The Democracy Covenant

THE
DEMOCRACY COVENANT

A Timeless Dream, A Promise Broken:
Democracy’s Travail

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Amygdala Hypothesis

CHAPTER ONE

Democracy's Promise.....................page 1

CHAPTER TWO

Amygdala: A Heritage of Fear.......page 56

Epilogue.........................................page 83

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CHAPTER ONE

DEMOCRACY'S PROMISE

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The first sentence, second paragraph, of America's Declaration of Independence proclaims three principles upon which American democracy is founded: that all persons are created equal; that every person is entitled to certain unalienable rights; that government is instituted to secure those rights. These are the indispensable principles of legitimate government, and the core of the American promise... a promise unfulfilled--the historical longing for human equality betrayed yet again by the unyielding demand of the selfish brain for power and privilege over others. The self-evident truths, "created equal" and "right to life" imply an unalienable right to a life of fundamental equality.

"Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it." (Abraham Lincoln, Oct. 16, 1854).

American democracy has not secured the unalienable rights of life; it has added civil laws to Hobbes’ jungle--"a condition of war of everyone against everyone"--seeking to protect the unequal results of competition for social dominance against violent redress; giving avarice the legitimacy and "freedom" to achieve private economic wealth, and thereby the political power to control democratic government, preventing remediation of the unfulfilled promise--as if social inequality is good and justified because it results from free, non-violent competition. Capitalist democracy achieves outcomes that violate the declared principles of popular democracy--"of, by, and for, the people."--by permitting private power achieved through financial wealth to eclipse the democratic power of the sovereign people. America is not a people's democracy because America is not a people's economy.

"Oligarchy is when men of property have the government in their hands." (Aristotle: Ethics, Book 3, Part 8).

The term "liberal democracy" is immensely misleading: Historically, it refers to Classical liberal democracy--the unregulated free-market economy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. The word "liberal" as understood politically--and morally--implies equality and justice, and the regulation of classical liberal economic "freedom" to achieve politically liberal outcomes--a democracy of justice and equality for all. Thus the freedom of liberal economics (neoliberalism, capitalism) is antithetical to the freedom of liberal politics (democracy). The former uses freedom to achieve class inequality; the latter promises democratic equality.

A competitive social system does not sufficiently tame the pre-government struggle for survival to provide neurological security to the developing brain, resulting in harmful emotional and cognitive impacts upon brain structure and function, expressed in political and cultural beliefs and behaviors that produce division and discord. Competition rather than cooperation for the well-being and security of life is confining mankind to its primal fears--we hesitate to cooperate because we are too afraid to trust, so we remain mired in competition and conflict.

The first imperative for all living things is survival. The second imperative for intelligent life is truth about the environment in which it is struggling to survive--successful adaptation requires knowledge of what is true of the physical and social habitat. The third imperative is brain plasticity, being able to learn and thus knowingly and willingly adapt--the neural flexibility to modify formerly conditioned belief and behavior based on new information.

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The following hypothesis offers a cause for the failed promise: the fearful brain--a brain whose early development is dominated by the emotions of primal fear tends not to acquire an evolved sensibility for moral and democratic principles. It will be a brain of intensified self-interest and undeveloped empathy and compassion for others, employing behavior strategies for social advantage in opposition to "all men are created equal." We will explore the *neuropsychology of this brain, and the implications of "Life" and "Liberty," the pillars of the promise. THE QUESTION: If all persons are "created equal," by what right or necessity, and for whose benefit, are they made unequal in society... by what right is Nature's provision to all, ceded preferentially to a few?

*(Neuropsychology: the relationship of belief and behavior to brain structure and function. The brain is a biological machine analogous to any machine, its optimal performance and behavioral product depend on all parts--brain regions--working properly in relation to each other. It is proposed here that a hyper-reactive amygdala impacts the early brain with excessive fear emotions that suppress the development of moral sentiments and cognitive independence, resulting in a brain whose cognitive faculty serves primal emotions [Freud's id] by rationalizing justifications and expedient strategies for selfish behavior--persistent patterns of deceit and hypocrisy--rather than providing reasoned restraint and guidance based on truth and ethical principles [superego].)

Opposition to human equality results from this failure of the brain's cognitive faculty to develop morally informed moderation of a hyper-reactive amygdala's fear generated behavior--xenophobia, greed and aggression. It is a brain that remains oriented to primal responses whose exaggerated assessment of threat in the environment results in a wariness and mistrust and selfishness that incites what it forebodes--interminable human conflict. In the absence of pro-social, empathetic neural functionality to moderate fear-based emotions, both threat avoidance and pleasure seeking become highly egocentric, pursuing dominant and exploitative rather than egalitarian relationship to others. Fear seeks the power to be fearless, vulnerability the power to be invulnerable, and selfish desires the power to assure gratification.

Evolution has selected both selfish and benevolent traits; both have aided human survival. Primal fear is initially selfish; it is the brain's instinctual reflex to the perception of imminent danger in the environment; the individual is instantly prepared to run or fight to defend his survival. As individuals learned there was greater safety in groups, sociable and cooperative traits were selected. And that has, ironically, created a primary threat to survival--the more primitive, lingering emotions of the fearful brain are in political conflict with the evolved emotions of sympathy with others; the individual's selfish pursuit of social superiority as an escape from primal fear, disregards the rights of others--the desire for advantage and superiority denies The Declaration's assertion of created equal--and the mutual benefits and obligations of cooperative community. The individual interest versus the common interest is man's ongoing predicament; he is trapped on a selfish-selfless spectrum, and mired in the politics of antagonism between the humanitarian principles of democracy, and the selfish brain's authoritarian pursuit of dominance. A government of the people cannot be for the people when the people are not for each other.

"Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected." (Charles Darwin, The Descent Of Man, 1871).

Genetic inheritance, quality of parenting, personal experiences, education, intensity of sectarian indoctrination (belief and ideology); and critically, the emotional security and affection of the birth environment, determine the environmental conditions that will form the developing brain:

"The human genome containing around 20,000...genes can provide the basic blueprint for brain development, but training and experiences in the early years from infancy through childhood are crucially important in sculpting brain development and function...prosocial behavior is displayed by most infants and preschool children...societies that tend to focus on individual achievement and "success" result in children that are less prosocial and that exhibit fewer altruistic tendencies... Culture has more than one order of magnitude greater influence than genes on altruism and prosocial behavior."

(Front. Psychology, 2018; 9: 575.)

It is difficult to gain the moral sensibilities we leave childhood without. Genetic inheritance and early experience impose a brain structure and function that will determine what we believe and how we behave, and it is not easily reversed--for the survival imperative requires the brain to learn about and adapt to the environment, to become what we must to survive.

Childhood is a process of learning, of finding one's way to live successfully in the social environment in which one has been placed. Once success is comfortably achieved--and for many it is never--the brain becomes dependent, to a greater or lesser degree, on the maintenance of that environment... hence, one's personal politics--liberal openness and desire for change and improvements suggests less dependency on existing conditions, and a moral sensibility for their inadequacy. The conservative reaction to the liberal's pursuit of improvements implies a deep primal sense of threat to his protective environment. Political and violent conflicts are between the defense of what is, and the demand for what should be.

Even 2000 years of Christianity, which professes to teach love, forgiveness, mercy, and kindness to strangers--and gives warnings to sinners of eternal punishment--has not moderated sufficiently the fear emotions that breed conflict and mayhem, and disposition to the deadly sins--despite the promise of eternal salvation--to achieve "peace on earth, and goodwill toward men."

Neoliberalism's free-market ideology makes the security of life a private rather than common enterprise; and its reward in wealth and power for competitive success systematically reinforces the aggressively selfish brain and disadvantages the less aggressive, prosocial brain. Left unregulated, neoliberalism produces social and political inequality, thereby undermining the principles and promises of democracy. Neoliberalism does not secure equal rights for all ("government is instituted to secure these rights"), it gives freedom for the individual's disregard of equal rights. A culture that induces selfish behavior through economic competition for wealth and power--or mere survival--is a progenitor of sociopathy; it does not select virtue, it selects the compromises of virtue that achieve advantage... the tools of "success." The neoliberal embrace of unregulated economic activity gives leeway to the corruptibility of fear-based self-interest--the neurological absence of an ethical conscience. F. A. Hayek's famed "spontaneous order" rationalization of neoliberal economics is a scramble of greed and deception where all the cardinal vices are given freedom alongside the virtues of innocence and good faith, resulting in a social hierarchy replete at the top with diminished human character. Neoliberalism is the practice that repeals democracy's promise.

Evolution's defect is the hyper-reactive amygdala--a descendant of hominid prey animals living in trees to avoid predators--driving a selfish, xenophobic and competitive individualism that seeks the power to dominate its fears, obstructing the realization of a benevolent community. There is perhaps a no more vicious creature than a former prey animal that gains the power to become the apex predator; an evolutionary victim of predation with the power--and pleasure--to lay vengeance upon its fears.

Evolution may have given the primal brain too much intelligence too rapidly: the ability to discover and conceive, and accumulate knowledge of the environment, provides an opportunity for improvement and change that the primal brain's fear cannot accept. But if fear could enlist the complicity of that evolving intelligence, it could not only fight or flee more successfully, it would be able to strategize for political control of the community.

Thus humanity's fate lies in whether intelligence embraces morality and moderates the amygdala's fear to find human kinship, or conspires with fear to insist on the continuance of selfishness, sin, corruptibility, and partisan warfare.

“The more recently evolved components of the nervous system depend on the function of more ancient systems. Neocortical structures are in general subservient to systems necessary for survival. More primitive systems and behaviors, including those associated with fear and anxiety, may inhibit positive social behaviors and cognitive strategies.” (NIMH: Social Neuroscience and Behavior: From Basic to Clinical Science, 4/14/2006) (The original source of this quotation is apparently no longer available. The quote remains pertinent).

The basic point of this hypothesis is that the "evolved" regions of the human brain remain largely subservient to the primitive regions for a great part of humanity. We are in an evolutionary moment of struggle between the persisting sins of fear (id) and the aspiring virtues of reason (superego), displayed in the ideology and politics of Right and Left--the brain in servitude to primal fears opposing the brain evolving toward principle and reason. There is in this moment a great need for an accelerated natural selection of reason.

We experience the world emotionally before we understand it rationally; excessive fear emotions, reinforced through prejudiced cultural indoctrination, shape childhood brain development toward fear-driven responses to sensory experiences perceived as threatening, precluding the development of a moral and altruistic and reasoned response to experience. The beliefs and behaviors that appease the emotions of fear are overly compelling, and thus too often preclude the understandings that derive from principles and reason; objective facts give way to beliefs and opinions that mollify alarmed emotions--when truth threatens, the untruth becomes salvation.

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The words of The Declaration make it clear that America was founded on political principles, not an economic design rewarding behavior that subverts those principles; subordinating the democratic principle of equality to an economic system based on an opportunity to achieve inequality; making "freedom" the enemy of "created equal." To embrace a principle and ignore or evade or impede its evident implications is to betray that principle:

"Forms grow out of principles, and operate to continue the principles they grow from...wherever the forms in any government are bad, it is a certain indication that the principles are bad also." (Thomas Paine, Rights of Man).

The American government is bound by a founding covenant to institute the social forms that "secure these rights." From the laws of Nature--the biological and environmental facts of life's emergence--derive the "unalienable Rights" of Life (yet to be fully deduced); and then also the civil laws and social institutions that serve and secure those rights; from Natural Law follows Natural Community. And, therefore, any civil laws and institutions that abridge the common rights of life are a betrayal of the laws of nature and the democratic covenant.

All democratic governments derive authority from the sovereign people for the purpose of securing their lives and liberties against unjust encroachments. The authority of democratic government is a conditional and amendable convention, established among equal individuals by mutual consent for their mutual protection and benefit. The government satisfies its trust only as its laws and policies realize the principles upon which the government is founded. Inequality is not an acceptable outcome of mutual consent and benefit.

"Liberty" is herein defined as the protection of individual rights, natural and civil, against the actions of government, the will of a political majority, and the actions of private individuals and organizations. Liberty is not about what the individual is free to do, it is about the protection of the individual's rights from the actions of others; government secures the equal rights of each person by prohibiting the infringing actions of others... the liberty of each is prior to the freedom of all. The ideal of freedom as the latitude for individuals to enjoy and direct their lives as they desire--the "pursuit of happiness"--does not extend to a right to disregard or subordinate the rights of other individuals, or to acquire the private wealth and power to control a democratic government, or a right of freedom from regulation for democratic purposes by that government. What each person is due by natural right and equal creation has precedence over what any other person may achieve in the name of personal freedom to pursue happiness.

Happiness is a subjective state of mind--and sometimes a psychologically deranged state of mind--that cannot be guaranteed satisfaction; self-satisfaction can never be rightly pursued in a manner, or toward ends that impose inequality or harm on the life and liberty of others. In a democracy, there is no right to an individual pursuit of happiness that is injurious to the common good; the outcome of private actions must not violate the principle of equal rights.

"Neoliberalism" is a denial of this principle--it rejects economic security for all, embracing the rightness of human inequality and social hierarchy; achieved through a competitive system that allows, and presumes to justify, the "freedom" to gain economic advantage; and thereby, the wealth and power to avert democratic equality. The primary assertion underlying unregulated private enterprise is: all unequal outcomes are acceptable because they result from individual freedom. It is notable in American politics that neoliberals rail against proposals for governmental regulation of the private economy for the common good, but not against lobbying for government policies that protect and further the powers and advantages of private interests.

Neoliberalism is a 20th century reassertion of Adam Smith's 18th century laissez faire classical liberalism. It is a reaction of the selfish brain to democratic government's attempt "to secure these rights" for all by limiting inequality through regulatory interventions into the private economy. Neoliberalism frees the selfish personality from obligation to democratic equality. The sin of selfishness is the presumption of superiority; the sin of those who abide the presumption is failure to defend the principles of democracy. The elites provide the spectacle of "success;" the multitude provide the admiration and worship of celebrity... to their own disadvantage.

"...and the wondering cheated multitude worshipped the invention." (Thomas Paine, Rights of Man).

