1 00:00:05,240 --> 00:00:09,440 Speaker 1: How do societies get out of polarized eras, and what 2 00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:11,680 Speaker 1: does this have to do with the brain. What does 3 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:14,280 Speaker 1: any of this have to do with broken down trucks 4 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:18,840 Speaker 1: or the Apollo program or the movie Watchmen, or education 5 00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:23,880 Speaker 1: or Iroquois Native Americans or a new idea for social 6 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:29,000 Speaker 1: media algorithms or moral taste buds, And how we can 7 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,640 Speaker 1: take advantage of the common threads that bind us coming 8 00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:38,400 Speaker 1: to see each other as fellow travelers improvising their way 9 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: through the same noisy world. Welcome to Inner Cosmos with 10 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:48,760 Speaker 1: me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and author at Stanford 11 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:52,440 Speaker 1: and in these episodes we sail deeply into our three 12 00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:56,800 Speaker 1: pound universe to understand why and how our lives look 13 00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:15,880 Speaker 1: the way they do. Today's episode is part two of 14 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:20,240 Speaker 1: the question of what our brains have to do with politics. 15 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:25,080 Speaker 1: Last week, in episode one thirty, we talked about polarization, 16 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:30,160 Speaker 1: why brains are so predisposed for us versus them, for 17 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:34,320 Speaker 1: in groups versus outgroups. We set the table pretty thoroughly 18 00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:36,679 Speaker 1: with that, but this week we're going to talk about 19 00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:40,600 Speaker 1: how we might be able to fix that. So quick 20 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:44,319 Speaker 1: summary from last week so that we're aligned the human 21 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:50,400 Speaker 1: brain is disturbingly good at polarization and dehumanization, and this 22 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:54,960 Speaker 1: is why societies across history keep falling for the same 23 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:59,680 Speaker 1: psychological tricks. Last week, we began with Rwanda in nineteen 24 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:05,240 Speaker 1: ninety before, where constant radio messages calling the Tutsi cockroaches 25 00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:10,960 Speaker 1: reshaped how people perceived their neighbors. That kind of language 26 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:16,440 Speaker 1: bypasses rational thought and dampens the brain's ability to recognize 27 00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:21,200 Speaker 1: others as humans with inner lives. The same pattern appeared 28 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:25,960 Speaker 1: in Nazi portrayals of Jews, in American World War II 29 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:31,359 Speaker 1: propaganda characterizing the Japanese, and even in ancient Rome's use 30 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:35,720 Speaker 1: of the word barbarian. Across cultures and eras, the first 31 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:40,000 Speaker 1: step toward violence is always a separation with some group, 32 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:46,679 Speaker 1: comparing them to animals, or pests or pestilence. Why because normally, 33 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:52,320 Speaker 1: the medial prefrontal cortex activates when we consider another person's 34 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:56,639 Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings, but when we view some group as 35 00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:04,400 Speaker 1: less than human, this social cognition circuitry quiets down. Dehumanization 36 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:07,680 Speaker 1: is nothing but the dimming of these circuits in your brain, 37 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:14,079 Speaker 1: and once that happens, that makes harming others psychologically easier. 38 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:16,919 Speaker 1: And the reason it's so easy for this to happen 39 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:22,639 Speaker 1: is because we are experts at tribalism. Our ancestors survived 40 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:26,520 Speaker 1: in small bands, and our brains still automatically sort the 41 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:32,560 Speaker 1: world into us and the potentially dangerous them. Even arbitrary 42 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,440 Speaker 1: labels create favoritism. Many studies show that all you need 43 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:39,400 Speaker 1: to do is divide some group of people at random 44 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:44,440 Speaker 1: and assign labels, and you can watch things escalate from 45 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: group bonding to aggression. And brain imaging studies from my 46 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:52,440 Speaker 1: lab and others show the neural basis of this, which 47 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:58,600 Speaker 1: is that empathy circuits respond strongly when in group members suffer, 48 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,720 Speaker 