Monday 20 November 2017

The shallow end known as right wing politics

There was recently an experiment created as a light-hearted radio 4 experiment made by Colin Firth. They were studying the brains of politically right-wing people compared with politically left. The experiments were done at the University College London and were only a small sample group of 90 students. What they found was quite enlightening, if it is to be believed to be true.

In basic terms, they found that the students believing in right-wing politics had a more pronounced amygdala. This essentially means that they are more likely to react to intense moments with emotions rather than logic. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/right-wing-brains-different-2171127.html)

This to me is a fascinating idea and I believe explains a lot of what is going on in the world. I was on facebook and came across a page which was clearly filled with right-wing politics (https://www.facebook.com/RelativelyStableBritishMemes/). In here are jokes and what not about British culture and mentality. But here is the funny thing. I noticed that all that was being posted, all that was being said, went unchallenged. These people would often just communicate with linking someone else to the post, making out that the post is true or just posting a funny gif demonstrating some type of overexaggerated emotional response. They were posting about real issues and yet, there wasn't any discussion.

To me, this just shows a decline in intelligence and an increase in ignorance. We have evolution which drives us forward and keeps us alive. But this felt like the opposite of that. I believe, in the last few thousand years, humans have gotten to the point where we just go in cycles of allowing the idiots to thrive, giving the natives empowerment. Only to abuse their position due to their cave man brains conceiving everything as a threat. I know if one were to read this post right now, they would most likely only see anger and not realise that they should look beyond and actually read the context. Take a step back.

This is no ones fault why as a species we end up this way. This is most likely some type of addiction to fear. I am pretty sure if there was a study made, there would be a correlation between the number of horror movies an individual watches and whether they are into right-wing politics or not. But I believe, have to believe, we could save this journey towards destruction and change it in the future by teaching some necessary things in school. It is natural for past people and governments to be wary of implementing such things for young people to learn in education. Our education system was designed to create obedient workers in Victorian times after all. It was designed to make people smart enough to operate machines but not smart enough to understand their oppression.

But I believe we need to change that and celebrate intellectualism. As well as the important subjects like Maths, Science and English. We should teach history from the point of view that no one was a victor, the history of economics, human interaction education being taught once a week from age 12 along with sex education. More importantly, we should teach the scientific principle, critical thinking and finally the most important one, fear management.

What I mean by fear management is to teach people that whenever they feel fear, is to just take a step back. Observe what is happening and then make a move. Don't allow fear to take control and stop you from making a logical decision.

Hopefully there would be a way for students to overcome laziness as well.