In a democracy there are no social outcomes that are beyond the jurisdiction of the common good; individual freedom is not an immunity from obligation to the founding covenant; the principle of equality does not mean equal opportunity to become unequal.
Freedom--"the pursuit of happiness"--is a natural right to the extent its consequences are consistent with the fulfillment of the promise of democratic equality. As such, the pursuit of happiness is a natural, but not an unalienable right. A degree of personal freedom is one among the several rights that constitute liberty: first is the equal right to life, then the equal protection (liberty) of the natural rights of life, then the right to a freedom of individual action that conforms to the equal rights of others. Freedom can harm; liberty protects against the freedoms that harm (inciteful and disinforming speech, subversive wealth and power). The claim of freedom must always be questioned: whose freedom; freedom to do what; and what is the likely outcome of that freedom on the rights of others? Neoliberalism is loaded with systemic allowances--legal pathways and practices, and corporate structures--that facilitate and obscure the corruption of democratic principles... the laws and institutions that encourage and advance human inequality; and protect against accountability and remediation.

Equality is the first declared self-evident truth, it must therefore be presumed to permeate the Constitution as a founding imperative, even where not explicit; thus any legislative enactment or judicial interpretation that permits the unequal representation or unequal protection of any individual or group of individuals is a violation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence... the founding proclamation of national purpose for securing the natural and equal rights of every citizen. There can be no right, ostensibly justified by a first principle that is exercised in a manner that contradicts the principle; there is no democratic right or freedom to undermine democracy. Any judicial decision that upholds a state of unequal representation or unequal protection is on its face unconstitutional.

"The pursuit of happiness" is not a license to establish individual or class inequality; individual ambitions do not supersede democratic principles. The highest human good is the well-being of every individual, not the unequal privilege of a few. A child confined to poverty has more natural right to a better life than the already privileged have to perpetuated or increased overabundance; a society that is willing to abide the hardship of many for the luxury of a few is neither a good nor a democratic society.

To publicly uphold the ideal of equality, and privately practice the pursuit of inequality, is to hide a malevolent purpose with a false pretense... a common posture among those who only pretend to democratic values. The selfish brain, devoid of guiding values and principles, is ever striving to circumvent democracy; it is the fear-formed brain needing dominance for safety.

The necessary conditions of a consensual society are mutual security, mutual benefit, and equality in the essential elements of life's preservation and development. When mutuality and equity are breached consent and legitimacy are forfeited. The highest law in a democracy is not the authority of government; it is the authority of the collection of sovereign individuals acting under, and subservient to, the procedures and principles of democracy, restrained by the rights of minorities.

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." (Declaration of Independence, 1776).

The critical distinction between freedom and liberty is a primary premise to this argument: the synonymous use of the terms has allowed an exaggerated focus on individual freedom over the security of equal rights for all, serving an ideological intent to obscure the rightful limitations on individual freedom.

"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing...The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty...Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty...Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty..." (Abraham Lincoln, Baltimore, April 18, 1864).

Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek, in his book, The Constitution of Liberty, 1960, quotes the above passage from President Lincoln. Then he writes:

"We are concerned in this book with that condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society. This state we shall describe throughout as a state of liberty or freedom. These two words have also been used to describe many other good things in life. It would therefore not be very profitable to start by asking what they really mean." (Part 1, Chap, 1).

Then in a note to this passage Hayek writes:

"There does not seem to exist any accepted distinction in meaning between the words 'freedom' and 'liberty,' and we shall use them interchangeably." (ibid.)

So Hayek will write a book employing two of the most important concepts in political philosophy without "asking what they really mean." And since there is no accepted distinction in their meaning, he will continue the confusion. Would not a Nobel Prize winner in economics have sought to define his most cherished terms, and propose a meaningful distinction, at least for the sake of better clarity to his own argument? Hayek quoted Lincoln's passage, so he was cognizant of the distinction. Was there purpose to the synonymous use? Why would it not be "profitable" to make the distinction? Was there profit in the non-distinction?

Without ascribing motive to Hayek, the confusion allows for an emphasis on freedom while obscuring the priority of liberty; that liberty is constituted of those rights, civil and natural, which are guaranteed to all members of a community, and which cannot be rightfully abridged by anyone's freedom to do as they want, whether it be a government or other individuals. Clearly, the consequence of obscuring liberty is to conceal the role of government in securing equal rights; government can then be attacked as the enemy of freedom ("Government is the problem"). Without government regulation, the freedom of the wolf prevails--the cherished desire of the selfish brain. The perpetrators of injustice want freedom; the innocent want liberty. A distinction is not profitable when it removes the opportunities provided by confusion.

Mr. Lincoln was right, freedom and liberty "are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name." But Hayek will "use them interchangeably."

(I cannot refrain from noting that Hayek, in the postscript to "Why I am not a conservative," was concerned to distinguish his views on "liberty" from American conservatism. He writes: "There is danger in the confused condition...It is therefore important to distinguish clearly the position taken here from that which has long been known...as conservatism." Sometimes, I guess, distinctions are profitable--as when the intent is to reveal rather than conceal).

From the beginning of the classical liberal argument for economic freedom (Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, 1776), there was a conflict between freedom and liberty--if freedom to achieve economic and social inequality was to be justified, it would require the obfuscation of liberty as the protection of an equal right to the fruits of nature... thus the assumption: if freedom is good and inequality is a consequence, then inequality is good... the means justifies the end. The right to fundamental equality in the circumstances of life is removed by making liberty just another word for freedom... a thing without a name disappears.

The emerging commercial class of Adam Smith's time was not concerned with protections for the natural rights of serfs. And so equality of rights was obscured by equality of "opportunity"... a chance to compete for equal rights, which meant exposure to the loss of equal rights... opportunity removes the right to equality. Had liberty as the protection of equal rights been a distinct notion its violation would have been evident... and an unacceptable consequence invalidates the cause--opportunity that created inequality would be delegitimized. So Adam Smith introduced a conjecture disguised as an assurance: that an "invisible hand" and "unintended consequences" would minimize the violations of equality that the advocates of economic freedom intended. The declaration of "created equal" is not about opportunity, but equity in economic outcome and civil status.

Any system or operation or function that relies on unintended consequences for an acceptable outcome is inherently deceitful; and persists only through behavioral inertia and general moral vacuity, and the special interests of its agents.

The threat to everyone's liberty and equality is the selfish assumption of individuals to an unregulated freedom to gain wealth and power over others. Liberty, as here understood, is the right not to be subjected to the predatory desire of the selfish brain for social dominance. Justice is the prevention of undemocratic dominance, not an equal opportunity to achieve it. The hope for democratic equality has fallen to a wealth aristocracy because avarice was "free" to achieve it. The whole of human political history is a story of liberty fighting against the freedom of selfish ambitions to achieve anti-democratic ends. In the absence of liberty, freedom means little more than an unhindered struggle to survive... the freedom of gladiators.

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Government does not create natural rights; government is created by people with natural rights who wish to have their rights secured.

Natural rights derive from the facts of biological creation--life's emergence, and nature's provision of the material conditions for survival... allowing for the evolution of life's innate possibilities. All beings created in nature are naturally free and rightfully entitled to access the natural materials and conditions which support their continuing to exist... none being created with a greater natural right to sustenance than another. Natural entitlement is the basis of natural rights. What is due by natural right is "unalienable" and not subject to loss by the actions of others; the tree that nature grows makes fruit for all, and not for anyone to gain power over others by exclusive possession and denial. The purpose of government is "to secure these rights" by instituting the social forms and laws that preserve natural entitlement in society. Any system of competition or notion of private property that disregards, denies, impedes, or fails to protect natural entitlement is a violation of natural law.

Few things are more self-evident than the natural entitlement of Nature's creatures to the materials that Nature has provided for their survival and development; no right exists for any person or social system to decide that some get more and some get less. Yet human culture has forever been dominated by the fearful brain's greed for more than its share... its desire to deprive others to secure and enrich itself. The Declaration asserts that government is to secure the unalienable rights of life for all, not to facilitate a winner-take-most competition that rewards and reinforces the selfish brain... a competition that drives the individual into psychological alienation from a common humanity. (Indeed, competition for security is an oxymoron.)

Private property is justified as a natural right to the exclusive possession of the material conditions that sustain the individual life, not as an unlimited accumulation of those materials that denies the natural entitlement of others. That private property is a natural right serving a common interest in preserving an independent life and in preventing social conflict over resources, also means that the regulation and limitation of property is necessary to prevent the establishment of social inequalities that also inevitably foment resentments and conflict. Equality of rights and social harmony, and the appeal of moral sentiments among those who have them, both justify and limit private property. The natural law limit on the extent of private ownership is: that none have a right to more unless all have a right to enough.

"Men, being once born, have a right to their Preservation, and consequently to Meat and Drink, and such other things, as Nature affords for their Subsistence." (John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Book 2, Ch 5).

"...no Man could ever have a just Power over the life of another by Right of property in Land or Possessions." (ibid. Book1, Ch 4).

"Self-love will make Men partial to themselves and their Friends... Government to restrain the partiality and violence of Men...Civil Government is the proper Remedy for the Inconveniences of the Sate of Nature." (ibid. Book 2, Ch 2).

Property rights fixed in law in a manner that allows the separation of citizens into classes of unequal privilege and unequal power is an approval of social inequality by civil law; and is a direct contravention of the "created equal" principle, circumventing the declared equalities of natural law and liberal democracy through the achieved inequalities of liberal economics: Classical and neoliberal economics undermines liberal democracy by giving freedom to anti-democratic ambitions, allowing achieved wealth to control government for its own interest, not the common good. And therein lies the core contradiction within liberalism: the two primary principles of "liberalism" are equality and freedom (also called "liberty," guaranteeing confusion). Thus, in practice, liberal political and social equality are sabotaged by neoliberal economic "freedom." Which leads to the political divide: the humanitarian brain assigns priority to human equality (progressives, left liberals); the selfish, resistance-to-equality brain upholds the freedom to achieve inequality (neoliberals, conservatives, libertarians, centrist liberals). For the conservative brain, the advantaged side of inequality is sanctuary from its amygdalan fears. If human equality is to be realized there can be no freedom to deny it.

Successful economic activity does not require a class divided society. There is a distinction between the economics of production and the private wealth that is extracted from it... and the former does not necessitate the latter. A conscientious desire to create and build and self-express and contribute to the common good, is as capable of producing economic growth as the "animal spirits" of unregulated greed and selfish ambitions. The incentives offered by neoliberal ideology, in the absence of moral conscience, are a freeway to political and financial *corruption. Freedom is judged by the passions it sets free... and the consequences they covet.

*(See the Panama and Paradise and Pandora Papers, FinCEN Files, and all the shell corporations and tax laws and havens that facilitate evasion... providing equal opportunity for corruption).

"...commercial interest tends to 'suffocate' spiritual life in principle, moral imperatives are not adhered to in politics...The notion of freedom has been diverted to unbridled passion, in other words, in the direction of the forces of evil (so that nobody's "freedom" would be limited!). (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Harvard, 8 June 1978) (Parenthesis in original).

To be clear, it is not the economic freedom of the individual to secure his livelihood by his own talent and effort through business enterprise, nor is it the efficiency and allocation principles of the free market that necessarily subvert democracy, but the logically inescapable end-achievements of unequal power and privilege that result from a failure to regulate self-interested economic behavior for democratic outcomes. Deregulation and tax cuts and small government ("Government is the problem") are the cries of the fear-based brain, greedily wishing to escape the implications of "created equal."

("Fear-based brain" does not refer to the feeling of fear. The emotion of fear in discussing brain neurology refers to the pre-conscious reflex of the amygdala to sensory information from the environment perceived as threat; whereupon the amygdala sends alarms to other brain regions which initiate various physiological and neurological responses. When all this is occurring in the very early years of life brain structure and function are affected. And when the fear emotion is excessive the structure of conservative anti-other, xenophobic selfishness is being formed. The feeling of fear occurs when the neocortex consciously receives the alarm message and decides there is reason to be afraid).

A society that professes the principle of equality, yet embraces a systemic pathway to inequality is guilty of moral and political apostasy. Progressive taxation of inordinate wealth and income is consistent with "free-market" arrangements, and can easily remedy the inequality that the "invisible hand" and "spontaneous order" were, and are, too willing to allow--and too determined to maintain. The argument over capitalism and socialism is worse than useless; it is a distraction from critical thought. The resolution of social injustice lies in the balance between private enterprise rewards and the social investments that would realize the natural entitlements of all individuals; a balance that would also provide a favorable base for a rightfully regulated market--an educated, psychologically and materially secured population, a protected environment, research and development. Private enterprise and its market efficiencies, and opportunities for independence and self-expression, are rightfully made free, and rightfully restricted to outcomes consistent with democratic principles and the common good. If cupidity feels disincentivized so much the better, for that is the point.

It is not good, nor is it freedom, that the government should own the private economy; nor is it good or freedom that the private economy should own the government. In a democracy the sovereign people overrule both.

The business interest lies in maximizing profit; which involves minimizing the compensation to labor, and maximizing the price consumption will bear. The interests are not common: the laborer would like a higher wage, and the consumer would like a lower price. Both would increase the general well-being. But the business owner wants to increase his wealth; price setting and cost cutting will always adjust to maintain or expand inequality.

The dynamic of private economic enterprise is thus based on a conflict of interests: the desire for increased general well-being, the common interest, versus the pursuit of private wealth, the individual interest. A democratic government's purpose is to guard the common welfare by preventing an accumulation of private wealth and power that violates democratic principles, through regulation of economic activity and outcomes. The democratic compromise: private enterprise is good, but it cannot have bad consequences upon human equality and the common good.

Neoliberalism claimed there would be no bad consequences, that the profits of private enterprise flowing to the upper class would "trickle down" to the lower classes, minimizing wealth inequality... let the rich get richer and maybe the poor will get less poor. But the neoliberal plan was to weaken collective bargaining and dismantle government regulation, so there would be no countervailing forces to assure a fair distribution of wealth; trickle down would be at the discretion of those accumulating the wealth. What followed were decades of tax cuts, deregulation and wealth consolidation (the accelerated Republican agenda since Reagan). Tax cutting, in particular, was the mechanism for the accumulation of wealth; along with the U.S. Supreme Court giving corporations personhood, providing free speech protection to the political use of money in purchasing policy and politicians. Neoliberalism is the enemy of democracy and the Rights of Man.

