I regularly read a number of Substack commentaries, and dip into more.
One who work I rest quite often is Dan Goyal, a doctor of US origin who now works in Scotland. I got to know of his medico-political activism on Twitter. His Substack is much more useful. It is called The Antidote.
This is from a recent post:
It's more than 10 years since I started my research in neuroscience. I remember the sense of astonishment. Soon, I got used to how remarkable the brain was and the ingenuity of neuroscientists (and others) trying to learn more about it. But when I delved into the neuroscience of greed, I was once again greeted by that same sense of astonishment I had ten years previously.
I was astonished at the sheer volume of research undertaken on both Dispositional Greed (a consuming drive to constantly want more money and/or power) and Greed Personality Trait. So convincing is the evidence of neuropathology that the question as to whether Dispositional Greed is a mental disorder or not has now been replaced by the question of what type of disorder it is - addiction, psychopathy, or part of the ‘dark triad'?
I was also astonished at just how substantial the brain changes are in those who are consumed by their greed. I was surprised to find that so disruptive is greed to the normal, healthy development of the brain that cortical regulation (prefrontal cortex) on the emotional system (limbic) was significantly lacking. Those with Dispositional Greed are essentially underdeveloped.
It has ramifications. For those consumed with greed, they are missing out on the best bits of life. Consistently, the evidence shows they are miserable. Indeed, they are so miserable that neuroimaging studies show actual changes to the structures of their brains. They are also angry and more likely to be aggressive. Evidence shows that those with Dispositional Greed seem to oscillate between being miserable and being angry.
Perhaps though, the most stark (from the individual with Dispositional Greed's perspective) is the lack of higher cortical innervation. That is, the Greedy Brian has significant deficits in higher cognitive brain functions such as "decision making, reasoning, personality expression, maintaining social appropriateness, and other complex cognitive behaviours” (some of the known functions of the prefrontal cortex).
While difficult to quantify (neuroscience isn't quite advanced enough yet), there is very likely to be an impaired ability to appreciate art, poetry, nature, relationships, and other meaningful aspects of life.
As I say, the greedy brain is missing out on the best parts of life.
From this Dan went on to draw conclusions:
For those of us who lay in their wake (which is more and more of us as they take over society), the deficits in the greedy brain have more worrying ramifications.
Firstly, there is the obvious issue: greedy people will take more of our shared resources for themselves. This has been happening for centuries and is now set to peak once again. The consequences of this are far-reaching.
The direct consequences include the lack of resources for others in society. Poverty, health inequality, further decline in educational opportunities, and a much weaker safety net for the vast majority of people seem unavoidable at this stage.
Leading on from this are the ‘indirect' consequences associated with the vast majority of society witnessing the gross inequity and disparity between normal, working people and the opulent lifestyles of the oligarchs. Be clear that this behaviour of the oligarchs is in direct opposition to the ‘civil agreement'.
If you want to read the rest, it is here. It is free. I recommend a subscription, which can also be free. This is someone thinking hard about what is happening hard in our society. That makes what he has to say worth reading.
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The Old Testament era theologians, as far as I understand it, realised the finite nature if resources and sought to limit the amount any one individual could have eg through Jubilees.
The challenge I suggest is to come up with a 21st Century version ogf their thinking and solutions
Old Testament theology buff here (not my speciality though).
The key issue in the Jubilee issue is LAND, its distribution, tenure and how that affects wealth accumulation and inequality.
1. A “leasehold” rather than “freehold” approach. People can’t own land, they enter into a covenant to occupy it, which is conditional on ethical and religious observances. If they break covenant the land “vomits them out”. The land belongs to God, not Israel.
2. Obligations with regard to use of labour, and dealing with the consequences of poverty. Rules controlling slavery and giving rights to slaves, better than similar codes (eg:code of Hammurabi)
3. The Levites serving in the Temple were not allowed land but were given walled cities (which became Sanctuary cities for those guilty of manslaughter). The people’s tithe was to provide for the landless Levites who had no inheritance in the land.
4. The key point of Jubilee was to prevent accumulation of land. After equal allocation to the tribes, if through bereavement or other disasters people sold themselves or their land, the clock would be reset every 50 years. Debts were cancelled, land reverted. The law as written, warned the rich not to try and game the system as Jubilee year approached, instead of saying “tough cookie” to the poor, it said “tough cookie” to to the rich.
5. Laws about harvest required farmers to harvest carelessly, to allow “gleaning” of crops in the corners of the fields by the poor (as done by Jesus’ ancestor, Ruth).
6. The law on various crimes (in a society without prisons) and on sanctuary distinguishes between cities and rural communities, recognising their sociological differences and how crime worked (different laws about witness requirements for rape cases, in towns cf out in the country).
