POLITICS and RELIGION

(Published in the September 2008 edition of the East Bay Psychiatric Newsletter)

A few years ago I took a class taught by fellow psychiatrist Thomas Lewis entitled “The Neurobiology of Emotions.” It was a fascinating look at how biology regulates our feelings. One of Dr. Lewis’s insights was “it doesn’t do any good to discuss politics because people’s positions are usually hard-wired and not subject to revision. Any such discussion will likely lead nowhere.” This advice is similar to the adage: “Discuss politics and religion, but only with great caution.”

Unfortunately, two of the most critical and important issues for people to talk about are politics and religion. These subjects encompass a mass of theory, thought, and understanding about how societies function. But if one cannot alter one’s notions within these two areas of thought, we are doomed simply to follow our hard-wired beliefs over a cliff, regardless of what new facts may arise. For example, history is replete with examples of those willing to kill themselves and others because of fundamentalist political or religious beliefs. Similarly, despite the enormous volume of modern scientific data explaining the mystery of evolution, the religious belief in creationism persists.

According to Jonathan Haidt, we are not a tabula rasa when we are born. Rather we have a “first draft” of moral intuitions already inborn within our minds. For liberal thinkers this means having moral values that relate more so to concern for doing no harm and for fairness. For conservative political thinkers, this means being biologically predisposed to valuing authority, purity, and group loyalty. Liberals value change and different points of view; conservatives prefer sameness and uniformity of thought within the group. While some cultural learning can modify these inherent moral intuitions, most people’s political and moral beliefs are too hard-wired to be easily influenced by facts that don’t support their preconceived views.

When I was actively practicing forensic psychiatry, I discovered that the outcome of a criminal trial was often determined at the time the jury was selected. The reason for this is that if the legal issues are subsequently argued equally forcefully on both sides, jurors will hear enough of an argument to support their inherent biases and vote for conviction or acquittal based of their preconceptions. Their view of right and wrong is something they carry with them into the jury room before the trial starts.

While it is true that educated people can honestly differ in their subjective assessment of the same facts, there is a limit to subjectivity. The gender of a mouse whose external genitalia are not visible might be ambiguous, but the accurate gender cannot be determined by a simple majority vote of casual observers. A scientific inquiry must be undertaken to determine the facts. Believing is one thing but factual data is quite another or we would simply have the “tyranny of the majority.”

It seems that during this current political campaign that people selectively hear what they want to hear. People believe what they believe based on their genetically determined moral intuitions, regardless of the facts. It is the wise man or woman, indeed, who can step out of his intuitive moral framework and see the other person’s point of view as also valid, but in the meantime it would seem important to “discuss politics and religion, but only with great caution.”