The barrier to a truly created equal democracy lies in a failure to understand and confront the true intentions of the selfish brain:

"[The] children of light recognized the existence of a moral law beyond themselves...But all were naive about the power of self-interest in society...naivete made the children of light inept at defending democracy against the 'children of darkness'" (Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness, 1944).

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." (Yeats, The Second Coming, 1921).

Individuals gather into groups and societies for a security of their lives not achievable individually. And by doing so, each must consent to the renunciation of their individual actions (freedom) that would infringe upon the equal rights and security of others. The essence of the democratic covenant is community respect for the rights of the individual, and the individual's reciprocal obligation to the good of the community:

"...by these presents, [we do] solemnly and mutually... covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil politic; for our better ordering, and preservation... and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices...as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." (Mayflower Compact, November 11, 1620) (Emphasis added).

"But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to those laws, which the community has thought proper to establish. And this species of legal obedience and conformity is infinitely more desirable than that wild and savage liberty which is sacrificed to obtain it. For no man that considers a moment would wish to retain the absolute and uncontrolled power of doing whatever he pleases: the consequence of which is, that every other man would also have the same power, and then there would be no security to individuals in any of the enjoyments of life. Political, therefore, or civil liberty, which is that of a member of society, is no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws (and no farther) as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the public. Hence we may collect that the law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow-citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind." (Blackstone; Commentaries; Book 1, Chap 1.) (Parenthesis in original; Emphasis added).

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."(Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America).

The phrases of the Preamble--We the people, perfect union, establish justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty--speak to the common goods of all, not the freedoms of individuals.
The central imperative of a social covenant is to establish a binding union of one people under one nation, to which all give allegiance for their common security and benefit. Patriotism to one's country means loyalty and abidance to its founding covenant--for the gift of both freedom and liberty gained.

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I will not harm you if you will not harm me is the foundational pledge of human society; it is the basis of morality and trust and obligation, and of mutual expectations of fairness, with the primary purpose of eliminating violent conflict and resource insecurity--individual preeminence is not an unalienable right. Although the individual is not obliged to do good to others--that is for the quality of his conscience to decide--he is strictly called not to do harm; not to engage means or achieve ends that obstruct the full and just implications of "created equal." Democratic government is not for the purpose of securing freedom for individual transgressions against common security and equality. Government is to secure rights--protect liberty--not enable or accept transgressions as a side effect of freedom. The equal right to life, and the equal liberty of the rights and entitlements of life, require a prohibition against any substantial inequality in the conditions of life.

The security of life and the rights of life require the rule of laws. Whether it be a law against murder or a law requiring one to drive on the right-hand side of the road, all laws are restrictions on individual freedom for the common good. The selfish ambition for privileged position is a violation of social trust--a failure to respect the equality of others. The bonds of consensual society are not fashioned for the achievement and protection of privilege, but upon a promise of mutual security, by sharing the fruit of the tree.

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Societies would not exist if social traits did not enhance the survival of the individual; the individual has adapted to social organization because he has better survived through cooperation and sympathy with others, a truth thus affirmed by natural selection--but unacknowledged by the selfish brain. The individualist and libertarian uphold the selfish trait, minimizing mutual obligation and social interdependence, resenting regulation of the individual's freedom. But respect for the freedom and moral worth of the individual does not require a disregard for the good of others and the community as a whole; nor does it justify opposition to a government that pursues the good of all citizens. It is selfishness absent humanitarian values and sentiments that disdains compassion and regard for the equality of others. Indeed, it is the very moral worth of each individual, as expressed in "created equal," that demands equality for all... that no person be consigned to social inferiority as a result of the choices of others. Freedom of individual choice is not the issue around which Individualism is criticized: it is the attitude that commonly lies behind the demand for unregulated freedom--dismissal of mutual obligation, and indifference to unjust circumstances and harmful consequences. What diminishes the moral quality of the individual is his disregard for others. Society does not begin as an agreement to protect the freedom of the selfish individual, but to restrain it:

Alexis de Tocqueville made these truly insightful observations about selfishness and individualism:

"Selfishness originates in blind instinct (the amygdala's fear); individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment (frontal cortex complicit with the amygdala) more than from depraved feelings; it originates as much in deficiencies of mind (undeveloped empathic faculty) as in perversity of heart... Selfishness blights the germ of all virtue: individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life (bitter partisanship); but, in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is at length absorbed in downright selfishness."(Democracy in America, 1835; book 2, chapter 2) (Parentheses added).

"Despotism, which is of a very timorous nature (an overly fearful amygdala), is never more secure of continuance than when it can keep men asunder (by imposing economic and political inequality); and all its influence is commonly exerted for that purpose (compulsive advantage seeking, unremitting greed). No vice of the human heart is so acceptable to it as selfishness..."(ibid. book 2, chapter 3) (Parentheses added).

"It must therefore be expected that personal interest will become more than ever the principal if not the sole spring of men's actions; but it remains to be seen how each man will understand his personal interest...no one can foretell into what disgrace and wretchedness they would plunge themselves lest they should have to sacrifice something of their own well-being to the prosperity of their fellow creatures." (ibid. chapter 8).

Jefferson also:

"To me then it appears that there have been differences of opinion, and party differences, from the first establishment of governments, to the present day...that every one takes his side in favor of the many (humanitarian), or the few (selfish), according to his constitution, and the circumstances in which he is placed (genetic level of fear and environmental conditioning)... the terms of whig [sic] and tory [sic] belong to natural, as well as civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind (brain function and structure) of different individuals." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, June 27, 1813) (Emphasis and parenthesis added).

John Stuart Mill:

“Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality, not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage…The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it." (ideological/cultural conditioning) (J. S. Mill, Autobiography, 1873) (Emphasis added).

"...we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought." (Thomas More, 1478-1535).

"...the egoistic corruption of universal ideals is a much more persistent fact in human conduct than any moralistic creed is inclined to admit." (Reinhold Niebuhr; The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness; 1944, Ch 1).

Neoliberalism is not endorsed by the principles expressed in The Declaration of Independence; neoliberal democracy is not The Declaration's democracy.

Selfishness is not a new thing; it is the original, primal thing; an instinctual reaction to threat, or opportunity for gain. In the selfish brain it remains an emotion--an emotion supported, rather than moderated, by a complicit prefrontal cortex devising cognitive strategies to combat its fears and achieve its desires. Even if social affinity was not a factor in man's nature, reason would quickly realize that killing each other is not a sustainable exercise of self-interest. A rational self-interest would favor less a freedom to kill and more a liberty from being killed--survival seems better achieved by agreeing not to kill each other than hurrying to kill first. The nature of man can be whatever the environment allows it to be. The environment, natural or social, does not require competitive conflict. It is man's amygdalan master and his moral dysfunction that propels him into selfish competitions for survival.

In past times the right to rule was presumed to rest on divine prescription, or right of conquest. Classical liberalism introduced the regime of competition... material wealth, political power, and ruling class membership would be achieved--and "merited"--by victory in free competition; to which everyone, it was asserted, had an "equal opportunity." Competition is a euphemism for conflict, implying outcomes are fair and not coercive or arbitrary. If democratic equality is a first principle, then inequality, however achieved, is not justifiable, and thus cannot be merited. Unlimited private property and economic competition permit the denial of natural entitlement; competition for economic wellness means many will be confined to less than wellness... the punishment for "losing" being hardship for families and impaired mental development for children (here and here).

When competition is the only means of gaining livelihood everyone will be required to play the game... adaptation for survival. The game makes the players play; and when it is the only game ("There-Is-No-Alternative"), and it denies natural entitlement, it is coercive and arbitrary.

Democracy's principle of equality precludes all rationalizations of social inequality--the attempts of the selfish brain to justify economic and political hegemony. Accumulation of property and power through competition is no more democratically acceptable as a path to social dominance, than conquest or birthright or divine decree. Class superiority is aristocracy, not democracy. It is class division itself that is evil... upon whatever pretext it is established.

The only legitimate power to rule is democratic--a limited and temporary and revocable delegation, not a possession by any prior right... "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

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The selfish brain is eager for benefits, less eager for obligation; it finds self-preservation by exploiting the advantages of community while minimizing its own contribution. Individualism proclaims self-reliance and non-dependence, but it has never been the power to stand alone in the wild. Few if any creatures are more naturally fragile than Homo sapiens; nor more dependent on the contributions of their kind. Humans have survived and prospered by shared invention and recognition of a common interest in the security of their lives. The selfish brain rejects mutual obligation... it believes it ought to do what it wants for itself, discounting the enormous structure of support provided by the community. The ethical brain wants to do what it ought, obedient to principles and values that transcend personal interest. It is the divide that turns politics over policies for achieving common goals and mutual well-being into the politics of partisan advantage... in denial and opposition to common goals. The progressive's commitment to equality and social justice is not a denial of individuality, it is a demand for the equality of all individuals... even the selfish ones.

"...evil is always the assertion of some self-interest without regard to the whole...the good is...always the harmony of the whole." (Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness, 1944).

It can fairly be said there are two precepts, or assertions, of Individualism: that the individual has a natural right to pursue his desires; and also a right not to be subordinated to the demands of others. These precepts express an inconsistency, and also exemplify the distinction between freedom and liberty. The right not to be subordinated to the demands of others imposes a restriction on the freedom of others to pursue desires that would subordinate another. The inconsistency is: you cannot have both equally--you cannot have a right to do whatever you want, and also a right of protection from what others want... which reveals the inherent hypocrisy of the selfish brain; and also displays the distinction: "liberty" is the right not to be unjustly subordinated that limits the "freedom" that would subordinate. The neoliberal subordination of liberty in favor of freedom is how social inequality is orchestrated, and ostensibly justified.

Libertarian Individualism is likely a selfishness resulting from emotional separation; a lack of empathetic connection to others and community; perhaps an absence of emotional warmth in early childhood; a psychological isolation seeking rationalization as a freedom philosophy.

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Injustice is the social denial of the rights that derive from natural entitlement; which are construed in relation to the stage of cultural and technological development of a given society. The social entitlements ("safety nets") of neoliberal society are but minimal attempts at recompense for the systemic cultivation of social inequality--the denial of natural entitlement--by providing a nickel where a dollar is due; lessening starvation in the streets without restricting the opportunity for extravagance.

The unequal possession of wealth and power originates in history by arbitrary and coercive appropriation, not by any right to superior possession. No person ever conceded knowingly to, or preferred, a deprived and inferior status... an unequal right to a good life. Nor does silent submission imply tacit consent. Only the machinations of mercenary philosophers aiming to justify a preferred circumstance could ever conceive a tacit common consent to social inferiority. And although a long history of enforcement has made inequality a tradition for some and a confinement for others, it has never made it a right... and what is unjustly done is never unjustly undone. Also, it is not enough that the privileged man appears sympathetic, or even generous to the unprivileged, if he also defends his right to be privileged. The issue is privilege itself, the presumption of a right to be superior and advantaged, and to maintain the unprivileged in a place of subordination. The most insidious dissemble is the public expression of sympathy that politically opposes a remedy of the wrong.

It is commonplace for the defenders of privilege and advantage to oppose remedies by calling them unjust, as if removing privileges and advantages is a more grievous act than imposing them. To declare it unjust to lessen inequality (as in taxing wealth) is to assert the justice of inequality; it is turning justice on its head... the authors of injustice defining themselves as victims. Justice is not found in the opinions of transgressors. And injustice is not made right because it has long existed.

And so, freedom of the individual is not the first purpose of civil society, but the security of the common rights of all people. Thus, natural rights do not imply limited government, they imply government sufficient to secure natural rights. Natural rights do not free individual selfishness from regulation, they protect individuals from subjection to undemocratic powers, public and private--liberty is protection from power, not a right to possess power. The purview of government is, therefore, determined by the prevalence and persistence of the injustice it must oppose. (As in the assault by economic inequality upon democratic equality).

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The first concern of life is survival, so behavior toward self-preservation is a natural right. The social covenant requires that self-preservation not be achieved through behaviors that harm others. Thus the democratic purpose of a national economy is to employ the efforts of all its citizens and to distribute a fair and equitable well-being to all, and not to establish class divisions between its people.

It is argued here that classical liberal (and neoliberal) economic ideology denies government's role in securing the rights that follow from natural entitlement, making the materials and conditions of life's sustenance not a right, but an "opportunity," achievable through "success" in a competitive struggle in which only a minority will "succeed;" with government securing not the rights of all, but the results of the struggle for the few; subordinating the rights of life to the rights of property... The natural rights of life are not the rewards of victory in competition. The outcomes of economic competition must be regulated so that winning is not luxury and domination, and losing is not deprivation and subordination .

The call for less government is a call for less justice, less protection of natural rights, less restraint upon the ambitions of the selfish brain. It is a call for "...government of the people, by the people, for the people..." to be too weak to achieve its purpose. The freedom of the individual is a high moral imperative, but it is not the highest. The highest law is the protection (liberty) of the innocent life; that the natural entitlements of life are assured, and the security of life well-guarded. The natural right of a child to realize her life's potential must never be limited by the depriving conditions of her birth environment.

The political principles of "created equal" and "right to life" have priority over the arrangements and consequences of economic freedom--socioeconomic institutions must pursue, not obstruct, the political end. It is moral nonsense to suppose the freedom of one to gain wealth justifies the economic hardship of many. The three great obstacles to overcoming human inequality are the freedom to achieve it, the power to enforce it, and the acquiescence that endures it.

"Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many...It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property...can sleep a single night in security...The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government...

The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to support that order of things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own advantages...civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” (Adam Smith; Wealth of Nations; bk. 5, ch.1).

“It is not…difficult to foresee which of the two parties must…have the advantage…and force the other into a compliance with their terms." (ibid. bk.1, ch.8).

