Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part III – Mike Wallace’s Amygdala On Overload

In this segment of our series covering Liberal debate tactics, we will now examine Mike Wallace’s life, to gain some insight into the nature of the shock Colonel Connell delivered in our last installment and examine what effect this shock has upon the Liberal brain.

Thus far, we have maintained that the Liberal brain is unusually vulnerable to specific stimuli presented within the debate environment. Presentation of such stimuli will shock the Liberal brain, most likely by stimulating the Liberal’s amygdala.

MRI analysis indicates that Liberal amygdala development is diminished. This reduces the ability of the structure to handle specific stimuli, and this results in an amygdala which is easily overwhelmed by specific emotional stimuli and less able to route it into productive action instead of panic. As a result, presentation of this stimuli to Liberals in the course of debate has the ability to alter their motivation and their willingness to advocate on behalf of a Liberal position. Indeed, through using these techniques one can make the actual act of advocating on behalf of Liberalism, trigger the amygdala to release aversive stimulus within the brain.

If this is all correct, and a single shock to the amygdala is sufficient to immediately alter behavior, this raises the question, what would happen if an individual experienced repeated shocks, over a longer period of time? What would the effect on the Liberal individual’s brain be? Surely, if these shocks are as strong as we assert, and can affect an individual’s immediate physiology, they would have a longer term effect upon the individual’s brain and psychology.

To examine this, we will look again at Mike Wallace’s own words, using the interviews he has given over the years. We will begin with an excerpt from this one.

CBS Cares : “We’ve read that your first serious depression struck you in the early 1980’s when General Westmoreland, former commander of US forces in Vietnam, sued CBS for $120 million, alleging libel ……… What was it about the lawsuit that caused you to be overwhelmed by a serious depression?”

Mike Wallace : “Well, I had to sit there in that drafty courtroom in Foley Square and the plaintiff put on its case first. So, I had to sit there every day and listen to myself publicly being called, in effect, a liar, a cheat and many other words to attack one’s ethics and self-pride…At first I couldn’t sleep, then I couldn’t eat. I felt hopeless and I just couldn’t cope… and then I just lost all perspective on things. You know, you become crazy.”

Another article on the incident pointed out that Mike Wallace had actually collasped in the middle of the trial, and had to be hospitalized for several days, due directly to these physiological effects.

Now, suppose for a moment, I was going to sue you. And in the trial, my lawyer is going to demonize you. You kill puppies, rape nuns, lie like a rug, and are just an all around scumbag. Would hearing my lawyer saying these things really leave you with a long lasting depression?

In this case, each of these comments by the opposing counsel was perceived by Wallace as a threat of out-grouping, likely to turn the mob upon him. Each one triggered his amygdala, without his conscious awareness or approval. Just as he folded immediately in the face of such threat from Colonel Connell, here, he would have folded immediately, if he could. But due to the structure of the trial process, he was forced to sit in a chair and endure it, day after day. Eventually, his brain gave way. Readers must understand, the Liberal brain functions differently from the Conservative brain. And it is vulnerable to stimuli we barely perceive. This is why they become so shrill if you question their patriotism, or assail their morals or loyalty, or threaten to turn others upon them. They are panicking, and you can use that to demostrate to others how defective they are, as well as train them to not espouse Liberalism in public.

In the case of these debate techniques, we have the power to actually turn the act of advocacy of Liberalism into a trigger which will reflexively make the amygdala create aversive stimulus. This is a neurological weakness Conservatives must exploit.

In another interview here, he referred to what he experienced as “a black hole, a really deep, dark depression,” which he tried to escape through a suicide attempt. In yet another interview he said, “To be called “liar, cheat, fraud,” et cetera, and in a libel case nothing is barred, little by little by little, I found myself getting spacey, and unable to sleep and unable to eat, and I mean really, what in the dickens is going on? … I mean, it really was a tough one. I was copeless; not just hopeless, but copeless. ”

Another article, rehashing a public discussion at the John Hopkins Medical Institutions, stated that for Wallace, “the mental symptoms were even worse than the physical symptoms…and included the inability to concentrate, to remember what he read or to hear what he was being told.”

To gain an idea of just how traumatizing out-grouping is to the Liberal brain relative to other stresses, we will return to the first interview we quoted from.

CBS Cares : Did you ever previously in your life have bouts of depression, maybe not as bad as at the time of Westmoreland, but still bad?

Mike Wallace : No. I mean, I never before experienced that kind of emotional pain, spaciness, the feeling of complete helplessness, loss of perspective, et cetera.

While on vacation in Greece in 1962, decades before Mike Wallace was sued and entered his depression, Mike Wallace’s own son Peter fell off a cliff and was tragically killed at the age of 19. According to another interview in which he described the events, Mr Wallace walked where Peter had gone off to, and personally discovered his son’s dead body at the base of the cliff. He then took part in recovering the dead body, and returning it home. But when asked if anything was as traumatizing as the out-grouping he experienced in the Westmoreland trial, finding his own son’s dead body didn’t even cross his mind. Of course the interviewer was struck by this as well, and Wallace, realizing his mistake in being honest, then attempted to talk the interview away from the subject.