1: but that response weaker for outgroup members. Sometimes outgroup pain 49 00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:08,960 Speaker 1: even activates reward pathways. So last week we also talked 50 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:14,720 Speaker 1: about how easily political identity fuses with our sense of self. 51 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:20,000 Speaker 1: When people encounter political statements that challenge their beliefs, brain 52 00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:24,760 Speaker 1: regions involved in physical threat become active. This is why 53 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:30,800 Speaker 1: facts rarely change minds. The brain interprets disagreement as an 54 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:35,159 Speaker 1: attack on who you are. I have long suggested that 55 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:39,839 Speaker 1: education is our strongest defense against all the tricks of polarization. 56 00:04:40,400 --> 00:04:44,680 Speaker 1: If young people can learn the basics of propaganda, they 57 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:47,880 Speaker 1: can recognize it and resist it before it takes hold, 58 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:50,680 Speaker 1: and we'll get more into that today. So in this 59 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:53,440 Speaker 1: week's episode, we're going to focus on the good news, 60 00:04:53,600 --> 00:04:57,680 Speaker 1: such as it is, how we can channel tribal tendencies 61 00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:03,040 Speaker 1: for better societies and reignite the circuitry of our empathy. 62 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:07,520 Speaker 1: It can sometimes feel like polarization is an unbreakable law 63 00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:11,400 Speaker 1: of human nature. It's a reflex wired into the brain, 64 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:17,240 Speaker 1: fueled by emotions, amplified by technology, exploited by propaganda. But 65 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,760 Speaker 1: if neuroscience teaches us anything it's that the brain is 66 00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:24,320 Speaker 1: not fixed. It is live wired. It's always changing, it's 67 00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:29,560 Speaker 1: always adapting, and that means that polarization is not destiny. 68 00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:32,320 Speaker 1: When we get to the end of today's episode, I 69 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:36,000 Speaker 1: will hope to have convinced you that a polarized society 70 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:40,200 Speaker 1: is not destiny, because brains are capable of much more, 71 00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:43,400 Speaker 1: and I'm going to propose some brand new ways that 72 00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:47,000 Speaker 1: we might turn down the heat. So last episode, we 73 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,880 Speaker 1: saw lots of things to be depressed about regarding the 74 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:53,080 Speaker 1: tribal nature of our neural machinery. But here's the hopeful part. 75 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:56,880 Speaker 1: Our notions of who is in and out of our tribes. 76 00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:01,320 Speaker 1: This is not fixed. The line of us them is malleable, 77 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:06,000 Speaker 1: and under various circumstances, it can get redrawn. So here's 78 00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:09,119 Speaker 1: an example. Last week we talked about the Robbers Cave 79 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:12,400 Speaker 1: experiment in the nineteen fifties. This was a group of 80 00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:15,960 Speaker 1: eleven year old boys who got divided into two arbitrary 81 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:20,120 Speaker 1: groups and given names, the Rattlers and the Eagles, and 82 00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:25,240 Speaker 1: the experimenters watched how quickly tribal conflict formed. Once the 83 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:28,720 Speaker 1: two groups developed their own identities and were put into competition. 84 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:35,000 Speaker 1: They escalated from friendly rivalry to open hostility, despite having 85 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:39,040 Speaker 1: no prior differences. So this was a famous demonstration that 86 00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:43,599 Speaker 1: even arbitrary group labels can trigger us versus them dynamics. 87 00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:46,080 Speaker 1: But what I didn't tell you last week was the 88 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:51,640 Speaker 1: important part, the turning point. Once hostility reached a fevered pitch, 89 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:57,760 Speaker 1: the researchers changed the game. They introduced problems too big 90 00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:00,599 Speaker 1: for any one team to solve alone. These are called 91 00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:05,640 Speaker 1: superordinate goals. So think of a truck that stalled and 92 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:08,680 Speaker 1: needs to be moved, but it takes all the boys 93 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,120 Speaker 1: to get the job done. Or think of a broken 94 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:15,000 Speaker 1: water supply that requires all hands on deck to fix it. 95 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:19,280 Speaker 1: When these problems were presented, now the boys found themselves 96 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:21,960 