“The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order (the business interest) ought always to be listened to with great precaution… It comes from an order of men (the selfish brain) whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly, have upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.” (ibid. bk.1, ch.11) (Parenthesis and emphasis added).

"Wealth, as Mr. Hobbes says, is power." (ibid. bk.1, ch.5)

The prophet of a free enterprise economy openly stated that wealth requires poverty; and perfectly described the control of government by the money interest... thus the antithetical relationship between capitalism's purpose and democracy's promise. So where is the principle and reasoning that justifies the affluence of the few and the indigence of the many?

In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argued for releasing the productive power of natural self-interest for achieving economic growth. But hidden behind the evolved instinct for self-preservation of the unselfish mind was the unevolved reptilian brain, whose lack of ethical conscience no "invisible hand" would restrain. Beside the virtuous man who calls for freedom stands the rapacious man who sees freedom as an opportunity, and who aims to exploit it. Rapacity's advantage is found in virtue's tolerance, or naive underestimation:

"...the social idealism which informs our democratic civilization had a touching faith in the possibility of achieving a simple harmony between self-interest and the general welfare...they proved to be mistaken . They did not make the mistake, however, of giving simple moral sanction to self-interest. They depended rather upon controls and restraints which proved to be inadequate." (Reinhold Niebuhr, ibid. ch 1) (Emphasis added--a reference to the inadequate regulation of neoliberalism.)

"...is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice?... There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful." (John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions... 1787, Preface).

Neoliberalism supposes government's purpose to be the defense of a freedom to achieve inequality; The Declaration of Independence declares government to be the guardian of equal rights. Hence, the failed promise: the moral ethos of democratic equality betrayed by the selfish ethos of aristocratic inequality; the inherent schizophrenia of capitalist democracy--the neurological and political dichotomies between the humanitarian brain and the fear-inspired selfish brain. The issue is in the adjective: Are we a capitalistic democracy or a democratic capitalism?

Natural law is the biological force--"the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"--that gives life to all creatures, and provides the means of their sustenance. Natural entitlement is the inherent natural and unalienable right to nature's provisions. Natural community is the social arrangement of laws and institutions that fulfill each person's natural rights. "Created equal" is the indispensable recognition of mutual birthright that makes social inequality a transgression against creation.

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The Declaration's phrase "created equal" does not assert that persons are born equal in all their characteristics and capacities: some will be taller, smarter, prettier, run faster. Biological creation is not equal. Created equal is a declaration by covenant that all persons are to be vested with moral and social equality as a first principle ("We hold these truths to be self-evident"); that they are equal in personhood by virtue of natural creation, regardless of biological variation (no less would be consensual). The declaration of "created equal" as a self-evident truth entails a promise of remaining commensurate in society. There is no point in proclaiming equal creation unless it is a moral and political commitment to remain substantially equal in fact. If not, it was a frivolous declaration, or literary exuberance to fit the occasion... or would you believe the declaration of equality to be a mere dissemblance intending to enlist popular support for the independence only of the colonial elite? Politicians are known for their insincere assurances. But given the gravity of the time, and the enormity of the task, it is stretching cynicism to ascribe insincerity to the dedication of their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor." Of course, that all men were created equal was consistent with 1776 social reality; but the Founders were too intelligent not to be aware they were committing to principles with transcendent implications.

Whatever erodes democracy is "destructive of these ends." Further, even where a degree of privileged condition is granted by public acceptance in recognition of an individual's contribution to the common good, personal merit is not transferable to associates or heirs, neither then would be the privileges and possessions it gained. Created equal implies a limitation on inequality, and certainly a prohibition against bequeathing it. When practice creates conditions that deviate from a founding principle, it is a wrong practice.

On reflection, what behaviors are meritorious? Is compulsive greed deserving of great reward? Are rapacious ambitions? And remorseless selfishness? Are the achievements of corruption and deceit worthy of being retained? All these unethical traits of character are set free and rewarded by the neoliberal maxim of unregulated freedom. And the "spontaneous order" they create is not democracy's promise.

It is axiomatic that selfishness will favor itself when given a choice. That choice, when it furthers inequality, is an anti-democratic freedom. A system that elevates selfishness to positions of decision has no "invisible hand" favoring justice. The good of a community must be achieved by the intentions of goodwill, not by unintended happenstances.

Aggressive ambitions driven by excessive emotional reactions to primordial fears, or insatiable desires to possess the objects of pleasure, are not the expressions of a superior brain, but a disordered brain; a brain with a regrettable genetic plan, or harmfully conditioned by early environmental effects. It is a brain that does not deserve greater reward and satisfaction than a brain of more moderate ambitions. "Animal spirits" are not an excuse for escaping the requirements of justice; they are the reason for just requirements.

No human physiological or neurological characteristic "merits" unequal power and privilege, no more than the tallest man deserves more fruit from the tree because he has the longest reach. Inequality is a presumption by those who think themselves superior, historically imposed by force or by the guile of malevolent persuasions. The problem with human character is not insufficient self-esteem, it is the inflated esteem of the narcissist who thinks himself deserving of superiority.
A society that further benefits those born to natural or family advantages with social superiority, and further punishes those less advantaged with sustained inferiority, is a mean society. Those with advantages proclaim "equal opportunity" to justify their advantage. When advantage is unequal opportunity is unequal. "Opportunity" implicitly concedes that all will not succeed; and disadvantage assures it.

"...the phrase equality of opportunity...is the impertinent courtesy of an invitation offered to unwelcome guests, in the certainty that circumstances will prevent them from accepting it." (R.H. Tawney; Equality, 1931, chap. 3).

Perhaps the greatest human illusion is the conceit of selfish ego--pride in the achievement of advantage, as if the need of advantage is a strength. A modest opinion of oneself, along with gratitude and generosity are the virtues of a mind that has gained true self-awareness of its ultimate dependence on Nature's provisions and a cooperative community. What we think we have individually achieved is largely the work of capacities given to us by genetic generosity and the experiences of care and guidance provided to us by a supportive and educating early-life environment, applied to the accumulated accomplishments of countless generations before us. Personality and intelligence emerge out of an amalgam of genetic and environmental determinants, and when fortunate they are gifts, not personal achievements. It is the nature of happenstance that coincidental and chance occurrences of time and place, invitations and open doors--or rejections and closed doors--and who one knows or happens to meet, conspire to greatly benefit some and greatly deprive others. The obtrusive personality of a sociopath, in the game of social politics, is often rewarded over quiet and unpretentious competence.

Genetic and environmental circumstances produce capability; greater equality in circumstances would produce greater equality in capability. We are each the product of a developmental process composed of events and circumstances we did not choose. People do not choose to be autistic or depressive; neither do they choose to be normal or exceptional; no one is self-made.

Some people are born with genetic handicaps; many are born into destructive environments; and some are born into both. And some are born with great advantages that they think are attainments.

"There but for the grace of God go I." (The humility proverb).

Especially egregious are the efforts of the advantaged to arrange systemic circumstances that favor the chosen and obstruct the progress and participation of others... the very nature of class society... the very intention of neoliberal society. To conceive and conspire for such a purpose, and not have the moral sensibility to care about the lives of others, is the heart of evil. Neoliberalism--unregulated free-market economy--both rewards and punishes much more than is ever deserved.
As advantages are rarely equal, neither are the good fortunes of happenstance. The destiny of each of us is subject to "the power of fortune" (David Hume).

Natural evolution is a biological process whereby the physical and behavioral characteristics of living organisms change over time through a process of genetic mutation. Mutation is a random event that alters the structure and expression of genes, creating a variety of physical and behavioral traits; it is biological happenstance.

Natural selection is the mechanism by which the mutations that enhance the organism's survival within a given environment are transferred to succeeding generations through reproduction. The process whereby the organism is successfully adjusting to the environment, either through physical or behavioral changes, is called adaptation; the environment is, in effect, dictating the structure and function and content of the evolving brain. The brain is thus a product of its surroundings, both natural and social. (The implications for notions of freewill and self-determination are endless).

Survival security, then, depends on achieving and maintaining a beneficial harmony with the immediate environment. And the more dependent the individual brain is on a particular environment, due to its level of primal fear and the degree of physical security and emotional reassurance gained from that environment, the more sensitive and resistant it will be to changes in that environment; not only in defense of physical survival, but also in defense of political and social advantages.

So what if the organism must adapt to a changing environment without the aid of a beneficial mutation? What if the organism must "choose" to change, adapt through advisability rather than by passive natural selection? Does an organism highly dependent on an existing environment for survival security have the neural flexibility, and moral discernment, to adapt to the challenge of a changing environment? This question is at the base of society's politics--accepting change toward greater justice and common security versus opposition to change because of the brain's dependency on existing conditions; even resisting highly advisable changes in the face of global warming.

"A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling 'stop!'" (William F. Buckley, Jr.).

Natural selection is not a value judgment, it does not say which physical and behavioral traits ought to survive, only which traits have survived an existing environment; physical survival does not imply moral or qualitative superiority of the organism:

"The law is not the survival of the 'better' or the 'stronger' ...It is the survival of those which are constitutionally fittest to thrive under the conditions in which they are placed; and very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival." (Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology, 1864) (Emphasis added).

(Neoliberal culture selects selfishness, greed, and expediency over equality; that is, traits that are "humanly speaking," inferior.)

Natural selection is not random, it is environment dependent--a different environment would support the survival of different traits. Fish have a survival advantage in water, not so much on mountain tops (above water mountain tops!). Selfish ambitions are advantaged in competitive and morally lax environments, but not so much among friends; that is, friends who are not hopelessly deferential, thus encouraging the egocentric behavior (A common moral weakness of the human brain is the deferential, even reverential creation of celebrities; conceding the center of attention to those who presume it).

It is a major purpose of this hypothesis to emphasize that social evolution offers an opportunity for improvement, progress to a more life enhancing experience for all people; purposeful changes in the environment that select and reinforce more humanitarian brain sensibilities... assuming the mental facility to consciously overcome prior cultural conditioning. Indeed, beneficial change is the purpose of democratic government: to "promote the general welfare."

When humans forsook hunter-gathering and became agricultural they assumed a measure of control over nature--they altered the environment to improve their circumstance; to enhance their survival by providing a more reliable supply of food; and less wandering allowed them to build more permanent and secure and larger settlements. In changing their relationship to the environment additional human traits were offered for selection, and some existing traits exposed to extinction.

“The stability of cultural transmission can be enhanced through conformity (i.e., a disproportionate tendency to adopt the most common behaviour)…This stability allows cultural traits to be maintained…generating a ‘cultural inertia’ that can hinder adaptation to changing environmental conditions…

Through eliciting change in behaviour, often across an entire population, culture can transform the social environment…Culture provides a highly flexible means to adjust to novel conditions and modify selection….[a] confusing feature of culture is that it can both speed up and slow down genetic evolution… (Emphasis added)

Culture provides a form of inheritance that is additional to genes and our review indicates it is far from trivial in its consequences for genetic evolution; moreover the two inheritance streams can interact to influence each other's evolution. (https://rdcu.be/cl5ez)

Through eons of time natural selection has formed its inhabitants to fit the environment. The earliest Homo sapiens had also been formed through adaptation to their natural surroundings, but their descendants would learn to alter the environment; or they would migrate in search of a more favorable environment. And they would form social relationships that would in turn select and reinforce the social traits that would determine who they would become.

But who would they be? More importantly, who would we be now? For the environment we make will make us. Will we choose social arrangements that relieve our fears and release our innate possibilities, and thereby find our true freedom... and a more sanguine humanity? Or will we remain in selfish, competitive, personal and national conflicts driven by primal emotions... and continue to call that "freedom?" And will we alter our relationship to the environment in ways that invite a promising evolution, or hasten our extinction? Or, will the fear of change preclude our ability to change... the reactionary brain destined to eternally fall short of possibility... even the possibility of survival?

(Evolution offers an intriguing speculation about the anti-social/pro-social brain divide: There was a time about 6 million years ago when Homo sapiens (hominins) genetically separated from the chimpanzees and bonobos (hominids). A few million years later the chimpanzees and bonobos separated from each other. The chimpanzees are noted for competitiveness, aggression, violence and male dominance; bonobos are peaceful, cooperative, and female friendly. The anti-social/pro-social conflict was thus present in the common ancestor of all three species prior to genetic separation; and, unfortunately, continued into the Homo sapiens' branch. The chimpanzee and bonobo branches appear to represent a later separation of anti-social and pro-social temperaments, two sets of traits exhibiting an internal conflict within a common ancestor dividing into separate species. Will humans resolve their conflict between selfishness (id) and benevolence (superego) by dividing into anti-social and pro-social species: chimpanzee humans and bonobo humans living in separated worlds?).

Clearly, Homo sapiens (A wise man) is partially a misnomer; Homo qui occiderit (Man who kills) also applies to male humans and chimpanzees... women and bonobos got the wisdom. Not difficult to understand: the male hunter/warrior mentality (violent proclivity, suppressed emotive sympathies, dominance seeking, neoliberal greed) has been reinforced by 300,000 years of natural selection.

After a long evolution of mutation and selection humankind has a brain presumably capable of rational choice. If we want to be a peaceful and benevolent life-form venturing toward the possibilities of biological evolution, then we must make a social environment that allows us to get there. Encouraging and rewarding the gravitational greed of selfishness--the neoliberal relentless pulling of benefit to itself--is the path of social dissolution, of individual and tribal conflicts, not a benevolent and progressing harmony. We must see what character and behavior human culture is currently rewarding. It is not virtue that is selected by neoliberal culture, it is selfishness, greed and corruptibility. We appeal to the "better angels" of our nature--is our social environment selecting angels?

Evolutionary adaptation was a necessary concession to natural reality, it was not approval of reality. So why not make a social reality to which we can approvingly adapt? It will be a hard journey for the human brain is far more capable of madness than sublimity; far more eager for self-indulgence in the moment, than self-transcendence for the future. Will the evolutionary end of human history be a culmination of enlightenments and transcendent achievements? Or will it be a slow, bewildering, determined self-termination by unresolvable conflict... the selfish and humanitarian brains battling on until evolution decides?

