Archive for the ‘Andrew Breitbart’ tag
The Sherrod Fiasco and the Triune Brain
According to Triune brain theory, our brains have three parts, the primative reptilian brain, which we share with snakes and lizards, the mammalian brain that we share with dogs, horses, and other mammals that display moods and feelings, and the neocortex, where intelligence and language are centered.
The reptilian brain is the center of strong, primitive “gut level” survival concerns (emphasis added): “just the basics: hunger, temperature control, fight-or-flight fear responses, defending territory, keeping safe – that kind of thing.”
The reptilian brain is often the target when someone wants to sell us something or present a political viewpoint. Whenever the race card is used by political operatives, the reptilian brain is the target.
This past week, the big Tea Party blog Biggovernment.com‘s Andrew Breitbart and Fox News caused a fiasco by playing a small portion of a tape where USDA official Shirley Sherrod described her own journey of racial reconciliation. The portion ripped from its all-important context had Sherrod talking about the time when her attitudes toward white farmers were less than charitable. Her father had been murdered and no one was ever tried for the crime.
The video presented by Breitbart was hot stuff, dominating the week’s news. I believe it grabbed so much attention because it was aimed strait at the reptilian brain. The Tea Party and others, like Karl Rove and Fox News President Roger Ailes are masters at pitching to the lowest common denominator. Here’s an anonymous lobbyist writing about his work for the Tea Party:
We’re playing to the reptilian brain rather than the logic centers, so we look for key words and images to leverage the intense rage and anxiety of white working-class conservatives. In other words, I talk to the same part of your brain that causes road rage. Ross Perot’s big mistake was his failure to connect his pie charts with the primordial brain. Two years after Perot’s first White House run the GOP figured this out, and thus was born the “angry white man” and with him a 54-seat swing in the House of Representatives.
Short term, I think Breitbart and Fox News win with the Sherrod fiasco. Even though it’s now clear that the edited video was a trick and low-rent propaganda, politics is like a street fight. The guy who lands the first punch usually wins – but not always.
The antidote to this kind of dummed-down reptilian brain national discourse is patience, thoughtfulness, and a citizen ethos that compels all of us to make an effort to understand the facts, not just react to alarm bells.