Speaker 1: in a situation where they had to cooperate. They had 97 00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:24,960 Speaker 1: to pull together to move the truck or get the 98 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:30,280 Speaker 1: clean water. And slowly, grudgingly, they began to soften towards 99 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:33,480 Speaker 1: each other. They worked side by side. Then they ended 100 00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:36,320 Speaker 1: up sharing meals together, and by the end of camp, 101 00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:40,440 Speaker 1: the boys insisted on riding home together in the same bus. 102 00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:44,520 Speaker 1: The same circuitry that had driven them into conflict was 103 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,240 Speaker 1: rerooted by collaboration. And this is one of the key 104 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:51,080 Speaker 1: points we see in the research is that who your 105 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:56,040 Speaker 1: tribe is is pretty flexible. So one strategy is to 106 00:07:56,120 --> 00:08:01,760 Speaker 1: create goals which become superordinate identities that are larger and 107 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:06,840 Speaker 1: more encompassing. This is what happened when Franklin Roosevelt introduced 108 00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:09,880 Speaker 1: the New Deal. This was in the early nineteen thirties. 109 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,240 Speaker 1: The United States was fracturing under the pressures of the 110 00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:17,640 Speaker 1: Great Depression. Unemployment was that record highs, the banking system 111 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:21,440 Speaker 1: was collapsing, and regions and classes were turning inward, and 112 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:24,720 Speaker 1: everyone was blaming one another for the catastrophe. It was 113 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:29,720 Speaker 1: a moment of deep polarization. But instead of leaning into division, 114 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:34,840 Speaker 1: Roosevelt pulled a robbers Cave maneuver on a national scale. 115 00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:39,360 Speaker 1: He created superordinate goals projects that were so large and 116 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:43,040 Speaker 1: so urgent that no single group could solve them on 117 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:46,800 Speaker 1: its own. He launched massive public works projects like the 118 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:51,360 Speaker 1: Civilian Conservation Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority and the 119 00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:56,280 Speaker 1: Works Progress Administration. And these required Americans from very different 120 00:08:56,320 --> 00:09:01,920 Speaker 1: backgrounds to cooperate. You had far and city dwellers, You 121 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:05,800 Speaker 1: had immigrants and veterans and young people. All these people 122 00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:09,600 Speaker 1: suddenly had to work side by side to build dams, 123 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:15,439 Speaker 1: to restore forests, to pave roads, to electrify rural America. 124 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:19,079 Speaker 1: The Social Security Act gave everyone a shared stake in 125 00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:24,000 Speaker 1: the same national project. These programs obviously don't erase every division, 126 00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:28,640 Speaker 1: but they did expand the sense of us. People who 127 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:32,320 Speaker 1: might have seen each other as competitors or strangers now 128 00:09:32,320 --> 00:09:36,319 Speaker 1: became teammates in a collective effort to rebuild the country. 129 00:09:36,559 --> 00:09:40,000 Speaker 1: In exactly the same way that the campers bonded over 130 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:44,040 Speaker 1: the shared struggle to move a stalled truck. Americans began 131 00:09:44,080 --> 00:09:46,319 Speaker 1: to feel that their fate was linked to the fate 132 00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:49,920 Speaker 1: of others across the country. The New Deal created a 133 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:54,640 Speaker 1: broader identity. It wasn't rattlers versus eagles, It wasn't farmers 134 00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:58,680 Speaker 1: versus city workers. It was now citizens cooperating under a 135 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:03,760 Speaker 1: common banner to climb out of disaster. So with the 136 00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:07,960 Speaker 1: robbers Cave experiment and with the New Deal, we see 137 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:13,120 Speaker 1: that groups can shift identity boundaries. You might be conservative 138 00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:16,480 Speaker 1: or progressive, but you're also an American. You might be 139 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:21,120 Speaker 1: religious or secular, but you're also a human. The larger 140 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:24,880 Speaker 1: the circle, the more empathy gets extended in the brain. 