And thus began politics... the fight over preferred social habitat: different levels of primal fear and greed each desiring its preferred conditions and opportunities, the social arrangements and tribal identities that most secure and satisfy itself.

This hypothesis has attempted to describe what humankind has largely become: a brain formed and ruled by the emotions of primal fear; a brain exhibiting a defensive and often violent selfishness in response to environmental events that were signs of threat to primitive humans--predators, different others, unfamiliar occurrences that triggered innate or learned fears--resulting in a reactionary politics seeking and defending personal advantage, and opposing the common advancement of human liberty, equality and security. It is the politics of the sociopath, of a brain absent empathic sensibilities and humanitarian principles, striving for power and control through membership in the class and factions that insist on a "freedom" for selfish ambitions to achieve economic and political dominance; and the repression of others to maintain that dominance. It is a fearful brain, descended from prey-animal primates, opposing change as a threat to its comforting environment... its social advantages and reassuring beliefs. The political divide is a neurological divide between more fearful and less fearful brains--brain structural and functional differences that are initially determined by genetic levels of fear--amygdala reactivity--expressed through emotional and behavioral responses; which are then reinforced or moderated by the cultural environment. In American politics, the ungenerous, defensively entrenched brain, is usually called Republican.

When a brain is faced with a changing environment it has three options: two proactive, one passive. It can consciously adapt by altering its beliefs and behavior to harmoniously perform in the new reality. Or, it can attempt to forestall the change through obstructive resistance. Or, thirdly, it can flounder between transforming itself and preventing change; and unhappily submit to the stresses of undesirable circumstances.

The brain that successfully adapts--or manages to create a preferred environment--will defend that environment against change that threatens the conditions to which it is successfully adapted; it is defending its habitat, the social arrangements that provide its physical and emotional security. The defense of self requires defense of the habitat in which the self's identity and sense of security has been achieved. Hence, the conservative's reaction against the forces of change--his defense of tradition and status quo is fundamentally an emotional/psychological opposition to change; it is dependency on a protective habitat. The vaunted values and principles of conservatism ("freedom" and small government) are--except for a principled few--but rationalizations that serve selfish interests, not moral sensibilities--prompted by a need to justify the political and economic institutions that protect against primal fears. The absence of true principle is quickly exposed by the inevitable Machiavellian acts of expedience in defense of selfish interests; and the inveterate and ungenerous opposition to helping and equalizing others; the denial of justice for all; the embracement of bootstraps over safety nets.

Here is what Hayek had to say about conservatives:

“I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy…it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments.”

“…one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such..."

“…the conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate to whatever appeals to the more timid mind.”

“…the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes.”

"…the conservative inclines to defend a particular established hierarchy and wishes authority to protect the status of those whom he values…"

“…Conservatives fear new ideas because it has no distinctive principles of its own to oppose to them…conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited…” (F.A. Hayek, Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960).

The conservative is on the side of human inequality because he lacks the courage for equality, not because any true principle calls for it. He calls inequality "meritocracy" to assure himself he deserves the privilege and advantage he enjoys. An insightful exposure of conservative "principles" would be a listing of the unprincipled wrongs they are conserving... and refusing to change. The allegiance to tradition as "the wisdom of the past" conserves the wrongs of the past; and betrays a lack of vision and moral impulse for improvements. Opposing change is not so much an embrace of "tradition" as an embrace of familiarity against the threat of change and uncertainty... and the demands of justice. Fear is the strongest and oldest emotion, a brain formed by it is not amenable to sympathetic and generous sentiments; the psychological opposition to change cannot afford concessions to justice, for that would mean a return to fear. The conservative is not so fond of the past as he is fearful of changing the present. Conservative deceptions are aided by the humanitarian's good faith brain that is so often naive to the existence of bad faith.

(Resistance to change relates directly to brain function. "Plasticity" refers to the ability of the brain to adapt to changing information. When the information pathway from higher order brain areas is impaired behavioral flexibility is lost. Conservative opposition to change may be a functional inability of the brain to process new information to overcome prior learning and early life conditioning. Without neural plasticity the human brain is a captive of its first tribal lessons; conflicting facts and truth must be denied).

Persons less favored and secured by existing social arrangements will seek change, either in themselves if circumstances permit, or change in the environment in which they are struggling to survive. And that gets to whether the existing social arrangements are designed to aid or inhibit self-adaptation--education, opportunity, access to capital--by the disadvantaged and lesser privileged. The social conditions of inequality inhibit the opportunity for self-adaptation. The conservative brain aggressively pursues control and domination to prevent equality and conserve its own advantage; the humanitarian brain pursues change for greater equality. In the 18th century the classical liberals began the overthrow of aristocracy by replacing the hereditary aristocrats with commercial aristocrats. Then those economic "liberals" became political conservatives... once having established they would then conserve the wealth aristocracy. Turns out The Age of Revolution that waved the banner of "freedom" did not achieve human equality, only new occupants in the privileged places. Democracy and equality were useful predicates, but not desired ends.

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The conservative's primal fear of difference and unfamiliarity makes him opposed to the equality of others: why allow your threats to be equal? On first thought, the logic may seem sound; though the psychology paranoid and the politics anti-democratic. On second thought, making the other an enemy intensifies the threat; verifying and deepening the paranoia and reinforcing the fear. The brain of a fearful prey animal has become a fearful predator--defensive fear has become offensive fear--imagining, thus creating its enemies, constructing fortresses, and manufacturing tools of destruction... the fearful brain is too afraid to alter the conditions that perpetuate its fears.

And on further thought, how could the conservative brain, resistant to change, survive the ages when adaptability is requisite for long-term survival, unless dragged along by those more courageously adaptable? The conservative seeks to prevent change in the habitat that would require his adaptation; the progressive seeks changes in habitat that would support the selection of humanitarian traits. Progress is made by not being overly dependent on the familiar... and being open to possibility.

The politics of fear easily recruits and manipulates through demagoguery and fear mongering and scapegoating and repetitive lies and deceiving assertions ("government is the problem"), the emotionally driven, cognitively impaired credulity of others to believe false realities, and to support social policies contrary to their material interests--the lower class paradox of supporting the privilege and advantage of "superiors." Being mired in absence of thoughtful examination leaves the bewildered mind vulnerable to the simplest appearance of certainty--the ranting demagogue blaming others and promising deliverance. The more fearful the brain the more responsive it is to promises of salvation.
Thus the uninformed brain, even when disadvantaged, will defend the cultural habitat to which it is conformed, the fear of change and the "safety" of familiarity overriding any consciousness of inferior status. The demagogue promises to save the familiar and defeat the unfamiliar. It is also why the aged tend to conservatism--feelings of vulnerability bring fear to the surface when life-long, reassuring familiarities are threatened.
In a neoliberal world of selfish deceits and competitions for advantage it can be a mistake to accept advertisements and appearances as an assurance of reality. A world in which verification needs to be the protector of trust speaks for itself. It is the dissolving world we live in; appeals to fear will always have a more attentive audience than appeals for justice.

It could be otherwise: changing the social environment would provide an opportunity to construct institutional conditions that reinforce the emotional and behavioral traits that would make a better world; conditions that lessen the effects of fear and insecurity upon a child's developing brain; conditions that enhance the development of all people for the betterment of the whole community. The choice for humanity is clear: shall humans cooperate for the security and fulfillment of all their lives, or continue to fight over preeminence for a few? Human society needs nothing more than social conditions that favor the angel and impede the reptile.

"Egoistic impulses are so much more powerful than altruistic ones...The justice which even good men design is partial to those who design it." (Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, 1932).

And therein lies the evolutionary struggle: the more recently evolved cortex, informed by self-evident Truths, is having great difficulty in overcoming the unevolved primitive brain, still conditioned and confined by primal emotions, defending institutions of social competition and hierarchy that do not relieve, but continue to excite and reinforce its fears. It is not obvious that it ever will... the unrestrained ferocity of reptiles is not easily subdued by the moral self-restraints of angels. History tells us that much.

A mutation came along and galvanized the early human brain into a rapid and vast expansion of complexity and rational capacity, leaving the primal brain lagging behind. But that cortex is yet to escape the jaws of the reptile, leaving human character stranded in a merciless dichotomy between Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Vice and Virtue--the dueling, siren calls of id and superego.

Politics, then, is a primal conflict over defending or transforming the social habitat. Transformation is the difficult task... as every reformer knows. Culture indoctrinates the human brain to its reality; social change requires breaking through the mental structures of previous conditioning... and compliant brains greatly outnumber brains capable of critical reflections and visions of more perfect unions. The conservative only needs to arouse the innate fear of change and uncertainty, and the threat of strangers pounding on the door of the castle; the progressive must calm the fear and reveal the possibility of an improved life--the achievability of our hopes and dreams.

But the greatest opportunity for change comes with the devastation of existing conditions through calamity; when the failure of familiarity itself induces a loss of faith in what has been familiar. Then a new habitat can be conceived, and a new inhabitant emerge, the shape of the new often implicit in the failure of the old--the phoenix from the ash.

However, the ultimate question remains: how does the human brain, conditioned to its surrounding environment, gather the neural wisdom and courage to alter the social conditions to which it is conformed, and in most cases psychologically dependent? The suggestion here is less provocation of primal fear through expanded economic security, thus less inducement to competition for social advantage; and less dependency on fear relieving beliefs, by being less indoctrinated to narrow cultural attitudes during the most formative years of a child's brain development, when the opportunity for a true freedom to discover the world and oneself is either gained or lost to the preconceptions of our "caregivers". A better world has not been found by selfishness in pursuit of happiness; there is a chance it may be found by compassion in the pursuit of equality and justice.

Species go extinct when their traits are no longer advantaged and they are incapable or unwilling to adapt to a changing environment--inadaptability is the evolutionary path to extinction. "Created equal" was and is an existential threat to the selfish brain; hence, the bottomless bad faith deceits of the conservative reaction... and the bitter divide between the forces of change and resistance. So, yes, politics is a primal struggle... and it will decide the human character that sways the interim; ultimately, it is evolution's decision--the ultimate power of Nature to determine beginnings and endings.

Only a virtuous soul can lead to a virtuous world. Otherwise politics is a conflict won by the strongest... stronger in coercive force or voting numbers. The social habitat must at least allow, if not encourage the rise of virtue. Neoliberal culture (unregulated economic competition for individual survival) gives harbor and favor to the ambitions of the unvirtuous soul--the absence of moral conscience; the absence of remorse in the emotional workings of the selfish brain.

From the beginning America was not a democratic republic--to be represented in government was the privilege of propertied white men. America remains a republic dominated by private wealth. The enduring honor of America's Founders, however, is that whatever their personal motives, they wrote words that stood in judgment even of themselves. Their words stand in judgment of every generation. A people's democracy was the Revolution's promise; its achievement still waits before us... America is not yet America.

"...the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest which ever existed...the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction, for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrate into the world, it may be predicted that this is the gate by which they will enter." (Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835-40; book 2, Ch.34, last paragraph) (Emphasis added).

Tocqueville's concluding thought, in the last paragraph of his multi-year study of democracy in America, was that the commercial pursuit of private wealth would destroy American democracy; unless democracy had vigilant friends.

"We find our population suffering from old inequalities, little changed by past sporadic remedies. In spite of our efforts and in spite of our talk we have not weeded out the over privileged and we have not effectively lifted up the under privileged... Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private power over...public affairs...a decent living throughout life is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power." (Franklin Roosevelt; State of The Union, 1935).

As we now know, Tocqueville and FDR were prescient; private wealth and its unregulated freedom, have become the new hereditary aristocracy; a burgeoning transnational, corrupt and tax evading permanent inequality. Government by the people and for the people is now government for those who can afford to buy it.

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The Declaration of Independence is an American document only in the sense of its first application. In word and spirit it is a human document, a universal declaration of the inalienable rights and equality of all women and men and children everywhere.

"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." (Thomas Paine; Common Sense, Philadelphia, January 10, 1776).

The virtuous men have mostly acceded to the men of selfish interest--want has defeated ought; fear and greed are more intense and determined than good-will and generosity; the ambitions of avarice readily trample the self-restraints of virtue.

Virtue is an inescapable feeling of obligation; the obedience of conscience to principles of Right and Good that are greater than the reptilian impulses that lurk within ourselves. True freedom--and true individualism--requires overcoming the primal ghost and standing up the virtuous self; the final triumph of the evolved cortex over the emotions of primal fear. Freedom is not unrestraint of the animal spirit; it is the power of mind to impose what is Right and Good upon itself; the power of an evolved conscience over the primal compulsions of fear.

Are we, then, but self-preserving reptiles bellowing our egoistic wants, or are we patriot angels with Enlightenment virtues... striving to do what we ought... ever knowing that the good we intend never excuses the harms we accomplish?

Has virtue really died?

Or did it never truly live?

Perhaps it was only briefly tried...

Then forsaken for a bribe.

"These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began---so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built...

Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution...come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence." (Abraham Lincoln, August 17, 1858; Lewistown, Illinois).

The fact that the historical push for justice is always opposed by hatred and violence and distrust does not invalidate the rightness of justice; nor lessen the moral duty to pursue it. The fierce opposition to justice reveals the depth of the fear that opposes it. Abidance of injustice because its advocates are so determined, because they are so psychologically dependent on superiority is to sacrifice the possibility of a better world.

Democracy's ideals are not impossibilities; it is reality that declines to achieve the possible... so far. We are early in Homo sapiens evolution; we may reasonably expect the neocortex to eventually overrule the amygdala’s primal fears; though expectation does not mean patiently waiting for evolution to mutate us into an enlightened state of mind, it means pushing the process of selection by changing the modes of survival--like making benevolence more profitable than selfishness. Hence, politics.

Only we must believe that the current condition of human belief and behavior does not define the fullness of our nature; that our dreams of possibility are not restricted to our current circumstance. We have to live in reality as we find it in the moment; we do not have to accept it as our future. Reality was made by those who preceded us; it is our right to judge it, and change it. Reality is not synonymous with inevitability.

