The Quest for the “Liberal Gene”
Tracing four dimensional liberalism from the prefrontal cortex to genes to evolutionary roots
by Robert HastonAuthor of The Origin of Political Species (forward by John Hibbing)
I’ve been working for two years now on a book that hypothesizes how conservatism and liberalism may be rooted in our genetic inheritance from before and after the “cultural explosion” of man 60,000 years ago. Hibbing’s twin studies showed that political orientation is highly heritable. Beyond this, like many traits, our political nature may also be influenced by less strictly heritable genes. This begs the question: what is the origin of our two political species?
Harpending’s recent study revealed that human evolution accelerated up to 100 fold during this era. The sum of these changes means that there has been as much evolution in the last 60,000 years as the half-million before it. As I like to put it, just like our guts have been adapting to agriculture (as reflected in varying rates of lactose intolerance, obesity, and diabetes) our brains have been adapting to human culture.
The best way to think of the theory is to attempt to falsify its opposite. How could we have evolved across the greatest change on the planet since the dinosaurs, during the era of our greatest genetic change, and yet each and every one of us have either all old, all new, or the exact same balance of social genes? Furthermore, how could such a cataclysm that was caused by human culture not leave any marks upon our genes for human culture?
This was the era when man evolved from troop to tribe to nation. The most interesting thing I have found is how the labels each side gives itself are exact descriptions of society before and after this transition. This was the era when those who “focused on the family” started fighting with those who believed that “it takes a village to raise a child”. Of all the titles and names they could have given themselves, why did O’Reilly pick “Traditional Warrior” and Michael Weiner change his last name to Savage?
From Ralph Waldo Emerson to modernist Jaron Lanier, the size of one’s “circle of empathy” seems to be at the core of how liberal one’s world view is. So I started researching neuroscience and revisited Neuropolitics. This topic languishes under a misplaced taboo that trying to understand how genes shape politics is related to dark chapters of politicians trying to shape our genes. I find the reality is quite the contrary. Genocide is rooted in the pre-human genetic code of bacteria and other pond scum. We are the only species which has broken away from this primal urge.
I have become convinced that accepting the genes and physiology beneath our political differences could defuse the war between the parties, just like “Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus” did for the war between the sexes.
What I have found is that beneath the confusing and contradictory modern taxonomy of various types of economic, social, religious and cultural liberals and conservatives, there are predominant themes. The one that stands out in particular is empathy. The conservative view is a comparatively immobile perspective in both space and time. By the admission of its own proponents, it is centered on the self, close relatives, and members of its horizontal territory and vertical social strata. It focuses on the here and now, looking to the past for guidance. The liberal view is highly mobile, forever stepping into the shoes of those far from us, socially below us, or off into the future.
Caucasian liberals are slightly more likely to have blue or green eyes
Other facets such as authoritarianism versus egalitarianism, clannishness, territoriality and nationalism can all be seen as secondary to or moderated by the size of one’s “circle of empathy”.
What I would like to do is to first flesh out this circle of empathy into a sphere of empathy. For we often step over those who are below us in order to make magnanimous or symbolic gestures towards those far away. This three dimensional sphere of empathy also looks into the future – the fourth dimension. The strict conservative circle of empathy is like the view from a planet in a small steady orbit. The “flaming liberal” view is more like the view from an asteroid on an asynchronous elliptical orbit, whirling by close or far, and then out into the future and back.
A common misperception is to confuse empathy (the ability to stand in another’s shoes and see their perspective) with sympathy (emotionally caring about what one sees). While sympathy often follows, it is quite feasible, and often desirable to utilize heartless empathy. Consider how Patton followed the advice of Sun Tzu and studied Rommel obsessively. Empathy by definition is having a mobile perspective, making it quite synonymous with the non-political definition of liberal as a broad, open, and mobile viewpoint.
In the light of perspective mobility, it is now easy to see progressivism as another dimension of liberalism. This ability to change one’s perspective to someone else’s shoes extends to the shoes of those in the future. So progressivism is by definition the fourth dimension of liberalism, just like time is the fourth dimension in physics.
