Thursday, June 30, 2011 9:44:31 AM
The Amygdala Strain: Right-Wing Teabaggery as Psychological Pandemic
Symptoms of Amygdala Syndrome
By Brendan Beery
Posted on June 28, 2011
Have you ever heard a teabagger talk and wondered what kind of infection could cause the human brain to suffer so much vascular reason-bleed?
When the debate was raging about whether the feds should rescue the auto industry, afflicted teabagger types argued that President Obama wanted to “bail out” car makers because he wanted to take over Detroit’s decision-making and run the car companies himself.
At the time, I asked myself what kind of grassy knoller could think that Barack Obama ran for President of the United States so he could run car companies. Who would run for an office the attainment of which would render him the most powerful human being on the planet and then, with the world’s most powerful military and a globe full of fans behind him, decide that he’d like to spend his time on Pennsylvania Avenue picking colors for the Ford Focus? This notion is insane.
More recently I was wondering how much differently my brain would have to be wired for me to believe that climate change is a progressive conspiracy the aim of which is to establish global socialist hegemony. The number of implausible clandestine folds in that galactic accordion of intrigue would be staggering—and yet there are tens of millions of stooges who believe it.
Around the time that George W. Bush was appointed president, I began to change my view of Republicanism. Whereas I have never agreed with overarching Republican policy objectives, there was a time when I at least regarded conservatives as serious people with serious arguments they brought to bear.
But it began to occur to me with the ascendency of a barefaced buffoon to the apex of right-wing politics that maybe conservatism was not just a political disposition. And as George W. Bush’s corporate-Jesus coalition evolved into a throng that could call Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann its own, Republicanism completed its transition from political ideology into psychological disorder.
The time has come to put a name to the psychological disorder that manifests in teabaggery and right-wing dogmatism. I’ve come up with a diagnosis that progressives should broadcast liberally and drive home relentlessly; I call it the Amygdala Syndrome, and I will forthwith begin referring to conservatism as such.
A little background is in order. Salon.com [ http://www.salon.com/ ] recently ran a fascinating piece about the human need for answers to the unanswerable [ http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/06/25/fringeology_excerpt/index.html ]. Here is an excerpt:
When our place on the food chain was not so secure, and we had to deal with predator cats on a regular basis, the amygdala—a pair of almond-shaped structures near the base of our temporal lobes—did great work. Our brain processed visual images of a shadow moving in the grass, and our amygdala shouted, “Danger!” In response, we froze. Our more logical information-processing centers kicked in, quickly trying to determine: Is this shadow a crouching tiger or a hidden rabbit? If the shadow was big enough, our logical frontal lobes responded, Close enough to a tiger for me, our amygdala sent a stronger signal of abject fear in return, and we ran.
Millions of years later, Homo sapiens is here—and we brought our amygdalas with us. Some of us, like kids in the inner city, or soldiers in the battle?eld, still need them a lot. … But for most of us, the amygdala … is responding to far less grave mysteries but is still sending us messages of anxiety and fear whenever necessary and much of the time besides, including when the boss says something harsh to us at work, a co-worker cuts us a nasty look, or when we hear an idea that con?icts with our worldview. … Oftentimes our ?rst reaction, even if it is about an intellectual subject, is an emotional one: We react to the ideas we hear with this primitive part of our brain. And when we feel emotionally committed to a position, that is precisely the time we’re in the greatest danger of reacting—not from our frontal lobes, like enlightened human beings, but from our amygdalas, like angry or frightened monkeys. (Emphases added).
Now, take a guess what researchers have discovered about enlarged amygdalas and the link between enlarged amygdalas and a certain political bent. That’s right: researchers have found that conservatives have larger amygdalas than normal people. It’s been reported that [ http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/29/conservative_brains/index.html ]
… research shows that people with conservative tendencies have a larger amygdala and a smaller anterior cingulate than other people. The amygdala—typically thought of as the “primitive brain”—is responsible for reflexive impulses, like fear. The anterior cingulate is thought to be responsible for courage and optimism. This one-two punch could be responsible for many of the anecdotal claims that conservatives “think differently” from others.
Look what happens when symptoms of Amygdala Syndrome (enlarged amygdala and small anterior cingulate) begin to manifest:
Here’s another example:
[If you or someone you know is manifesting symptoms like these, seek IMMEDIATE help!]
But all is not lost. As right-wingers have taught us, any predisposition that is simply hard-wired into one’s brain (like sexual orientation, for example), can be cured on bended knee. So if right-wingers pray hard enough, they should succeed in overcoming their own primitive reflexes and supplanting them with more evolved and sophisticated human behaviors.
Progressives should stop tiptoeing around the issue whether their political nemeses are deranged and just start saying it: right-wingers are sick; they suffer from a diagnosable psychological disorder; and it is called (from now on) the Amygdala Syndrome.
Until we find a vaccine to prevent it or an antidote to cure it, we will have to rely on “shame therapy,” which looks something like this (after clicking the ‘play’ icon, click Watch on Youtube to view video [i.e., gotta click through on this one, just use the link]):
Copyright 2011 Brendan Beery (emphasis in original)
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/the-amygdala-strain-right-wing-teabaggery-as-psychological-pandemic/ [with comments]
---
(items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61907310 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64760780 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63423905 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63560696 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64444198 and preceding and following
Symptoms of Amygdala Syndrome
By Brendan Beery
Posted on June 28, 2011
Have you ever heard a teabagger talk and wondered what kind of infection could cause the human brain to suffer so much vascular reason-bleed?