These laws are about a society thousands of years ago, and we might object to many aspects of their prescriptions, but they would drive any modern Tory mad with rage. If I ever preached on them. I would be accused of being political! Of course, religion that isn’t “political” isn’t worth bothering with.
We have no evidence they were ever implemented.
A bit like Christianity 🙁 😉 ??
Thanks
The indigenous peoples of North America have a name for this illness:
“Wetiko is an Algonquin word for a cannibalistic spirit that is driven by greed, excess, and selfish consumption (in Ojibwa it is windigo, wintiko in Powhatan). It deludes its host into believing that cannibalizing the life-force of others (others in the broad sense, including animals and other forms of Gaian life) is a logical and morally upright way to live.
Wetiko short-circuits the individual’s ability to see itself as an enmeshed and interdependent part of a balanced environment and raises the self-serving ego to supremacy. It is this false separation of self from nature that makes this cannibalism, rather than simple murder. It allows – indeed commands – the infected entity to consume far more than it needs in a blind, murderous daze of self-aggrandizement.”
https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/seeing-wetiko-on-capitalism-mind-viruses-and-antidotes-for-a-world-in-transition/
Thank you for the link – it gets to the heart of the matter – & it is a very dark heart indeed (Conrad?), which begs the question – at what point did it all start to go so very badly wrong in Europe? I’d hazard a guess with the Romans.
This particular blog & the links have been amongst the most remarkable (in terms of deepening perspectives) I have read in some time.
Richard, the link you included contains all sorts of extra junk which redirects to a ‘load the app’ page. (I hate Substack with a passion!)
As a general point, for most sites the stuff after the ‘?’ can and should be deleted when posting links. It usually contains ‘spying’ information of interest only to the site. Obviously, check that what’s left still works.
A ‘clean’ link is here: https://open.substack.com/pub/dangoyal/p/the-motivation-behind-the-oligarchs
Thanks
I admit, I found it hard to find that, and looked.
Wow. Thanks so much for pointing this out. 🙂
I didn’t realise greed was a neuropathy. That changes the way we need to look at politics and try to bring about change.
A first thought is that trying to argue logically, or to evoke empathy, in those with this condition may be pointless or counterproductive. How does this reflect, for example, on the decision to remove winter fuel allowance by Starmer, by Reeves, and by Labour MPs? And how does it reflect on the debate by those who are opposed to this repressive decision?
I guess we need to bring this into the light and debate with those who are not afflicted with this condition.
This certainly changes my outlook.
Strewth – vastly interesting and adds another perspective to “want is going on in society”. Big thanks for inclduing this.
This other part of the blog is relevant
https://dangoyal.substack.com/p/the-right-wing-brain-is-different
extract:
Those who follow right-wing ideology tend towards lower intelligence and narrower cognitive abilities.
Those who gravitate towards the right show a consistent tendency to be dominated more by fear than reason.
There seems to be more consistency in the response of someone on the right to the same right-wing stimulus, suggesting a greater susceptibility to being ‘programmed’ to feel, think and act in a certain way.
One of the problems with econmics (& the core point of the blog: what we need as a country, we can afford to fund via gov) is that you need some modest cognitive abilities. Which leaves the open question: how to frame economics in a way that those with “narrower cognitive abilities” can understand?
I note that Trumps message is very very simple: MAGA – coupled to fear. & this time round – he won.
Agreed
It is a recent and very unfortunate event that much of our politics confuses self interest with greed.
Those that pursue greed do so because they get a thrill from imaging people envying them. They are also bitter, resentful and sacred. They are scared that someone will come along and take their ‘greed’. They feel that society is treating them unfairly and can’t stand being treated as just an equal. I have to think them being better than what they actually are, or I am oppressing them. They build and bend social institutions to ‘protect’ their property. And in doing so protect themselves from the free market. Because the free market is a threat and an enemy just like everything else.
They are the true architects of the politics of envy
Please read or watch the work of Dr Iain M Gilchrist, another neurologist who can explain our current political insanity in terms of the brain. He wrote The Master and his Emissary and can be found on YouTube
So, F. Scott Fitzgerald was correct then – the rich are indeed different to you and I?
He was
Spot on
Or Disraeli’s Two nations.
Written in 1845.
Thanks for the link. I’ve been teaching superficially the Dark Triad, and Goyals piece links well with that and white collar crime.
Can work the other way of course – research on the impact on the brain of meditation practices – reduction of impulsive emotional reaction eg: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2944261/
For a more artistic interpretation of this concept, listen to the song ‘Priests of the Golden Bull’s by Buffy St Marie. It’s depressing we have had a political and economic system for 40 years that encourages this potential behaviour in humans.
https://dearscotland.substack.com/p/rachel-reeves-the-city-of-londons?utm_source=publication-search
couldn’t agree more – I’ve often said that billionaires are suffering from a mental illness, nice to see some evidence to back it up!