The Temporal Theory of Political Partisanship

I don’t advocate reasoned debate with Liberals, but it is probably useful to understand how they think at the mechanistic level, so as to be better able to mold strategies to confront and repel their movement. To this end, it is illustrative to examine the neurological differences between Liberals and Conservatives, to see just how they are prioritizing data differently, and how this produces the different motive forces behind these respective ideologies.

As discussed previously, Liberals as a whole tend to exhibit larger Anterior Cingulate Cortexes (ACC), while Conservatives as a whole tend to exhibit larger Amygdalae. In the study of psychopathy it is assumed increased volume of a structure will correlate with increased usage, and therefore functionality, and this would make sense. When you lift weights, your muscles grow to meet the new challenge, and there is widespread evidence of brain modeling in response to cognitive challenge, which similarly alters structural volumes while increasing complexity.

So Liberals are likely exhibiting increased usage and activity of the ACC. What does the ACC do, and when does it light up? The ACC has been called a “Neural Alarm System,” because its activation is associated with that painful cognitive sensation you get when your brain is uncomfortable with some stimulus. Such ACC-activating stimuli, that have been noted in the literature, are social exclusion, physical pain, envy of others with superior amounts of self-relevant resources, or even the detection of an error in some information that you had assumed was correct.

Notice that all of these are “in-the-moment-pain” stimuli. The ACC is an organ designed to guide you towards comfort, and away from discomfort, based on experiences in the moment. In a world of Grasshoppers and Ants, those who rely on their ACC to guide them will be Grasshoppers, worried solely about the moment, and guiding themselves based solely upon stimuli produced by it.

If researchers are correct, and volume is related to usage, one with a larger ACC could be expected to have had a history of experiencing an increased amount of in-the-moment cognitive pain in their history, and they could be expected to focus their attention on such stimuli preferentially, to guide their decisions and actions. It would not surprise me if this creates a feed-forward effect, whereby someone solely focused on such momentary pain (and less prone to endure such immediate pain to diminish pain in the future), would experience even more of such immediate pain in the future. As the grasshoppers worry about avoiding in-the-moment-pain now, they only create even more in-the-moment-pain for themselves later, as the winter approaches.

As a result, that increased ACC usage would increase their ACC’s functionality, producing increased ACC usage in the future. That would heighten their perception of such pain later, increasing their sensitivity to it, making them even less willing to endure it, and even more likely to encounter it again and again in the future.

Again, this is adaptive, in the r/K paradigm. The r-strategy is about exploiting the bloom, without worrying about the future. Eat, sleep, love, avoid conflict, and put as little into raising that kid as you can, all so you can eat, sleep, and love all over again, as soon as possible and as often as possible, again and again.

Now as discussed, Conservative amygdalae are, on the whole, larger than those of their Liberal counterparts. The amygdala is an organ most often associated with the purpose of perceiving, and flagging as relevant, threat cues which indicate that in-the-moment-pain is a future outcome of present, unpainful, conditions. Again, if usage and functionality correlate with volume, as is assumed they do, this would indicate that Conservatives are individuals who have a history of perceiving and focusing upon threat cues indicative of future in-the-moment-pain. In a world of grasshoppers and Ants, the Conservative is the Ant, seeing future adversity, and adjusting their behavior, regardless of present pain, with an eye to avoiding future-pain before it begins.

Again, in the r/K paradigm, K-strategists need to endure hardship to get resources, so we need to be able to prioritize future-pain vs present-pain, and endure hardship in the present to avoid worse hardship in the future – it is what we are designed for. If three of us stumble on a rare piece of food simultaneously, we are going to need to endure temporary discomfort to have a chance at acquiring it, likely in the form of a fight between us. K-strategists don’t pay as much attention to the now, as they do to the future, and if you look at policy inclinations, you will find Conservatives think similarly.