The search for Truth requires a reach that sometimes finds mistake, but the reach is imperative, for we must know the truth or live by lies and fallacies. And to accept the lie is to sacrifice the dream.

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

(William Wordsworth; Ode: Intimations...)

Community salvation will require the heart and mind of a whole people to find a common voice, and speak their own prophesy for the renewal of democracy, and the resurrection of the better angel. It should begin in America, where the cry for common liberty was raised by a common man--common in his beginnings, foremost in his destiny.

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." (Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 1776).

"Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain." (John Adams).

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CHAPTER TWO

A HERITAGE OF FEAR

We have come from fear,

From dark forests with dangers ever near.

We ventured upon the open plain,

Each step a trembling suspicious stride.

Was it courage that brought us from the foliage,

Or had the plains become a lesser fear?

Now timorous steps have found their way,

The fearful brain has taken sway.

For all the fear so long endured,

The world will now and ever pay.

AMYGDALA'S MEMORY

The three great facts of life are its occurrence, its persistence, and its evolution. The force that enters into life--from the single-celled organism to the wise hominid--seeks to thrive and become, and for this determined journey it must survive. To survive in life requires avoiding the dangers that would end it. To be avoided, these dangers must be sensed by an innate awareness. In the case of vertebral life forms, this innate awareness is the amygdala's memories of fear--the evolutionary recording of what has threatened survival in the past. Among these recorded threats are known predators, and sudden or unfamiliar changes in the environment.

The Amygdala (ah-mig'-dah-la) is an organ of the primitive, or reptilian, brain. The primitive brain is also called reptilian because it dates from the time of the great reptiles. It is this primitive part of the brain that controls the survival functions and reflexes of vertebral life forms. Hundreds of millions of years old, the amygdala remains the center of the human brain's survival system. It signals other regions of the brain when it detects sensory inputs from the environment that represent threats to survival.

In addition to avoidance of danger the amygdala is also central to pleasure seeking behavior. Evolutionary survival is not only about avoiding existential threat, but also obtaining nourishment and satisfying needs. Survival is about learning the behavior responses that most reliably achieve the goal--how to escape or conquer threat, how to hunt for food and find shelter from exposure, and how to obtain a mate. This hypothesis, however, is concerned with the fear-based brain and will not address pleasure seeking or hunting/stalking behavior, except to note that an overly reactive amygdala in the pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction of need may be as destructive to self and others--addictions, sexual predation, greed--as the excessive fear response. As well, it seems obvious that a behavior that escapes danger is likely to be very gratifying; and that it will be reinforced not only by its success in relieving the fear emotion, but also by the pleasure and satisfaction of accomplishment--as in escaping or suppressing the threat of competitors through economic and political domination... or even by harmful aggression. Whatever makes the emotional brain happy (dopamine release), whether good or evil, will be learned, remembered and repeated--becoming conditioned beliefs and behaviors. Nature accomplishes its survival imperative by making dangerous things fearful and advantageous things pleasurable. The amygdala is involved in both. And we will see, whether behavior is evil or good depends on other brain functions being able to moderate behavioral responses to the amygdala's alarm.

As the infant brain enters the birth environment it begins a learning process through an initial sense of comfort or discomfort with its surroundings... whether to smile or cry. The new brain must assess where it is and what it must do to survive. The five senses will provide information about the environment which the amygdala will monitor for signs of danger--like a motion detector sensing movement--and secondarily, to detect opportunity for satisfaction or enjoyment or enhancement. The brain is a hazard/benefit sensing device. It is busily informing itself by discovering and performing successful responses to significant stimuli, and then remembering the results to establish reliable approach or avoidance behaviors; conditioned responses that avoid the potentially dangerous delay of having to analyze every call to action. But here's the curious part: the conscious "self" is not doing this, the brain machine is doing it; it is programming itself by adapting to the surrounding conditions. Consciousness is awareness after the fact, it is not the cause. Consciousness seems to emerge from brain activity the way a rainbow appears through the interaction of sunlight and water droplets, as a consequence of interacting neurological events, not as a cause of the events. "I" am not telling my neurons what to do. This non-causal, lagging emergence of conscious awareness raises questions about who or what is in charge; questions about freewill and self-determination; about freedom and individualism; about achievement and personal merit.

Fully functioning by age three, the amygdala easily dominates the still developing prefrontal cortex, which does not near full development until around age 25. The frontal cortex is the forward part of the cerebral cortex which is intended to eventually exercise rational control over the amygdala's emotional impulses. We are, however evolved we imagine ourselves to be, captives to our reptilian survival impulses. That is, until, and if, the frontal cortex learns to moderate our primal reflexes with more considered responses.

“The more recently evolved components of the nervous system depend on the function of more ancient systems. Neocortical structures are in general subservient to systems necessary for survival. More primitive systems and behaviors, including those associated with fear and anxiety, may inhibit positive social behaviors and cognitive strategies.” (ibid.) (Emphases added).

The problem is we have no considered responses at birth. The prefrontal cortex, by which we hope to live a reasoned life, is incipient, unprepared to evaluate the amygdala's alarms. And alarms there are, for birth clearly presents sudden and startling sensations to the infant brain, which begin when the encapsulating security of the amniotic sac breaks, and the emergent organism is alerted to imminent change, which quickly becomes expulsion into unfamiliar surroundings. Sudden change and separation into an unfamiliar environment, and a cascade of novel sensations provide the initial alarms to the amygdala--and they will remain signs of possible threat for the life of the organism. And critically, it is the degree of the amygdala's genetic reactivity to environmental stimuli that will greatly influence the individual's developing brain, mental health, personality, social behavior, political opinions and tribal identity.

Birth is a stressful disruption of the calm and ordered process of creation, from the comfort and security of oneness into the discomfort and insecurity of separation. Gradually, over the early months and first years of life, awareness builds that well-being is not automatic--that there is no umbilical cord streaming with life's satisfactions; that our needs and satisfactions depend on something outside of, and apart from, our self; that we must cry and scream our fears and displeasure. Only immediate accommodation, physical and emotional bonding to an affectionate primary caregiver who can moderate the transformation from fetal to birth environment, from oneness to separation, can hope to calm the amygdala. That we are born to a world not always eager to satisfy our needs is the primal conclusion of the amygdala dominated incipient brain.

As this newly arrived infant brain is being formed by genetic instruction--neurons marching to their prescribed destinations--it will also be influenced by its experience of the new environment, adapting its neural formations and connections in response to external signals... experience is dictating the brain's architecture and installing cultural and tribal beliefs, which are credible and determining because the prefrontal cortex is in the process of forming and lacks the functional independence, the logical and critical capability, and even the conscious awareness to mediate them. The infant brain cannot reject or alter its environment. And so, before the brain/mind ever gains some selective control of its experiences it is formed by them--whoever it is that we are becoming is not by our choice.

The survival imperative compels adaptation to the environment or alteration of the environment--submission and conformance; or eventually, if early indoctrination is overcome, contention or rebellion.

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The birth environment thus begins its cultural branding, indoctrinating the brain to the surrounding beliefs and behaviors. We are made to fit the clan, to share its customs and myths. Nonconformity and dissent are destabilizing, a threat to unifying, self-justifying, and fear-relieving beliefs; especially non-evidenced beliefs that depend on unquestioned adherence... and which are also a threat to tribal authorities demanding unquestioned loyalty. The incentive to conform is the safety and comfort of acceptance and belonging, and the fear of banishment. Few individuals survive early indoctrination to develop independent minds and see the clan's “truth” as arbitrary--true freedom is more easily found by a non-indoctrinated beginning. The brain that eventually emerges is a mixture of genetic inheritance and submission to environmental and cultural persuasions--an amalgam of nature, nurture and cultural influences. A truly free human person may be a somewhat rare and solitary thing.

It is experience that tells the developing brain which neurons to keep and which to shed--the neural connections stimulated by the environment are strengthened, while those not stimulated are weakened and gradually discarded (synaptic pruning). This is a key fact underlying the amygdala hypothesis, and why early indoctrination imposes cultural content that can be so indelible. The birth environment is a cultural potter's wheel, shaping the infant brain--chromosomes provide the clay, experience shapes the bowl. Thus the first experiences of life are critical: The earlier and longer that a hyper-reactive amygdala's danger messages are imposed upon the incipient cortex the stronger will be the neural formation of fear-based belief and behavior patterns, and weaker will be the supervision of rational and moral restraints--egocentric behavior strengthened, obligation to principle and community diminished.

Creation occurs with a genetic intent, but experience can alter it. Experience can serve to nurture and realize neurological inheritance, or repress and limit it (This is important for infant parenting and early pre-school education. How many of us as young parents understand the developmental requirements of the infant brain... especially how our attending moods and attitudes convey, or not, the assurance of safety and loving and supportive attachment?) Forty six chromosomes are molded by the birth environment into an inner self that will one day emerge into a larger reality, whence we come to further know ourselves as others experience and relate to us, telling us who we are--an unchosen self that we must make the best of, or not.

In all the important things, then, the human brain is far more determined than we want to believe; "free-will" seems a minor, if not absent, participant. Beyond the initial genetic dictates, at birth we enter a forming process. The brain is "learning" about its environment long before "we" are aware of it. There is no "will" or "choice", no self-determination. There is no point in the brain's early development when saint or sociopath, angel or reptile, is a conscious choice. We are immersed in a sea of stimuli, subject to the amygdala's emotional dictates, compelled by unconscious neurological events. To believe that everyone has chosen consciously and knowingly, and with freedom of will the lives they are living, is a thoroughly mistaken belief.

We begin, then, as possibility and immediately succumb to vulnerability, open to the accumulating effects and assaults of cascading sensations, and the commissions and omissions of our caregivers. Emotional neglect of children, the absence of affectionate attention and time-sharing interaction that builds emotional security and a sense of self-worth, is commonplace in a competitive society of stressed and striving parents. Our fate is largely found in our beginning moments, whether our introduction to life occurs in a garden of love and security and positive stimulation, or a chamber of physical and emotional harms and privations. Even a mother's prenatal stress (and here) level has negative effects on the fetal brain. We have not chosen ourselves any more than the oceans have chosen the tides.

And therein lies life's fundamental unfairness: We do not make ourselves and thus we are not to be blamed for who we are, but we must be responsible nonetheless. For who else carries the inheritance of genes and environmental effects but ourselves? Would it not be a greater unfairness that others bear responsibility for the consequences of our agency? Wrongdoing can only be stopped by restricting the freedom of the agents who do it... and of those who suborn it. Society's first duty is the protection of innocence. The social question is what behaviors are to be considered a violation of innocence. Non-abuse of others is the undeniable limiting principle upon freedom.

The true meaning of freedom and individuality may only be measured by the extent we are able to overcome the thoughts and behaviors that have emerged within us. Conditioned thoughts and habitual behaviors are not expressions of moral freedom--they represent the experiences and prejudices that have informed us. There is no freedom in having been determined.

Because of less than perfect childhood environments almost all of us are less than what we might have been; and many have been severely robbed of their genetic possibilities. And then those less hindered by their beginning circumstances think themselves superior, and more deserving of the possibilities of life. Having been given the gift of being less robbed they think it achievement.

Perhaps Homo sapiens is the apex of creation, though our view into the cosmos is too brief in time and distance to ever know. Whatever, to be a life-form so favored by the elements with self-consciousness and the appearance of intelligence, and placed on such a beautiful and habitable world, is it too much to suppose that we can improve ourselves? And be less fearful of the changes required?

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Implied in all this is another possibility. An amygdala less biochemically reactive to environmental signs of threat or pleasure, and/or more emotionally secured by first experiences, would send fewer and more moderate alarms, thus allowing neural activity to develop toward a more balanced state of mind. This balanced mind would likely learn to perceive the world with more trust and confidence and consideration for others, less fear and suspicion, less selfishness, and less defensive aggression--it would reflect and return the goodness it has received. And it would be less dependent on controlled surroundings, thus more open to arguments for change; and less threatened, thus less resistant to the equality of others. It would, in fact, be a more empathetic and cooperative brain... and more amenable to the internal voice of conscience. And if culture would step back and offer a less imposing indoctrination to provincial beliefs and prejudices, a true individuality might find the neurological freedom to emerge into a unique and self-discovered human being--a childhood of little indoctrination gives the blessing of much to discover and little to overcome.

But there is a downside to having little to overcome when it means growing up naive and uninformed, and having to learn from blind efforts that, however honest and trusting, often lead to painful and costly experiences. Being educated means learning about the universal experiences and possibilities and uncertainties of life; being indoctrinated is being told what to believe and how to behave. The former contributes to practical and cautious wisdom on a path to personal discovery, the latter precludes the discovery by imposing the destination.

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So humans have two brains: the brain whose early development is dominated by excessive amygdala reactions to primal threats; and the brain that develops without the excessive impositions of fear, to achieve cognitive independence and moral regulation of emotional impulses. The cognitive brain seeks to ascertain and understand objective reality. The emotional brain, under the urgency of emotional alarm, cannot wait for understanding or discovery or considered responses, so it adopts invented realities--beliefs that mollify its emotions--and defensive reactions and strategies to counteract perceived threats. The cognitive brain explores for knowledge and seeks to remedy wrongs. The emotional brain reacts against change as a threat to the comforts of familiarity; and against the remedy of wrongs as a threat to advantage; and against Truth as a threat to belief--for belief is essential where knowledge is absent; the unknown may harbor dangers greater than what is known. And for the fearful brain embracing reassuring beliefs is easier than exploring the unknown, or accepting unanswerable mysteries. But there lies the dilemma: an optimum evolution--"humanly speaking"--requires intelligent adaptation; and intelligent adaptation requires Truth about the environment. Those burdened with untrue beliefs go blindly toward the future; the evolving cosmos does not require human opinion or preference or participation.

Both brains are evolutionary selections; each have contributed to survival success--the amygdala brain to primitive survival, escaping or avoiding or destroying or dominating threats; the neocortex to evolutionary advance--from prey animal to ultimate predator, from wandering the savanna to building civilizations. Whether the ultimate predator is a sociopath seeking social domination or a humanitarian seeking social equality depends on brain structure and content--education, memories, beliefs, learned prejudices, as well as the function and connectivity between brain regions; over which the amygdala has such early formative influence.