When the debate was raging about whether the feds should rescue the auto industry, afflicted teabagger types argued that President Obama wanted to “bail out” car makers because he wanted to take over Detroit’s decision-making and run the car companies himself.
At the time, I asked myself what kind of grassy knoller could think that Barack Obama ran for President of the United States so he could run car companies. Who would run for an office the attainment of which would render him the most powerful human being on the planet and then, with the world’s most powerful military and a globe full of fans behind him, decide that he’d like to spend his time on Pennsylvania Avenue picking colors for the Ford Focus? This notion is insane.
More recently I was wondering how much differently my brain would have to be wired for me to believe that climate change is a progressive conspiracy the aim of which is to establish global socialist hegemony. The number of implausible clandestine folds in that galactic accordion of intrigue would be staggering—and yet there are tens of millions of stooges who believe it.
Around the time that George W. Bush was appointed president, I began to change my view of Republicanism. Whereas I have never agreed with overarching Republican policy objectives, there was a time when I at least regarded conservatives as serious people with serious arguments they brought to bear.
But it began to occur to me with the ascendency of a barefaced buffoon to the apex of right-wing politics that maybe conservatism was not just a political disposition. And as George W. Bush’s corporate-Jesus coalition evolved into a throng that could call Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann its own, Republicanism completed its transition from political ideology into psychological disorder.
The time has come to put a name to the psychological disorder that manifests in teabaggery and right-wing dogmatism. I’ve come up with a diagnosis that progressives should broadcast liberally and drive home relentlessly; I call it the Amygdala Syndrome, and I will forthwith begin referring to conservatism as such.
A little background is in order. Salon.com [ http://www.salon.com/ ] recently ran a fascinating piece about the human need for answers to the unanswerable [ http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/06/25/fringeology_excerpt/index.html ]. Here is an excerpt:
When our place on the food chain was not so secure, and we had to deal with predator cats on a regular basis, the amygdala—a pair of almond-shaped structures near the base of our temporal lobes—did great work. Our brain processed visual images of a shadow moving in the grass, and our amygdala shouted, “Danger!” In response, we froze. Our more logical information-processing centers kicked in, quickly trying to determine: Is this shadow a crouching tiger or a hidden rabbit? If the shadow was big enough, our logical frontal lobes responded, Close enough to a tiger for me, our amygdala sent a stronger signal of abject fear in return, and we ran.
Millions of years later, Homo sapiens is here—and we brought our amygdalas with us. Some of us, like kids in the inner city, or soldiers in the battle?eld, still need them a lot. … But for most of us, the amygdala … is responding to far less grave mysteries but is still sending us messages of anxiety and fear whenever necessary and much of the time besides, including when the boss says something harsh to us at work, a co-worker cuts us a nasty look, or when we hear an idea that con?icts with our worldview. … Oftentimes our ?rst reaction, even if it is about an intellectual subject, is an emotional one: We react to the ideas we hear with this primitive part of our brain. And when we feel emotionally committed to a position, that is precisely the time we’re in the greatest danger of reacting—not from our frontal lobes, like enlightened human beings, but from our amygdalas, like angry or frightened monkeys. (Emphases added).
Now, take a guess what researchers have discovered about enlarged amygdalas and the link between enlarged amygdalas and a certain political bent. That’s right: researchers have found that conservatives have larger amygdalas than normal people. It’s been reported that [ http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/29/conservative_brains/index.html ]
… research shows that people with conservative tendencies have a larger amygdala and a smaller anterior cingulate than other people. The amygdala—typically thought of as the “primitive brain”—is responsible for reflexive impulses, like fear. The anterior cingulate is thought to be responsible for courage and optimism. This one-two punch could be responsible for many of the anecdotal claims that conservatives “think differently” from others.
Look what happens when symptoms of Amygdala Syndrome (enlarged amygdala and small anterior cingulate) begin to manifest:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZnPYfpp4gI ]
Here’s another example:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGRKrUHR0OY ]
[If you or someone you know is manifesting symptoms like these, seek IMMEDIATE help!]
But all is not lost. As right-wingers have taught us, any predisposition that is simply hard-wired into one’s brain (like sexual orientation, for example), can be cured on bended knee. So if right-wingers pray hard enough, they should succeed in overcoming their own primitive reflexes and supplanting them with more evolved and sophisticated human behaviors.
Progressives should stop tiptoeing around the issue whether their political nemeses are deranged and just start saying it: right-wingers are sick; they suffer from a diagnosable psychological disorder; and it is called (from now on) the Amygdala Syndrome.
Until we find a vaccine to prevent it or an antidote to cure it, we will have to rely on “shame therapy,” which looks something like this (after clicking the ‘play’ icon, click Watch on Youtube to view video [i.e., gotta click through on this one, just use the link]):
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjF4YjvJLe4 ]
Copyright 2011 Brendan Beery (emphasis in original)
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/the-amygdala-strain-right-wing-teabaggery-as-psychological-pandemic/ [with comments]
---
(items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61907310 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64760780 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63423905 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=63560696 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64444198 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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