141 00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:27,960 Speaker 1: When we expand the category of who counts as us, 142 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:32,160 Speaker 1: the circuits involved in seeing others as humans start to 143 00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:37,160 Speaker 1: crank back up. These empathy networks brighten, and the silhouette 144 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:41,800 Speaker 1: we made of the other person regains a mind. We 145 00:10:41,880 --> 00:10:45,160 Speaker 1: see this throughout history. Think of the Apollo program in 146 00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:49,320 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. America was deeply polarized at that point, 147 00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:53,960 Speaker 1: divided over civil rights, over Vietnam, over generational change. But 148 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:58,400 Speaker 1: for a moment, the space race offered a superordinate goal. 149 00:10:58,920 --> 00:11:02,319 Speaker 1: The effort to land a human being on the Moon 150 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:07,120 Speaker 1: pulled together scientists and engineers and politicians and ordinary citizens 151 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:12,800 Speaker 1: into a project bigger than any one side. When Neil 152 00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:16,520 Speaker 1: Armstrong took his first steps in nineteen sixty nine, millions 153 00:11:16,559 --> 00:11:21,520 Speaker 1: of Americans, regardless of party or identity, celebrated the same story. 154 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:26,800 Speaker 1: And consider what happens after natural disasters. Whenever societies get 155 00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:31,320 Speaker 1: hit with earthquakes or hurricanes or wildfires, people who might 156 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:35,679 Speaker 1: otherwise mistrust each other suddenly find themselves working side by side. 157 00:11:35,720 --> 00:11:40,040 Speaker 1: They're clearing debris, they're distributing food, they're searching for survivors. 158 00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:44,840 Speaker 1: The amygdala recalibrates to the new, bigger threat, and the 159 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:49,840 Speaker 1: reward circuitry fires. When cooperation succeeds, the brain recognizes in 160 00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:53,199 Speaker 1: real time that the circle of us has to expand. 161 00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:57,040 Speaker 1: The general story from decades of research is that when 162 00:11:57,120 --> 00:12:00,920 Speaker 1: people from different political or racial or religion are put 163 00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:05,079 Speaker 1: into situations where they have to collaborate solving puzzles or 164 00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:10,360 Speaker 1: building structures or managing scarce resources, their biases towards one 165 00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:14,280 Speaker 1: another's shrink. Their medial prefrontal cortex, which I keep mentioning, 166 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:20,480 Speaker 1: dims for outgroups. This reactivates the circuitry of humanness comes 167 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:23,800 Speaker 1: back online. Of course, this is not easy, and we'll 168 00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:26,599 Speaker 1: come back to this in a bit, And the challenge 169 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:31,199 Speaker 1: is that in everyday politics there aren't that many superordinate goals. 170 00:12:31,559 --> 00:12:36,960 Speaker 1: Partisanship thrives on smaller battles of taxes and policies and 171 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:41,240 Speaker 1: culture wars. It's rare that we face a problem so big, 172 00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:45,520 Speaker 1: so undeniable, that it forces us to see the humanity 173 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 1: on the other side of the aisle. But when those 174 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:51,480 Speaker 1: moments come, and they always do, we need to recognize 175 00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:56,360 Speaker 1: them as opportunities for repair because the circuitry is there. 176 00:12:56,400 --> 00:13:01,439 Speaker 1: The same brain that DIM's empathy for rival can reignite 177 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:04,720 Speaker 1: it when cooperation is necessary, the same biology that fuel's 178 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:10,079 Speaker 1: division can, under the right circumstances, fuel unity. And when 179 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:13,680 Speaker 1: we understand that, we can design more moments of shared goals, 180 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,760 Speaker 1: like Roosevelt did with the New Deal, not just wait 181 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:19,600 Speaker 1: for the moments to arrive in the form of disasters 182 00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:22,680 Speaker 1: or wars. So when we ask what pulls us back 183 00:13:22,679 --> 00:13:25,600 Speaker 1: from the brink, one of the answers is this problems 184 00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:29,240 Speaker 1: too big for any one side to solve alone. If 185 00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:32,800 Speaker 1: history is any guide, our best shot at healing polarization 186 00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:36,960 Speaker 1: won't come from continuing to shout at each other, but 187 00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:42,800 Speaker 1: instead finding the trucks that won't budge unless we push together. Now, 188 00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:45,160 Speaker 1: as I flagged a moment ago, it's not just shared 189 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:50,520 Speaker 1: goals that can bind people. This also happens with shared threats. 