Welcome to The Disgruntled Rationalist

I was raised to be optimistic about humanity, to show respect for others, and to believe in logic and the scientific method as the basis for exploration and discovery. All of those values seem to be under attack. Through this blog, I hope to engage in a broad discussion about why that trend has taken hold.

A predominant root cause likely is fear, but fear of what, exactly? A plethora of answers has been posited: increasing inequality, the spread of opioid use and concomitant overdose deaths, job loss to automation and/or open trade, the rise of China, the decline in a sense of community, the progress made by various groups characterized as The Other, and a whole host of additional concerns. Although humans like to simplify things via categorization, the fact that each of these is true for someone highlights how difficult it is to categorize fear.

As FDR famously said in his first inaugural address, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Part of our brain – the limbic system – exists to trigger emotions, including fear, but humans are able, via our outsized cortex, to analyze whether that evolutionary shortcut is rational or not. We can resist the impulse to lash out or run away and instead choose to connect. Just because we can, however, doesn’t mean that we do.

FDR’s warning is just as appropriate now as it was in the Great Depression, during the lead-up to WWII. It’s as if humanity has decided to boycott the cortex and retreat into the limbic system. Reactionary bullies are hailed for what is perceived as strength while contemplative pundits are pilloried as out-of-touch elites. Careful analysis considers all sides and is ill-suited to soundbites. Or, rather, since all sides ARE considered, soundbites can be lifted without context to anger any group. With people living in their limbic systems, the cortex is essentially muzzled.

How do we remove the muzzle? Unfortunately, I don’t have any bright ideas. I worry that technology has reshaped our brains in ways we don’t understand yet, ways that might make CNN commentator Scottie Nell Hughes’ statement that facts don’t exist anymore a terrifying reality. I worry that the information explosion has irrevocably polarized the population, with the cortex morphed into a slave tasked with settling cognitive dissonance disputes in favor of the primal and unfounded. I worry that the pace of change has already outpaced our ability to adapt and that society will push for a regression in social dialogue to counteract the ever-accelerating pace of technological advancement.

Thankfully, some glimmers of hope sometimes sparkle through the increasingly impenetrable fortress of fear. A recent study by a trio of political scientists demonstrates that, while showing people that their beliefs about immigrants run counter to the facts does not change their preferred policies, it does change their attitudes. In other words, they may still support a border wall, but at least they will no longer believe that immigrants are predominantly criminals. This allows the conversation to enter the realm of rationality. Even if the outcome is identical, the process of getting there has been promoted beyond the limbic system.

In addition, there is evidence that social contact with The Other has the power to shift attitudes. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey illustrated the correlation between counting homosexuals as friends and supporting their right to legally marry. In the Brexit vote last summer, after a campaign that focused almost exclusively on immigration, areas with higher rates of immigration voted to remain in the EU. (Most immigrants to the UK retain the citizenship of their birth country and were therefore ineligible to vote.)

So, the only answer to loosening the limbic fetter on rationality seems to be to keep the dialogue going, to keep attempting to engage and connect. It might seem like trying to communicate with an empty wilderness or, conversely, preaching to a congregation of the already-converted, but the human cortex is what has elevated us for millennia. It is what has driven every bit of progress our species has ever made. Now is not the time to let it atrophy.