But there remains is a question deep within the brain, a fork in the neural road: would reason assist the fear emotion's more selfish inclinations, or guide emotion toward less selfish behaviors? The ego-complex hypothesis being described here is about the neural strength of the amygdala's emotions commanding prefrontal cortex complicity in pursuit of fear-based desires, rationalizing aggressive beliefs and behaviors in defense against perceived threats, forming the conservative brain. Politics is the battleground between reason as enabler and reason as moral self-restraint--abetting or restraining the freedom of socioeconomic selfishness. The choice of classical liberalism was the freedom of selfishness.
The struggle between the fear emotions and moral reason for control of the prefrontal cortex generally mirrors Freud's id and superego... with ego being the resolution--the personality that emerges into the world.

.............................

"Our findings are in line with the idea that a primary impulse in humans may be to help and cooperate, whereas the execution of calculative-instrumental--that is, selfish--behaviors are learned from interactions with the social environment..."(nih.gov).

So if social cooperation is man's nature, or at least his inclination, is he being driven out of it by an ideology conceived by a fearful brain to give itself a path to social advantage? Are the "laws" of classical liberal economics not laws, but rationalizations that attempt to justify and ascribe inevitability to the selfish brain--the neoliberal claim that there is no alternative?

As described in Chapter One, the classical liberal ideology of laissez-faire competition is an organization of society that accommodates, rewards and reinforces the aggressively selfish brain, systemically disadvantaging the cooperative brain. Competitive economic ideology supposes to represent human nature, and to duly reward talent. More accurately, it selects and incites, and gives freedom to aggressive ambitions; fear-driven emotions that manifest as a relentless greed, enlisting the frontal cortex's strategic intelligence to achieve social advantage. Social evolution is being driven by the incitement and reward of selfishness through "success" at economic competition, selecting selfish traits and discouraging unselfishness.

It is believed that early humans survived through group cooperation, which inspired the development of language and intelligence. Selfish behavior is disruptive to cooperative sentiments--and social cohesion generally--creating a climate of one against all. Competition is a result of the selfish brain's insistence on an opportunity--"freedom"--to achieve an advantage in possessions and power. The purpose of specifying unalienable rights is to limit the freedom of power, public and private. Remember, liberty is the human rights that protect against the freedoms that abuse. Due to its importance, and the widespread synonymous use of the terms, this point about the distinction between freedom and liberty, already emphasized above, cannot be repeated too often. Emphasis on critical points in an argument warrants the annoyance of repeating them.

The human brain is predominately emotional. Emotion is understood as a pre-conscious neural reaction of the brain to sensory information received and assessed by the amygdala as significant to survival or opportunity. The intensity of the emotion is determined by the level of the amygdala's genetic reactivity and the proximity and imminence of the stimulus. The amygdala creates an emotion for the purpose of driving a response (behavior) to the stimulus, with primary regard to fears and pleasures--avoiding or confronting stimuli that appear threatening; pursuing and possessing stimuli that promise pleasure and satisfaction--food, rest, shelter, safety, sexual fulfillment. Over time evolution selected mutations that led to a neo-cortex for supervising the emotions and improving the chances of survival through intelligent decision-making; moderating the hyper-reactive emotion and regulating against irrational and self-defeating, and morally unacceptable, responses (internal restraint). If reason over emotion did not enhance survival why did it evolve so rapidly? Behavior, then, is a question of how much rationality the prefrontal cortex is able to attain, and whether that rationality is directed by selfish emotions or moral sensibility; whether it is prejudicially conditioned, or educated to think critically and ethically. That is, whether the prefrontal cortex aids the sociopath or the humanitarian.

It may be that the sapiens species within the Homo genus was the physically weakest and required an evolved intelligence to compete and survive, yet it remained burdened with a fear-centered brain. The evolution of intelligence overcame the competitors and predators but did not obviate the amygdala's fear instinct. Friendliness and cooperation would have aided survival within the primary group. But the prey animal fear instinct also biased the brain toward wariness, competition and conflict against other primary groups, hence tribalism and the fearful brain's intense reaction to difference—xenophobia... the perpetually ominous others! Thus, survival required the selection of both the positive emotions--affection, empathy, generosity--within the group, and the negative emotions--wary, competitive and aggressive--outside the group. Hence, the amygdala's signposts for survival: in group familiarity means safety (tribal, racial, national identity), while outside group difference and unfamiliarity means possible threat. And so, the emotional tension between goodness and meanness, empathy and antipathy; the divided soul bequeathed by evolution, and revealed in brain difference... and politics. Yet eventually, the selfish brain will express its wariness of the other even within its own community, as its amygdalan fear sinks into a highly defensive and competitive individualism, seeking advantage and superiority over its neighbors, with a minimal sense of obligation and attachment.

This is a good time to repeat the point that The Declaration's right to pursue happiness does not logically or morally endorse a "freedom" for the selfish brain to impose socioeconomic inferiority on its neighbors, however happy it would make it. The inalienable rights (liberty) of others are not dependent on acceptance by any one's happiness or freedom. The Declaration asserts that government's purpose is to secure the inalienable rights of all individuals, not to promote and protect the freedom of any one individual to encroach upon those rights—inalienable rights have precedence over freedom. Laissez-faire capitalism is the invention of an ambition for private wealth and power that emphasizes individual freedom over the mutual right of others to be substantively equal in society, and thus it is inconsistent with democratic principles, i.e., the unregulated economic freedom that favors the aggrandizement of a few, systematically comes to violate the natural and equal rights of all.

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." (John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776)

The persistent thesis herein is that the conservative brain is biased by an overly active fear response--reflected in brain structure and function--toward the negative emotions when confronted with difference and change, the signposts of threat. The less fear-minded brain is biased toward the positive emotions, generalizing the harmony of the primal group to humanity as a whole--humanitarianism. The difference being that change and unfamiliarity do not provoke a fear response in the less fear-formed brain--in fact, the opposite, a curiosity for novelty and new experience, and acceptance of positive change--a willingness to remedy wrongs when they appear. Being less fearful of the external world, the liberal mind is less driven to control it, only wishing to make it more just and equal, thus more secure for everyone. The conservative mind is obsessed with control, wishing to make society more advantageous to itself. Hence, opposition to measures that advance equality, and efforts to devise anti-democratic restrictions upon voting.

The fear of change leaves the brain committed to an emotional and cognitive dependence on past beliefs and social arrangements--a psychological dependence on familiarity is sublimated into a love for tradition. Defending the past blocks the openness and creativity necessary for current remedies, and impedes a curiosity for future possibilities.
Resistance to change is the basis of the political intransigence between conservatives and progressives: the divide over social policy is not about what change, but change versus no change; there is little room for compromise between yes, let's do it, and no, let's not.

“…one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead.” (F.A. Hayek, “Why I Am Not a Conservative”)

When science warns of climate change the conservative is being twice assaulted; he is being told that his environment is changing and therefore his emotionally reassuring beliefs and conditioned behaviors must change. The open mind seeks evidence and solutions, the fearful mind denies the problem... the ostrich strategy. Adaptability is not the forte of the conservative brain; at least not voluntary adaptability. When it comes to survival, we will all adapt if necessary: fear of death will overcome fear of change. It must fairly be said we all wish to maintain a safe and pleasurable habitat. The point here is that the humanitarian wishes to make it safe and pleasurable for all; the Conservative, not so much.

The conservative brain exists because there was primitive survival expedience to maintenance of a familiar status quo, and to aggression and violence in its defense. But thoughtless defense against change blocks reason’s opportunity to reach for improvement and possibility, prolonging wrongs and inadequacies because they are familiar... and traditional. Thus there is a dilemma: the brain has evolved greater capacity to be adaptive to change, whereas the conservative brain is emotionally and politically resistant to change--emotion resisting reason--which clearly reveals the bifurcated brain, a primitive emotional brain in contention with an evolved cognitive brain. Which brain dominates distinguishes the xenophobe from the humanitarian; the id from the superego. A distant future Homo sapiens, if open-minded and empathic sentiments can overcome conservative resistance, may find their amygdalae unselected, or at least somewhat atrophied from disuse. We can hope.

It must be stated that the conservatism of principles and values is not the subject of this hypothesis. The subject is sociopathic selfishness that seeks political and economic domination over the community, and thus opposes human equality. That same selfishness, however, finds a home among less personally selfish conservatives whose "principled" hostility toward government regulation and adherence to prescriptive traditions despite the wrongs they transmit, also aids and abets an unjust status quo.

(The liberal and conservative political labels represent what is a neurological distinction, expressed in politics as pro-social, pro-government, pro-reform liberals; and pro-self, anti-government, anti-reform conservatives; each group involving a range from moderate to extreme).

It was The Enlightenment's freedom of human reason that led to the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, and thus to economic development; discoveries in science, advancements in transportation, communication and technology. The human urge to learn and prosper does not require giving to the selfish brain the rewards of wealth and social advantage. In fact, social inequality imposes educational limitations and financial obstacles on the disadvantaged that preclude their contribution to social and economic development.

It is on the point of social advantage that the political liberalism that began with The Enlightenment has failed. It liberated the human brain from Dark Age superstition and subservience to the claims of kings, but it was too accepting of the selfish ambitions of economic liberalism. Laissez-faire did not arrive at democracy, it arrived at plutocracy--rule by a wealthy class. Democratic principles and the rights of man were overshadowed by individual freedom and opportunity. Liberty’s rights of all was sacrificed to a freedom destined to serve the desires of a few.

"...the egoistic corruption of universal ideals is a much more persistent fact in human conduct than any moralistic creed is inclined to admit." (Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness; 1944, Ch 1).

If the prefrontal cortex is neurologically independent and empathetically informed, and somewhat cognizant of evidence based reality, the amygdala is subdued and behavior becomes controlled, guided by a consideration of what ought to be done rather than a reflexive, selfish response to what is desired. Conscious emotions are a subjective experience, thus they require subjective gratification, fears mollified, desires satisfied, and beliefs embraced that give internal assurance regardless of external, objective truth. For the negative emotions, feeling better is evidence of "truth." And thus the amorality of expedience—what is true or good is what works for me; and the prevalence of hypocrisy—the opposite of what worked for me yesterday may work for me today. Reason can serve any purpose the prefrontal cortex is inclined, or neurologically compelled to embrace. And if reason is absent, irrationality becomes master. A brain with much fear and little knowledge is soon filled with superstitions and reassuring beliefs... and enemies. And a brain with much fear and much knowledge is soon filled with authoritarian intentions.

The emotional brain does not stop to consult the prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal has to be there watching and thinking, with the cognitive power to intervene; and informed with principles and values that overrule the selfish proclivity.

(Brain studies (fMRI) have shown that challenges to political and religious belief activate the same brain region [amygdala] as fear. This is consistent with the Amygdala Hypothesis: the prefrontal cortex is rationalizing salvation strategies--positing metaphysical beliefs and pursuing political advantages that alleviate fear. A challenge to our comforting beliefs and social advantages is tantamount to a threat to survival, hence the conservative brain's inclination for denying facts and resisting appeals for social justice. Truth and justice are very threatening to protective beliefs and prejudices and social advantages.)

It is presumable that the evolutionary function of reason is to prevent emotion from being self-destructive; and secondarily, to perceive the usefulness of social cooperation. Reason is an advanced survival mechanism struggling to overcome the evolutionary dominance of the amygdala. It is especially with the negative emotions of fear and hate and greed that reason must do its work in controlling appetites and behaviors. Reason is thus evolutionary progressive when serving to support survival by recommending amiable and cooperative behaviors that remove competitive conflicts. The negative emotions of fear and hate are evolutionary regressive, instigating threatening behaviors that reinforce hate and fear and violence, thus working against the security in the social environment necessary for healthy neural development. Behavior is the result of an interface between emotion and reason. Empathy cannot emerge, and human evolution will not reach to a promising future until the fears of the reptilian brain are obviated by a culture that values human security over competitive opportunities for selfish ambitions; a community where persons “created equal” are not allowed to be made unequal. Humanity is trapped in a vortex, where fear engenders behaviors that engender more fear--a black hole in the brain where enlightenment disappears. Has evolution reached a paradox? Has it stumbled upon a brain whose internal dynamic is turning progress into regress? A brain whose strategy for survival exacerbates the threats to survival? Has Nature created a creature whose destiny is to destroy itself? Has too much intelligence been given to a brain haunted by primal fears, such that ultimate weapons can be invented and deployed preemptively against any appearance, or illusion, of threat? Talk about being "too smart for one's good!"

Evolution involves instances where an evolved capacity is lost when it falls into disuse because of a changed environment--what was previously selected becomes unselected--like penguins losing the ability of flight. Human fear and the selfish/competitive response continue to dominate the social environment, tending to discourage and limit the reinforcement of empathic and cooperative traits. Might this lead to an eventual loss of the positive emotions that facilitated inter group survival, making Man increasingly an individualistic sociopath, a super predator?

There is contention with views of the amygdala's centrality to the fear response, specifically with the "feeling" of fear. But conscious fear is not the point. The beginning point of the fear response is the amygdala’s unconscious detection of external threat--when the pebble hits the pond, spreading waves throughout the brain triggering myriad neurological events that culminate in various physiological, psychological and behavioral responses. The feeling of fear occurs when the prefrontal cortex confirms there is reason to be afraid. The amygdala is the lantern in the steeple warning of danger: "One, if by land, and Two, if by sea." Or, for the conservative brain: One, if it's liberal, and Two, if progressive!

It seems much of the exception to the focus on the amygdala's central role in the fear response is simply saying, "It is more complicated than that." For sure, the brain is a complicated biological machine—estimates of 86-100 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses. But the principal question for society is: what is a hyper amygdala's effect on social behavior? And is the effect of excessive amygdala fear on the developing brain what differentiates the anti-government, freedom-of-selfishness conservative brain, from the pro-social justice-for-all humanitarian brain? And is the world's dominate economic ideology systemically reinforcing human conflict by rewarding individual selfishness and dissolving social cohesion and common interest?