Interestingly, if this is true, one would expect that such Conservative individuals would be more adroit at avoiding future in-the-moment-pain, and thus use their ACC less to generate it, and thus exhibit a smaller ACC volume. Conversely, if Liberal amygdalae are less functional, one would expect them to be less adroit at avoiding future in-the-moment pain. Thus they would use their ACC more under such pain stimuli, and exhibit increased ACC volume from such exercise of the organ, resulting in increased sensitivity to in-the-moment-pain, and less of a tendency to respond to amygdala input calling for more in-the-moment-pain.

This divergence likely represents a developmental knife’s edge, and we are designed to go one way or the other, because nature most often culls for either r or K.

Just like threat stimuli and in-the-moment-pain compete for your attention, the amygdala and the ACC offer competing cognitive forces within the brain, and because of this knife’s edge, one or the other will tend to win out. Use and develop your amygdala, and you will see your ACC atrophy. Answer to your ACC, and you will pay less attention to what the amygdala says, and end up using your ACC much more as your amygdala atrophies, and fails to guide you from that future pain.

In politics, Conservatives and Liberals can’t stand each other. Each acts as if the other is purposely causing them pain, and in reality, each is. Liberal ACCs are repulsed by our willingness to tolerate in-the-moment-pain now, to facilitate reduced in-the-moment-pain later, while Conservative amygdalae are freaked out by the Liberal’s willingness to create potential in-the-moment-pain later, all to reduce in-the-moment-pain now.

Since each of our brains are focused on different types of competing pain, (the temporally near, and the temporally far), each of us not only cognitively deprioritizes the type of pain our opponent is focused upon, we actually increase it, while seeking to diminish the type of pain we are focused upon. As an example, while Liberals try to diminish the immediate economic pain of certain people being in poverty now, they expend resources so profligately that they set the stage for a later economic pain which Conservatives see and find intolerably agonizing. Conversely, as Conservatives try to minimize the threat of a later economic crash that Liberals are oblivious to, they enact austere economic measures now, the immediate pain of which traumatizes Liberals. Whether you look at the gay marriage debate (molify gays now, or protect the next generation of children in traditional families later), national security (avoid war now above all, or fight now to acquire more certain security later), promiscuity and cultural degredation (don’t judge and make feel-bad now, or judge to protect decent civilization later), gun control (ban the bad guns now, or tolerate guns and aggression in the law-abiding citizenry to diminish crime later), national debt, bigger government vs. freedom, or other issues, our battle is almost always that between an ACC-centered focus on the immediate moment vs a forward looking amygdala-focus on the risks and threats of the future.

Clearly partisanship has a neurological basis, and we are both, from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, justified in viewing our opponent as a hurtful enemy, even if an unconsciously malicious one.

I would like to end this post with a magnanimous and hopeful statement indicating that this opens some sort of door to communication between us, and that some day Conservatives and Liberals will hold hands while skipping through a dandelion-filled field, but the reality is, this only reinforces the rabbit/wolf, r/K paradigm. The only way peace could be brought about would be for Conservatives to discover a way to ignore any threat of future consequences, or for Liberals to find a way to diminish the degree to which they are beholden to the pain of the now. (Obviously, only one of those solutions would be amenable to efficiently forestalling a future collapse of our civilization, while the other is a recipe for the end of civilization as we know it.)

Liberals and Conservatives are like two different species with two different, incompatible psychologies, driven to hurt each other, and both competing to fill the same niche in an ecosystem. Even worse, for whatever reasons, we are only becoming more rabbity and wolf-like, as the collapse that we all know is coming, approaches. I fully expect that at some point, these two cognitive models, so increasingly intolerant of each other, and so instinctually quick to ascribe their differences to malice, will end up creating far more turmoil than either would care to experience.

It is unfortunate that Liberals cannot perceive the temporally-far pain they are creating for themselves, but it is fortunate that we wolves are a forward looking bunch, as we head into a particularly selective period where only the forward looking will survive. If you think Liberal ACCs are large now, wait until this all plays out.