190 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:53,480 Speaker 1: So let's unpack what this can look like. I told 191 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:55,960 Speaker 1: you in the last episode about an experiment we ran 192 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,120 Speaker 1: in my lab where we had people lie in a 193 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:03,199 Speaker 1: brain scanner fMRI and they watch images of six hands 194 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: on the screen, each labeled with a different religion. The 195 00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:09,400 Speaker 1: computer randomly selects one of the hands, and you see 196 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:12,880 Speaker 1: that hand get stabbed with a syringe needle. And what 197 00:14:12,920 --> 00:14:17,120 Speaker 1: we find is activity in the brain's pain matrix, this 198 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:22,080 Speaker 1: network that generates empathic responses when we see others in distress. 199 00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:25,200 Speaker 1: This comes on when you see the hand getting stabbed. 200 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:28,400 Speaker 1: But the key finding was that the brain reacts more 201 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:32,800 Speaker 1: strongly when the stabbed hand has your religious label, and 202 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:35,880 Speaker 1: it reacts a lot less when the hand is labeled 203 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:39,080 Speaker 1: as any of your outgroups. In other words, even though 204 00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:41,800 Speaker 1: all the hands look exactly the same, just adding a 205 00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:46,440 Speaker 1: one word label causes the brain to care more or less. 206 00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:51,440 Speaker 1: And this reveals how deeply and automatically our neural systems 207 00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:55,120 Speaker 1: follow in group and outgroup boundaries. Okay, but now I 208 00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:57,440 Speaker 1: want to tell you about the second part of the experiment. 209 00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:01,120 Speaker 1: I wanted to see how flexible these responses can be. 210 00:15:01,560 --> 00:15:04,240 Speaker 1: So now imagine this. You're still in the scanner, but 211 00:15:04,360 --> 00:15:07,120 Speaker 1: now you see a line on the screen that says 212 00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:11,720 Speaker 1: the year is twenty thirty two, and these three religions 213 00:15:11,880 --> 00:15:15,400 Speaker 1: are teamed up against these three religions. So you're seeing 214 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:17,400 Speaker 1: the same six hands on the screen with the same 215 00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:23,000 Speaker 1: six labels. But suddenly you've got teammates religions that you 216 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:27,200 Speaker 1: didn't care about a minute ago. They're now on your side. 217 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:31,040 Speaker 1: And the question becomes what happens in the brain when 218 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:34,280 Speaker 1: a hand is stabbed that belongs to an outgroup that 219 00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:37,800 Speaker 1: you've just been told is now your ally. And what 220 00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:40,640 Speaker 1: we see is that this pain matrix responds to this 221 00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:46,120 Speaker 1: newly formed alliance. Five minutes ago, you had no empathy 222 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:50,280 Speaker 1: for that outgroup, but after a single sentence establishing them 223 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:54,040 Speaker 1: as a shared team with you, your brain cares a 224 00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:57,920 Speaker 1: little more when their hand is harmed. So what does 225 00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:02,560 Speaker 1: this tell us? Even though religious labels run deep, the 226 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:07,800 Speaker 1: brain's empathy boundaries can shift surprisingly quickly. Now this is 227 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:11,680 Speaker 1: not particularly wonderful news for the world because your new 228 00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:15,120 Speaker 1: in group is still defined by a common enemy. But 229 00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:17,800 Speaker 1: the important clue I want to surface for now is 230 00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:22,760 Speaker 1: that outgroups can change. They're flexible. Now, sometimes this sort 231 00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:26,560 Speaker 1: of shifting allegiance is going to have strange consequences. For example, 232 00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:29,880 Speaker 1: in the world of fiction, there's a comic in a 233 00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:35,160 Speaker 1: movie called Watchmen, which unfolds in an alternate nineteen eighty 234 00:16:35,160 --> 00:16:39,360 Speaker 1: five where aging superheroes who are now outlawed or retired. 