We have typically kept progressivism as paired but separate from liberalism. Progressivism has served of late mainly as a euphemistic slogan and facile dodge of the increasingly defamed “L-word”. Progressivism is empathy for those in the future. Liberalism is empathy for those physically distant in the horizontal X-Y plane and those in lower social stratum of the Z axis. Progressivism is empathy towards these and newer generations further along the T axis into the future.
For now, empathy and foresight may not seem parts of a whole in your mind, but they are in your brain. From the case of Phineas Gage in 1848 to the latest functional MRI research, studies have shown that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is where the heavy lifting is done in the task of moving one’s perspective to that of another (empathy) and into the future (foresight). This trait of “perspective mobility” is an important characteristic in skills that are dominated by liberals, such as art and comedy.
These are among the numerous traits that are confined to very discreet processing centers. If these areas are damaged, there is typically minimal recovery. Our brain in this and many other cases isn’t like a hard drive where the functions of a few damaged sectors can be moved elsewhere. Our brain is much more like a wet mechanical computer, with different tasks accomplished only by discreet areas. This is one of the strongest arguments for a stronger genetic basis of human nature. If our brains programmed themselves via the behaviorist model, such capacities could be placed about anywhere as our brains develop. If that location was damaged, these functions could be easily reassigned to almost their full extent elsewhere.
The vmPFC is also the location where shame, compassion, guilt, moral reasoning, anger suppression and other emotional controls are processed (in concert with other areas of course). This is also adjacent to the central location for the routing of humor, with sight gags or puns coming in from visual or language centers. (Watson) Humor has often been described as taking a different and unconventional view, and its key role is that of diplomacy—laughing off things that would otherwise cause conflict. If one were going to stick the label “liberal brain” somewhere, this would be the most likely place.
We also know that such a straightforward function would translate to a small number of neurons. We have been able to change behavior in mice by activating a single neuron. (Houweling) So the difference between egghead liberals and low brow conservatives could become metaphor for what in actuality may be a very minor difference in our brains.
Migratory populations exhibit a higher frequency of long alleles of the Dopamine D4 receptor gene (Chen)
So this gives a core function of liberalism a central location. This could be a small but influential “empathy processor”. This places the role of the liberal brain not as separate, but as a moderator of a fundamentally conservative brain. Most of our brain evolved long before human culture required complex, sensitive, and nuanced social skills. Given the speed and power of our recent evolution, drastically remodeling older parts of the brain would not be feasible. But a relatively modest increase of the size and complexity of their control circuitry would not only be easier, but would allow them to be turned back full off in times of great conflict.
For example, over 250 studies have shown that exposure to stimuli that makes people think of their own mortality causes a “red shift” to the right (Westen-Politcal Brain). We not only witnessed this after 9/11, but how fellow conservatives capitalized on such fears for politcal gain afterward.
So one could see how a minor increase or decrease in a particular area would change the lens by which we focus the powerful set of instincts, innate morals and emotions that reside in the rest of our brain. Such differences in innate nature must be caused by a gene or genes.
So we know from heritability studies that these genes exist. We know the likely location of where they act and how. We know from other genetic studies that such a small, simple, and localized change could come from a very small genetic difference.
Bruce Lahn has found two genes related to brain development that evolved during this era. Rather than attempt to correlate these genes with a broad differences, I believe that it would be best to focus on the specific candidates for recent evolution. It simply makes sense to look for the newest behaviors in the newest part of the brain.
We may very soon find such an “empathy gene” or more probably an empathy haplotype set of genes that transfer together. Preeminent “gene cruncher” George Church is leading the Personal Genome Project at Harvard Medical School. This will gather the most influential portions of the genomes of thousands of people, along with all their physical and personality traits. A supercomputer will then sift through all the data looking for gene combinations that affect these traits.