CBS Cares : Do you mind if I ask you a hard question?

Mike Wallace : No, of course not.

CBS Cares : Thanks. If the subject is too hard, please just let me know, and we’ll move to another one immediately. It’s been reported that in 1962, your son Peter fell off a cliff while on vacation in Greece and died at the age of 19. Didn’t that trigger some depression, and how did you cope with a tragedy of that dimension?

MIKE WALLACE: It was of course very, very painful. It also changed my life because it changed my career life. Before Peter’s death, I was doing a variety of things in broadcasting. Not just news, because in those days you could do news, a quiz show and even commercials, and I did all of them. I used to say to myself, “Hey, you can’t afford not to do some of these things in order to support your children.” I had two of my own children then and two step-kids. When Peter was killed, I made up my mind… I was going to quit everything. I had enough money for a year. And it helped me cope by channeling some of this into my career choice: saying to myself “better do just what I want to do” and that meant getting a job exclusively in news.

In other words, Peter’s death led him to realize, he should be saying, “Screw my family – I have dreams.” He then left his wife and remaining children, and headed for New York, to pursue his dreams of being a newsman un fettered. Indeed, such a motivational effect is the exact opposite one would expect from clinical depression, which should have demotivated him. So while his son’s death was undoubtedly traumatic, it’s neurological and physiological effects were nothing like the forced enduring of out-grouping he suffered during the Westmoreland trial. One actually motivated him to take action and get going, while the other left him not only hopeless, but copeless and totally unable to function.

As I said, Liberals are a different animal, and their brains are completely different from the Conservative brain. If you understand how they work, and how to present these subtle stimuli to them, you can traumatize them in casual conversation to the point that they will say or do anything to make you stop. As we hope to show in future posts, these stimuli can be fairly easily distilled down to their essences, and then used to formulate emotional arguments regarding various issue positions, which will alter Liberal brain function, and prevent them from arguing with you further. In many cases, it will even demotivate any future advocacy of Liberalism on the Liberal’s part through an actual neurological modification attaching trauma to advocacy of Liberalism.

So how did Wallace get this screwed up? It’s tough to say, but here are a few brief facts from his childhood.

Mike Wallace has made reference to the fact that he felt unattractive as a child and young man. He was given the derogatory nickname by his contemporaries of “Chinky Wallace” (designed to imply he looked Asian). He also suffered from fairly extreme acne. In one interview he said, “Also, in high school I began to develop acne, and that made life difficult for me and that was an emotional difficulty for me growing up. I think that colored my view of life to some degree back then.”

It is interesting to imagine how a child, perpetually teased by peers, and imbued with a sense of innate inferiority, would grow up to hate, and hold a grudge against, the successful. It is not surprising such an individual would then feel justified competing against them using any underhanded means. Such a child would also likely see depressive neural pathways strongly developed through repetitive use during critical developmental periods in childhood. And such a child would also see pathways laid down attaching being out-grouped with panic, thereby facilitating an amygdala hijack later in life when such stimuli are presented.

Another interesting fact about Mike Wallace. In the previously noted People Interview, it stated, “His mother, Zina, was a dour woman and stern disciplinarian to him and his three siblings. “She didn’t dish out praise. It was always, ‘Myron, you can do better than that,’”

Notice that one of the stimuli which is established as producing a more r-psychology in offspring, according to the body of work arising from Belsky, Steinburg, and Draper’s work, is “maternal harshness.” If you’re a Conservative mom, nurture your children, and be their oasis of approval, safety, and comfort.

So what have we learned? Liberals are fragile creatures. Much more so than their bluster and shrillness would indicate. Indeed, that bluster and shrillness is often the roaring screams of a wounded amygdala, frantically trying to quell any hint of out-grouping, or other amygdala shock before it can savage their neurobiology. The more the Liberal screams, the more you should fortify your position, and press your present course of attack.

But as we will discuss in the next post, this cannot be done in any fashion, willy-nilly. Liberals will derive an unusual sort of strength if you make any of several subtle missteps in your delivery, and these must be avoided at all costs (and it can be difficult, in my experience). You cannot counteract the aversive stimuli you produce within them with any sort of reward stimulus.

Subtle aspects of your frame, demeanor, and attitude can make all the difference in whether your Liberal pansy folds like a cheap chair, for good, or get’s even bolder and more hateful in their cowardly pursuit of oppression and control. The most subtle of behavioral missteps on your part, and Wallace’s collapse can turn into an energized attack.

Next up, Part IV – The Presentation

Touching the Raw Amygdala: An Analysis of Liberal Debate Tactics

Table of Contents

Touching the Raw Amygdala: An Analysis of Liberal Debate Tactics – Preface

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part I – Foundational Understandings

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part II – Mike Wallace Debates a Marine

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part III – Mike Wallace’s Amygdala On Overload

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part IV – The Presentation

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part V – Distilling the Stimuli

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part VI – Additional Stimuli

Touching the Raw Amygdala – Part VII – Amygdala Development and Inducing Maturity