235 00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,640 Speaker 1: They're grappling with the looming threat of nuclear war between 236 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:46,200 Speaker 1: the US and the Soviet Union. Now, one of the 237 00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:49,720 Speaker 1: characters believes that humanity is on the brink of self destruction, 238 00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:54,080 Speaker 1: and so what he does is he stages a catastrophic 239 00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:57,880 Speaker 1: fake alien attack and he kills millions of people in 240 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:01,240 Speaker 1: New York. And his logic is that that only an 241 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:07,960 Speaker 1: overwhelming external threat can shock the warring superpowers into unity 242 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,960 Speaker 1: with each other. And in the end, the US and 243 00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:14,760 Speaker 1: the USSR do in fact halt their march toward nuclear 244 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:18,520 Speaker 1: war and they join forces against what they believe is 245 00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:21,600 Speaker 1: a common enemy. So again this taps into the idea 246 00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:25,320 Speaker 1: that ourtgroups are flexible and that with a common threat, 247 00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:29,199 Speaker 1: suddenly enemies can end up on the same side. And 248 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:31,880 Speaker 1: all of this leads to an idea that I've been 249 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:36,000 Speaker 1: working on for a while, and that is, can we 250 00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:42,160 Speaker 1: build a better society by complexifying our allegiances? So let 251 00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:44,640 Speaker 1: me explain this. I've been proposing for several years now 252 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:48,639 Speaker 1: that one of our best defenses against polarization and dehumanization 253 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:53,800 Speaker 1: is clever social structuring. So to explain this, let's turn 254 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:57,840 Speaker 1: to the Iroquoied Native Americans who lived up around what's 255 00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,560 Speaker 1: now upstate New York. Own currently is the League of 256 00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:03,840 Speaker 1: Peace and Power, but they weren't known as that four 257 00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:07,000 Speaker 1: hundred years ago. Four hundred years ago, they were made 258 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:10,160 Speaker 1: up of six tribes who were always fighting with each other, 259 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:14,760 Speaker 1: really bloody battles. But then in the sixteen hundreds, they 260 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:18,360 Speaker 1: were brought together by a man named Deaganaweda, who became 261 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,560 Speaker 1: known as the Great Peacemaker. He combined them into one nation. 262 00:18:22,720 --> 00:18:25,320 Speaker 1: But of course that's not enough. If you simply push 263 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:29,199 Speaker 1: people together that can fall back apart easily. Degan Aweda 264 00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:34,560 Speaker 1: did something much more clever. He structured clans so that 265 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:39,320 Speaker 1: each tribe member ended up belonging to one of nine clans. 266 00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:43,000 Speaker 1: So I might be a member of the Seneca tribe, 267 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:45,840 Speaker 1: but I'm a member of the Wolf clan, and you're 268 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:48,840 Speaker 1: a member of the Mohawk tribe, but you're also a 269 00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:52,199 Speaker 1: member of the Wolf clan. The key is that the 270 00:18:52,359 --> 00:18:57,000 Speaker 1: membership to tribes and clans cross cut. So how is 271 00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:00,000 Speaker 1: the Seneca tribe going to fight against the Mohawk tribe? 272 00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:03,000 Speaker 1: Vibe when I'm a wolf and you're a wolf. And 273 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:05,800 Speaker 1: by the way, my Seneca friend is in the Hawk clan, 274 00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:08,120 Speaker 1: and your Mohawk friend is in the Hawk clan too, 275 00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:11,720 Speaker 1: And so when we all consider waging war, we think, 276 00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:13,720 Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. I got friends over there, 277 00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:19,040 Speaker 1: I've got fellow clansmen. So by cleverly structuring things in 278 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:24,280 Speaker 1: a society, by making cross cutting ties, that tamps down 279 00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:29,800 Speaker 1: people's natural predilection for easy outgroups. In other words, you 280 00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:35,200 Speaker 1: can complexify our allegiances. On the other side of the Atlantic, 281 00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:39,240 Speaker 1: this kind of cross cutting allegiances. This was common. European 282 00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:44,080 Speaker 1: royalty often married their daughters to husbands and neighboring countries, 283 00:19:44,359 --> 00:19:47,399 Speaker 1: or even in enemy countries, and this was done to 284 00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:52,560 Speaker 1: cement alliances, as with the marriage of Charles to Isabella 285 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:56,520 Speaker 1: in fifteen twenty six to bind the rival kingdoms of 286 00:19:56,560 --> 00:20:01,480 Speaker 1: Spain and Portugal. Sometimes these marriage contracts were to strengthen 287 00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,760 Speaker 1: a power base, but more often they were designed to 288 00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:09,960 Speaker 1: constrain a contender from attacking. If you force two groups 289 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:15,000 Speaker 1: to intertwine, that can subdue the antagonism in the same 290 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:19,679 