Imagine for a moment if we find a simple gene sequence behind the 40% heritability that Alford and Hibbing discovered. Imagine that possibly in addition to heritable genes, there are less heritable and more random gene sequences that also shape our politics. Imagine if we discover that over half our political orientation comes from genes. Imagine everyone in the world looking back at the decades of self-righteous shouting of zealots over a situation that fundamentally was about your AG43 or BN91 gene. With gene sequencing dropping towards $1,000, I can see a day when people don’t ask your affiliation, but which gene you have. Like astrology, were you born under the sign of the elephant, or the donkey? Maybe one day people may ask about your conservative/liberal gene ratio just like your HDL/LDL cholesterol ratio. More importantly, people will be asking this question to themselves before they mount their soap boxes.
The MCPH1 gene is closely associated with brain growth. MCPH1 (haplogroup D) may have originated in a lineage of archaic humans 1.1 M years ago, and later introgressed back into modern humans about 37 K years ago (Lahn)
All that would remain are the questions of why and when. Our genes were selected in a ruthlessly Darwinian struggle for survival and dominance. Behaviors such as expanded empathy and foresight would only evolve in environments where understanding the perspective of others and forecasting into the future would be selected for. The need to deal diplomatically with higher numbers of competing tribes and form larger and larger alliances in a rapidly changing world where longer and longer planning is required would select for such traits. Those more empathetic towards other groups could form larger and more powerful alliances—the primordial precursors to NATO.
Given that the world’s climate has seesawed back and forth, the software of evolution has been programmed to keep plenty of older genes in circulation, ready to be selected when the pendulum swings back and forth. Man’s culture has done the same, swinging from Dark Age to Renaissance and back with far more fury and speed than the climate. So keeping a balance of traits in play is a good survival strategy.
The recent massive changes in man’s environment have been almost solely due to the effects of human culture. Genes specifically adapted to this environment would fall second only to genes adapted to the climates of new latitudes and continents a new cultural man was exploring. These genes would be rapidly creating an environment where only they or even more advanced cultural genes would be selected for.
If we do find our political genes, and the liberal versions are shown to be more recently evolved, I can scarcely imagine the cries of protest that scheming liberals are hiding behind junk science to make claims of genetic and therefore legitimate superiority. I can imagine how many radical behaviorist liberals armed with such rhetorical ammunition would suddenly dump their dogma and claim that they have the new genes; therefore all the “go with your gut” conservatives should now listen to them and start thinking like they do. Given that this is already their ever failing strategy (what Drew Westen refers to as being “irrationally rational”) and that many conservatives reject evolution as a whole, I would tell them to not bet on it.
This would be the height of ironic twists considering that a core political argument to date has been between conservatives claiming that man is innately and intractably conservative and liberals who claim that we are all clay that can be molded by society. Both are clearly wrong.
My personal observation is simply this: So what, and now what? We are who we are, and undoubtedly some of us have a few newer genes than others. Some of us are more socially tolerant, just like some are more lactose tolerant. We had better learn the lesson that books such as Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus taught us. Shut up. Stop trying to change each other because you won’t. Take the advice of Sun Tzu: understand yourself and your enemy and win every battle. To be as blunt as possible: Understand the view of those who don’t agree with you and why they have it, or you are screwed. If your opponent learns to and you refuse to, then you are only screwing yourself.
Just like a couple who once yelled at each other because he wouldn’t listen and she couldn’t read a map now laugh about it because they read that book, finding the “liberal gene” can suck much of the self-righteousness out of politics.
For millions of years, much of every generation was wiped out by disease, starvation, or other humans. We have emerged victorious from this history. The downside is that we are stuck in transition, within sight of the finish line—the sort of harmonious societies we only see in science fiction movies. Here we are and here we will stay, genetically mired in the past but with one eye to the future. Here is my simple advice in keeping with our dual nature. Always keep a liberal view but take a conservative approach.
For those interested in more, you can read a large section of The Origin of Political Species (Or even buy an advance version of the whole e-book) on my web site: www.politicalspecies.com
