Russell Contreras/AP Photo
A poster promoting George Orwell’s novels ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’ is shown at an exhibit in Albuquerque, New Mexico, celebrating the author’s legacy, October 2019
The Open Mind explores the world of ideas across politics, media, science, technology, and the arts. The American Prospect is republishing this edited excerpt.
Alexander Heffner: What would you like to impart to the American people during this election season about our capacity to reason that’s different than other species?
Lisa Feldman Barrett: We have a story that we like to tell: We tell it in the law, we tell it in economics, and it’s embedded in our systems of health: The idea of a brain at war with itself. The common story is that our brains evolved in layers like sedimentary rock. We have an inner lizard, that houses our most base instincts like feeding and fleeing and mating. That was overlaid by a limbic system for emotion and these two systems really make up our kind of inner beast.
Then we have this prodigious big cerebral cortex that is for rationality that controls our inner beast. That rationality, voting for example, should be done rationally, which usually means the absence of emotion. That whole story, which goes back to Plato, is I would say, one of our most cherished myths in Western civilization is completely a myth. Your brain is not a battleground for rationality and emotion.
One way to think about the protests that are occurring is that people are trying to change the nature of our social reality in our country.
In fact, feeling, feeling pleasant, feeling unpleasant, feeling worked up, feeling calm is part of every moment in your life; from the moment you draw your first breath until the moment you draw your last. You can’t be free of feeling ever. Your brain is wired that way. So rationality first of all, is not the absence of feeling, from a neuroscience standpoint. There are certainly lots of examples from real life where feeling can be a source of wisdom. But rationality is not what makes us special in the animal world.
There are a number of other abilities that our brains in conversation with our bodies have that other animals don’t. Rationality is not the big news I would say.
Heffner: What are those distinguishable features that you would say are the ones that are most in need of being illuminated?
Barrett: I would say that one of the essays [in Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain] talks about a number of capabilities that we have and other animals have, but we have them all at the same time. Whereas other animals might have one or two, but we have all of them. What this gives us the capacity to do is create reality. So what do I mean by that? Well, you live in a country that was made up by other people. We draw lines in the sand of the earth and we place the boundary of a country. Because we all agree that that’s where the boundary is, that’s where it is.
We use money, little pieces of paper or plastic, or just electrical signals in a wire, to trade for material goods. Little pieces of paper have value as money because we all agreed that these pieces of paper have value. If we didn’t agree anymore, they wouldn’t. So basically, other animals adapt themselves to their environment. We do that, but we also add to our environment, we have things that are physically real in the world, like walls and gravity and so on.
But then we add to the world by, we impose functions on things that weren’t there before. We all agree that the functions are there and then they are there. For example, the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico, or between the U.S. and Canada exists because everybody agrees that that’s where the boundary is. If some people didn’t agree, that would be a problem, right? Or in 1776, 13 colonies disappeared and the United States, a new country appeared just by collective agreement. The presidency of the United States exists by collective agreement. We all agree that there’s something called a president who has a set of powers that we all agree that the president has. Democracy itself is, is this kind of social reality.
Heffner: What does authoritarianism do to the brain?
Barrett: These are little essays where I’m writing as a neuroscientist about how the brain works. And then occasionally I’m taking off my white lab coat, and I’m basically suggesting to people that there are some really interesting things to think about here. I’m not really telling people what to think. I’m introducing themes to think about. One of the themes to think about is exactly what you suggested.
When we collectively agree on something, we don’t necessarily talk about it, right? I’m not wearing a wedding ring right now, but if I were wearing a wedding ring, I wouldn’t walk up to you and say, Alexander, I’m wearing this ring. Do you agree that that means that I am married? No, we just agree that a ring on a certain finger has a set of meanings. Our actions also sort of serve in the place of agreement.
So if a president, all of a sudden starts doing things that are different than other presidents have done, and the public who elected this president agree that it’s okay, then it is okay, because by definition, the role is defined as a social reality. If the public protests that it’s not okay, then that means that some members of our country, some citizens are withdrawing their consent.
One way to think about the protests that are occurring is that people are trying to change the nature of our social reality in our country. In a totalitarian government, for example, a president might or a leader might stand up and say things; media might record that the leader has said these things. But then maybe the leader denies it and maybe other media outlets agree that he never said it. If the public accepts that and agrees basically with that narrative, they’ve agreed that the social reality is that those words were never uttered. That might sound really kind of crazy to people if they’re not familiar with ideas about social reality.
But most of civilization is rooted in social reality. We have a set of laws and customs and principles that we live by because we all agree that these are the ones to live by. Sometimes those get renegotiated. Usually we’re not thinking to ourselves as we’re protesting, or as we’re writing letters to our members of Congress, or as we’re voting, that we are actively shaping the reality that we live in. We’re not thinking to ourselves that’s really what we’re doing, but, but in fact, we are.
I'll just say one other thing. Social reality is a very powerful, super ability that humans have, but it can’t supersede physical reality, right? You and I could agree that we could walk through walls, but that doesn’t [really] mean that we can walk through walls, right? We could all agree that if we flap our arms really fast, we’ll be able to fly, but that doesn’t actually mean that we’ll be able to fly. We can all say that a virus isn’t really contagious. But that doesn’t actually mean that it’s true? So social reality only works best when you’re aware that you’re doing it and when you don’t violate the principles of physical reality.