The description about the prefrontal cortex mediating the amygdala's response seems to presuppose "free will." Science is undecided if there is such a thing. It is possible that what we experience as conscious choice is simply an observer's awareness of what has already happened in the brain. Has the brain reached a neurological conclusion micro-seconds before conscious awareness thinks it has decided? The brain machine decides and we take credit for better; or responsibility for worse? That "I" am aware of my brain's decision does not mean that I made the decision, no more than my nighttime dream was written and directed by "me." Awareness does not imply cause or control, only witness. In the case of fear, survival required a faster response than considered thought could provide. The brain reacts to a stimulus with an emotional reflex, which initiates a systemic response, a chain of electrical and chemical transmissions not initiated by “me.” The brain does not wait for "me" to decide. Does it not also, then, decide on all "appropriate" behaviors based on stored memories and beliefs? Am "I" only a belatedly informed witness giving sometimes flawed testimony to myself about what I think I am doing? Does my brain tell my legs to run, and then I merely come to realize why I am running? Am I deciding to be selfish? Or am I being compelled by my amygdala's hyperactivity and previously conditioned responses, and inadequate moral supervision?
And what of humanity collectively, or at least a controlling majority? If we had a collective free-will would we not choose against violence and destruction? Against warfare? Does the fact that we don't, mean that we can't?

There is another point that regards free-will. It has to do with the bootstrap theory. The conservative is inclined to blame inequality on the "losers"-- they don't try hard enough; they have an "equal opportunity" but they're too lazy or stupid to use it; they fail because of lack of character, absence of work ethic. The problem is these judgments are too simplistic, and the judges too ignorant or too dismissive of the genetic and environmental factors that benefit or impair mental ability; and also, that competitive games necessarily have many more losers than winners. So maybe the stupid part is being unaware of the complex causation that underlies the development of human capacity-- and expecting competition to have no losers. The ultimate stupid part, or rather malevolent part, is the imposition of debilitating living conditions on others and then blaming them for being debilitated.

The opposite error would be to say there is no personal responsibility. And of course there is. But the truth is there is no equal beginning or equal opportunity. How we start out and how we are aided by genetic talents and human mentors, or hindered by obstructions and discouragements is not our doing. If we all had a "free-will" most of us would choose to be other than we are. After considering the brain's susceptibility to environmental affects there really is more in our stars than ourselves. So is blaming the loser just being simplistic, or is it another way of saying, "I do not care?

Consider the conservative mentality: adherence to prescriptive traditions because familiarity is comforting; resistance to equality because advantage is, well, an advantage; hostility to science because knowledge threatens reassuring beliefs--and may require change. Change, threats to advantage, difference--a strange face living next door--all provoke the emotions of fear and selfish strategies of defense--the reptilian brain maintaining its evolutionary dominance over the empathic brain attempting to emerge.

Selfish ego becomes the fearful amygdala's protagonist, its defender against a world of perceived threats. In Freud's perfectly apt words, ego is the "face turned toward reality," i.e. the amygdala's reality. And so, the selfish ego, the ego-complex, is a neural network of collaboration between a biochemically fearful amygdala, a hippocampus storing indoctrinated and learned memories, and a subservient frontal cortex strategizing for socioeconomic superiority within a community perceived not with the feelings of kinship, but with an apprehension for threatening competitors; pursuing not common interest, but private interest; loyal not to democratic equality, but personal superiority--upper-class advantages not amenable to democratic principles or procedures. All unrestrained due to the absence of right brain moral sensibility.

Birth has been a "choice" between three fundamental human beings: the fear induced ego-complex, which is life negating; the less fear-based, more sanguine and confident and trusting personality, which is life affirming; and the brain of debilitating anxiety struggling to find confidence and identity and a place to be free of psychological oppressions.. The ego-complex brain will spend a lifetime building forts, the empathic brain a lifetime despairing of a fortified world, and the anxious brain simply trying to find tranquility.

Here are three general personality categories proposed by the amygdala hypothesis, resulting from the genetic and environmental factors surrounding birth... and that have so determined the passage from who we might have been, to who we became:

1. Enlightened self-interest:

Empathetic

Fair minded.
Egalitarian.
Generous.

Compassionate.
Tolerant.
Emotion moderated by reason.

2. Amygdala fear-based (non-aggressive, “flight” response):
Prefrontal cortex morally developed but dominated by fear emotions--Amygdala hijack.

General anxiety disorder.
Social phobia
Shy/Timid.
Low self-confidence.
Deferential.
Self-deprecating.
Defends self through avoidance/withdrawal.
Subject to self-medicating addictions.
Prone to reassuring beliefs.
Unfamiliarity provokes anxiety.

3. Amygdala fear-based (aggressive “fight” response).
Absent top-down moral regulation.
Prefrontal cortex complicit with amygdala emotions.
Non-empathetic.
Dominance seeking.
Presumptuous.
Intolerant.
Narcissistic.
Bigoted.
Authoritarian.
Paranoia prone.
Aggressive.
Expedient-based morality.
Adhered to self-assuring and justifying belief systems.
Unfamiliarity provokes wariness.

(This is generally descriptive of the sociopathic and psychopathic personality spectrum, of which the selfish pursuit of advantage within the community, without empathic concern for the rest of the community, is the first stage).

Genetics and emotional response to experience form the early brain through the reinforcement and pruning of neurons and synapses; they build the fences that define and limit who we can be. That is, the neurons that remain, and the circuits they form, will determine the mind we have. If we are ever to be truly free and somewhat self-reclaimed, the prefrontal cortex must jump that fence, to criticize our past formations and choose the experiences (cognitive and behavior modification practices) that will serve to expand our present selves into an exploration for what we might have been—and still can be. Full self-realization means forever looking in the mirror and seeing the self not yet reflected.

"...every psychoanalyst has seen patients who have been able to reverse the trends which seemed to determine their lives, once they become aware of them and make a concentrated effort to regain their freedom." (Erich Fromm; The Heart of Man).

We can do this by seeing our conscious self as distinct from our brain machine... that our brain has thought and behavior patterns incurred through years of conditioning that we did not choose, but that we--the conscious self--can choose to alter through new thoughts and behaviors, repeated until the brain reconditions--neuroplasticity--to our more chosen self. We can do this through self-determination, supported by knowing it can be done.

The making of a human life involves many alternative characteristics--eye color, hand preference, gender--but the most profound distinction is the presence or absence of the capacity for empathy, whether one emerges at the threshold of life as a humanitarian or a sociopath. The distinction between caring and not caring for others of one's species is a measure of brain difference that would be easy to consider a distinction in kind--an evolutionary split of Homo sapiens into Homo empathicus and Homo egoisticus.

Indeed, Homo egoisticus is lagging in his biological adaptation, lingering in the neurology of amygdala fear, kept in his primal past by conformance to a competitive economic ideology... and his resistance to an economics of common security, where incentive does not reward selfish individualism, but rather a humanitarian self-interest in the well-being of the whole community. In contrast, the Homo empathicus brain is progressive, eager to adapt in anticipation of the technological possibility for a security-based economics that relieves the human brain from fear and competitive conflict, whence evolution can proceed beyond survival to an exploration of possibility, facing the unfamiliar and the uncertain with curiosity and intelligence... and dreams of possibility.

…………………..

From the beginning the natural world has told us who we cannot be, by telling us who we must be--what traits we must hold onto, and which we must forsake in order to survive. We are creatures made by environment. But gradually man has learned to make his own micro environment, his social habitat. We have told ourselves we must be selfish and competitive to survive. And so we insist on a social habitat that demands selfish competition. We constrain ourselves from possibility because of our spiritual and emotional timidity; we embrace beliefs that console our fears rather than knowledge that expands our understanding.

Maybe a creature so subject to environmental determination can turn around and make an environment to remake himself, to condition himself into a better angel. Maybe there will be time to do that if we don't tinker too much with the macro environment: We can't destroy Nature, but we can change her to the point where she will destroy us. Despite all our hubris and godly self-image, environment made us, and environment can end us. It seems likely that eternal survival is not in the cards for any form of life. Somewhere in the deck a fatal microbe or monster asteroid is inevitable. But it would be nice if our demise is the tragic end of a grand creature, and not the mere erasure of an ignoble egoist who soiled the cradle of life.

Imagine a primeval encounter between two hunters, each of a different clan, discovering they stalk the same prey. They fall upon it simultaneously and achieve its death. One, with a less fearful amygdala proceeds to share, but when his back is turned the other, a fully functioning ego-complex, suspicious and fearful of the other's intent, and greedy for his own abundance, preempts the threat by clubbing the other to death, taking the prize for himself.

From the point of view of his clan the selfish hunter's act was productive. He was hard working; he was a successful provider--predatory selfishness paid off. Of course the clan of the deceased, when they find him, recognizing that the dent in his head did not come from the jaws of a beast, would go tracking the other club wielder, which would not be difficult because he is dragging home a carcass, whereupon they would apply retribution.

This little parable reveals the self-defeating short-sightedness of selfish ego--immediate gain often entails longer term penalties that far outweigh the initial reward. And it clearly reveals fear-based selfishness as the source of evil. It also portrays the prophetic warning that injustice does not go unpunished. And it displays the initial disadvantage of trust and goodness: evil strikes first. Whenever fairness and generosity have turned their backs selfish greed has sought triumph and dominion. Indeed, it is the trust of the unselfish that enhances the opportunities of the selfish; and the absence of regulation that invites the proclivity for corruption.

(Think conservative dirty tricks and liberal naivete', which is explained by the presence or absence of right brain moral sensibility. That is, only a frontal cortex without a moral conscience is eager to become proficient at deviousness. The selfish brain plots for advantage because it is driven by fear-reaction--greed--strategies; the non-selfish brain is restrained by its sense of fairness because it is less driven by fear. One thing is certain, selfishness is not naive! It knows the tricks of winning and relishes using them. The ego-complex knows that deceit is an ally--that undiscovered lies are expedient, that misrepresentation often makes the sale. Also, we tend to understand others by what we know of ourselves. Thus, if we do not harbor duplicitous thoughts we are often naive before those who do (the liberal-minded predicament). The reverse is also true: the selfish brain is filled with cynicism about the good intentions of others--recall the conservative ridicule of "do-gooders". Selfishness is completely dismayed at altruism, and in that absence of mind lies the birthplace of evil. A democratic people must be mindful of the incentives they abide, for the behavior they reward is the behavior they will get).

……………………

There is a mental condition known as “Amusia.” It is an inability to process musical sounds into a joyful experience... to feel an inner synchronicity with rhythm and melody. It is a functional "deafness" of the brain, equivalent to the blindness of an undeveloped visual cortex. Amusia serves as an analogy for the ego-complex's lack of empathic sensibility, the inability to experience sympathy for others.

Similarly, we all have known people without a sense of humor, or who lack an ability for inspirational responses to art, or the wonders of nature. Of course, we would not want an amusiac conducting an orchestra. Do we want the functionally unempathic brain conducting our democratic community?! Do we want those absent an empathic faculty representing others in government when they do not care about others? In fact, research has associated high empathy and musical appreciation with human social interaction.

Empathy is the last thing the conservative mind wants in government. Such a mind does not want government making equal those over whom it wishes to be superior. Hence, the conservative opposition to a government that would "secure these rights" through social programs. The opposition to taxation is not only the complaint of greed, it is also a political strategy for financially incapacitating government from its democratic purpose of promoting the general welfare.

The lack of empathic feeling is an inability to hear the music, the orchestra, of the common good; ears that do not hear the music, hearts that cannot join the dance.

"Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand...For this people's heart has become calloused." (Matthew 13:13-16).

It was once believed that women, and men without property were not competent to vote. Maybe fear constructed brains are not competent to vote. Maybe voter qualification should depend on brain scans. Maybe if you do not care about others because you neurologically cannot care about others you should not be legislating and executing socioeconomic policy. It is said the beginning of wisdom lies in knowing thyself. That seems more true than ever--along with knowing who the other is!

...........................

Epilogue

A hypothesis is not a proclamation. It is a proposition composed of stated principles, apparent facts and logical inferences, subject to confirmation and refutation. Among creatures so capable of fallacy only Truth can have the final word... however delayed its arrival. For Man is not the measure of Truth; it is He who is measured.

The pervading purpose of this hypothesis has been to understand the reactionary conservative brain: what it is and why it is... why its resistance to human equality, why its moral indifference to unfairness, its inattention to the mental disruption of disadvantaged children, why its greed for social privilege, why its preference for mystical beliefs over scientific facts.? And why its hate for a government whose purpose is to secure the inalienable rights of life? The argument here is the conservative brain is more extreme in its intents because it is compelled by the emotions of threat to its survival. Liberality, seeking change in the name of progress and justice looks to the conservative amygdala like an attack of the body snatchers; hence the demonizing of "liberals" and "do-gooders" and "bleeding hearts."

The criticism of conservative psychology is not a criticism of what is considered conservative philosophy--the upholding of values and principles--except as those values and principles presume to justify and preserve the accomplishments of unjust ambitions.

The human brain remains a largely unknown universe. The implications of the Democracy Covenant are not. And the cause could not be higher: humanity needs a future that does not mirror its past. Which means, overcoming the reptilian brain.

This effort is dedicated to all those who have hearts mightier than their egos, and who have personally experienced that giving is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves; and offered with patience to all those who are discomforted by implications.

This author is forever humbled before the giants of human thought by whom he is mostly informed. High among them is Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and other writings that empowered American Independence, and the cause for the rights of common humanity. Paine was an Englishman newcomer to America, arriving in 1774. Common Sense was first published in January 1776, six months before The Declaration. The pamphlet was purchased by 20% of the colonial population in 1776. In contemporary America's population that is equivalent to 66 million copies. (Thomas Paine donated the royalties from Common Sense to George Washington's Continental Army). When it was inquired who he was, he wrote this:

"Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and Principle."(Philadelphia, February 14, 1776).

The focus on messengers aids in the avoidance of messages. No idea was ever true, or false, because of who said it.

As is the case with all explorations for truth, to be continued...

Truth and Justice

Are the chrysalis;

Love and Liberty,

The butterfly.

per civis

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

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