a constant approach of popular science these days is to trace all sorts of behaviors, attitudes, decisions, to neurology. now the first thing i would say is that every event or expression of an attitude is connected to a neural event: that is trivial if you're any kind of materialist. but this stuff is by and large amazing crap. try this from the neurologist nicholas kristof, for instance. now the attitudinal distinctions - conservatives don't like dirty faucets, say - are sort of interesting if true. but lighting up cortexes is not interesting, and it also deploys about fifty fallacies. of course it bears not at all on the truth or the effects of beliefs or policies. it vaguely suggests that people are born liberals or conservatives, which just takes a taxonomy of political positions that has existed for two centuries at the outside and tries to make it into some biological condition of mammalian life.

everything is neuroscience these days: the neuroscience of marketing or investing or homo/hetero or...whatever. the problem is that these approaches work backwards from social categories to neurology and enshrine momentary social formations, which are essentially created by power, as inescapable bio-destinies. the entire scientificness of the thing is usually presented in a few phrases - 'medial prefrontal cortex,' say - which function essentially as authorities: they're supposed to show you that you're too ignorant to assess what's being said, to put the actual ethical/political/economic conclusions beyond the realm of disagreement, to flummox you into nodding vaguely along. if you don't, you must be a dolt. they function like phrases from the koran or something. they actually do no work except to assert a kind of prestige.

all the work is done in the initial taxonomy. if people were actually divided into two fundamental kinds - liberal and conservative, say, or boring and interesting - since lucy, then of course there would have to be some underlying biological distinction, which we might work backwards towards. but really we just enshrine whatever little political distinctions we find useful - for example to stigmatize sarah palin or something - and then say: medial prefrontal cortex.

Comments

[adspar]

"the problem is that these approaches work backwards from social categories to neurology..."

i think there's good science being done and to be done by working backwards from social categories to neurology. bio-determinism in regards to human behavior isn't good science, but that is more likely to be found in popular media than the technical literature. so if your beef is with a popular tendency to inappropriately use science to justify whatever bullshit the power centers find useful, often using technical language as a tool of intellectual intimidation, right on. but i think there is reason to suspect that certain patterns of social behavior do have biological bases, and that science can and should investigate that.

"...and enshrine momentary social formations, which are essentially created by power, as inescapable bio-destinies."

are you familiar with frank sulloway's 'born to rebel'? his thesis is that family structure (mostly birth order of siblings) has tremendous influence over individual social-political attitudes, which then provides a very interesting lens through which to view history. there are various reasonable quibbles with some of his approaches, but i think his basic thesis is sound. so yeah, momentary social formations created by power do have a biological basis (in this case i'm including developmental psychological response to one's early life social environment as "biological"). doesn't make those social formations inescapable or morally right of course. and studying that biological basis isn't necessarily a service to power - understanding it can help the fight against it, right?

[borntobewild]

I read that Kristof column as People Magazine slush, but didn't trouble my disgust mechanisms further with it. Shoulda, huh? Thanks for the recent oldtime music stuff.

[marriotr]

I think part of the problem crispy has is with the folks in contemporary analytic philosophy who are using this approach to divine a system of ethics. It's scary stuff when applied.

[Agi]

my brain made me do it

[Philo]

So much goes back to those letters Paul, the patron "St." of conservatives, wrote almost twenty centuries ago on how your flesh is bad stuff and your spirit is good stuff. Conservatives, many of who are waiting for the end-times to come when they will get their new spiritual bodies, still feel that way, while liberals say, hey, this flesh is as good as it ever gets, so lets make do and enjoy it.

[SillyWilly]

WIRED magazine has a good piece about why people stare at the floor in elevators:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ftf-mastripieri/