human nature must come early on in a political science student's career, before he is compelled to choose one of the fields myriad sub-fields. Just as organic chemistry is the basis of life, neurocognitive psychology is the basis of behavior, of which politics is a subset.

While such knowledge is unlikely to become part of the daily lexicon of pubic policy practitioners and the policy makers, familiarity with the neurocognitive basis of politics will be increasingly necessary to understand large scale movements in the electorate, as savvier entities reshape it in accordance to their own designs. The political polarization we observe today may be just such an effect. Further, it is crucial that the scientific revolution in human nature reach the realm of political theory. As the age the Enlightenment gave birth to nears its final days, we will all be relying upon a new generation of theorists to design the political systems that will carry us through to the next. To the degree that we fear such a project would compromise our scientific integrity, failing to make this effort would violate our integrity as educators.