Bridging the Divide

Understanding the People on the 'Other Side'

Trauma, Anemone 123 Pixabay Permission Free

(A few of you have read this essay before, but it is no longer on this Substack so I am reposting with a few edits and updates. As always, the links lead you to information you can mine to dig a little deeper. I’m resharing today because think this is a core aspect of what we’re facing in this singular moment.)

Hello, Friend,

If you’ve ever pondered how someone on the ‘other side’ of the political divide can see the world so differently, it’s not an accident of fate. They are wired differently. The area of the brain responsible for regulating emotions and assessing threats, the amygdala, is larger and more active in conservatives. In liberals, the anterior cingulate cortex, the area that detects errors and solves conflicts, is larger and more active. This translates into the way our brains resonate with different kinds of political messaging.

“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

1984, George Orwell

Like all things, there is a spectrum, plenty of nuance, and much yet to be discovered. Generally speaking, conservatives are more responsive to negative, fear based messaging and liberals more responsive to positive, hope based messaging. This explains the very different focus of the campaign messaging of the two main political parties. Conservatives and liberals are both capable of partisan bias, which can lead people to only see and believe the stories that support their political point of view even when presented with facts that tell them a different story. Conservatives are less able/willing to distinguish falsehoods from truths. Liberals are more flexible in their thinking when faced with factual information that counteracts their beliefs. People who are less intolerant of uncertainty are more inclined towards polarization, and this is true for either side of the pendulum. Conservatives prefer nostalgia-based messaging, while liberals prefer forward focused messaging. Conservatives are more likely to embrace the status quo. Liberals are more likely to push for change. Liberals are more analytical in their approach to life, while conservatives are more holistic. With the data mining and microtargeting of our finely tuned media and anti-social media messaging amplifying the siren songs of “the Big Lie” and “The Other” our intrinsic biases can be amplified exponentially.

We are being divided, and it’s purposeful and effective.

“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”

George Orwell, 1984

Genetics make up about half of our political equation, but childhood or other trauma may also play a significant role in our diametrically opposed world views. Trauma creates dramatic shifts in our bodies, down to the cellular level. Our trauma can be passed on to our children genetically. It can rewire our neural pathways and change our physical makeup. Our brains can be altered by these traumatic experiences in ways that bear some pondering in terms of conservative and liberal brains and the rise of autocrats. Specifically, the amygdala responds to trauma with a hyperactive response which can lead to chronic stress. The anterior cingulate cortex can be damaged making emotional regulation more difficult. Neural pathways are altered in survivors of abuse, making their survival response stronger than their cognitive response. To be clear here, trauma and trauma response happens to people across the political spectrum, but different people have different neural responses.

It is interesting to consider neural response when attempting to understand the 31 percent of any population that responds positively to the messaging of autocrats. Is there something about their brains that makes them more vulnerable? They are driven to seek the comfort of belonging and finding a sense of meaning to their lives. They tend to be lower income, limited education, far right leaning conservatives (in fact citizens of lower income countries tend to favor autocrats by larger margins.) They are not inclined to think deeply about plausible solutions to the issues in their society, preferring a ‘strongman’ to make these decisions for them. I believe that people who resonate with the cult leader/autocrat/strongman do so because of a complex set of subconscious neural responses. Cult leaders and autocrats use the trauma responses of their followers to attract and retain their loyalty. They use the same sort of grooming and intimidation tactics of abusers, rapists, and child molesters. Cult leaders and autocrats display traits of pathological narcissism, such as paranoia, mania, and the need for obedience and worship. Note that the autocrat often lacks a clear or consistent political point of view. They are more interested in maintaining the worship of their followers than they are with the logistics and minutiae of running a country. They are driven by a fanatical, obsessive need for attention and adoration. The narcissist is likely also a victim of trauma, abusers learn abusive behavior from the people who raise them. This is how the cycles of abuse are perpetuated.

“Tragedy, he perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there were still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason.”

George Orwell, 1984

How, then, do we counteract our intrinsic biases, our subconscious trauma responses, and our primal brain need for acceptance and connection that can so easily be manipulated to override basic human compassion? This is the million dollar question. Can we deprogram millions of people? Can we find our way to a middle ground and away from the volatile edges? Can we harness the best facets of conservative, centrist, and liberal brains for a common good? How do we circumnavigate data mining, microtargeting, misinformation, AI, and our increasingly fractured media landscape? Can we heal collectively and end generational trauma? Is there a pathway to break the cycles that bring us again and again to the brink of the total destruction fomented by autocrats in their insatiable need for control?

If we are, literally, wired differently, how do we bridge the divide?

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