Speaker 1: way that the clash between Shakespeare's fictional montagues and Capulates 291 00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:24,840 Speaker 1: was overshadowed by a relationship between their children. I think 292 00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:27,520 Speaker 1: that it's likely to be naive for us to think 293 00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:30,760 Speaker 1: about everyone in a society getting along, because we're very 294 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:34,560 Speaker 1: hardwired in groups and out groups. But we can structure 295 00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:38,119 Speaker 1: things carefully like the Iroquois chief did, so that things 296 00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:43,040 Speaker 1: have counterbalance, so that it's not so easy for people 297 00:20:43,119 --> 00:21:02,080 Speaker 1: to raise arms against one another. So I'll give you 298 00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:04,880 Speaker 1: a very specific way that I'm working on this right 299 00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:09,320 Speaker 1: now with social media algorithms. So currently these algorithms are 300 00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:14,399 Speaker 1: optimized for engagement at any cost, but they surface increasingly 301 00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:19,600 Speaker 1: extreme content. They push users into political echo chambers. They 302 00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:23,199 Speaker 1: amplify outrage and division, and what we get out of 303 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,600 Speaker 1: that is a slightly more fractured society. We get diminished 304 00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:30,399 Speaker 1: trust across the aisle, we get reduced ability for people 305 00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:35,119 Speaker 1: to engage constructively across differences. So, as a neuroscientists have 306 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:37,879 Speaker 1: spent a lot of my career studying how the brain 307 00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:43,359 Speaker 1: forms bonds and how social identity shapes perception, and how 308 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:46,960 Speaker 1: we might build trust across these divides. And one of 309 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:52,119 Speaker 1: the conclusions is that when people first connect over non 310 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,600 Speaker 1: political shared interests like sports or hobbies or art or 311 00:21:55,680 --> 00:22:00,280 Speaker 1: music or brands or locations or whatever, they develop these 312 00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:06,399 Speaker 1: multi dimensional relationships, and later, when political differences emerge, the 313 00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:10,919 Speaker 1: relationships are more resilient. People are far more likely to 314 00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:15,920 Speaker 1: converse than dehumanize. So my recent research is in how 315 00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:20,600 Speaker 1: to redesign social media to match the realities of the 316 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:24,160 Speaker 1: human brains. So I just patented an algorithm that flips 317 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:29,719 Speaker 1: the traditional method on its head. Instead of inadvertently clustering 318 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:34,800 Speaker 1: users by political alignment as happens now, the new algorithm 319 00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:40,000 Speaker 1: surfaces information to users through shared interests like running or 320 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:44,120 Speaker 1: gardening or surfing, or classic films or chests or sports 321 00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:48,800 Speaker 1: teams or baking or whatever. In this way, the algorithm 322 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:54,280 Speaker 1: builds bonds, creating a rich web of shared interests, and 323 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,960 Speaker 1: then at some later point users might come to see 324 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:02,200 Speaker 1: that there are differences in political stances, but they've already 325 00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:07,320 Speaker 1: established connections and that's what allows them to converse. When 326 00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,399 Speaker 1: we like each other and then find out that we 327 00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:14,879 Speaker 1: have opposite views on some hot button issue, we both 328 00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,080 Speaker 1: tilt our heads and we're more willing to hear the 329 00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:22,000 Speaker 1: perspective of the other person because we're already pals. So 330 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:27,199 Speaker 1: by taking advantage of the common threads that bond, it 331 00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:30,760 Speaker 1: makes it less easy to write off the other person. 332 00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:35,600 Speaker 1: It's just an issue of temporal sequencing. The idea is 333 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:39,840 Speaker 1: bond first and debate later, and in this way you 334 00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,639 Speaker 1: meet the whole person. You're not just distracted by the 335 00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,800 Speaker 1: flash of their politics. This algorithm isn't hiding anything. It's 336 00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:50,919 Speaker 1: simply spooling out information in a particular order so that 337 00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:55,959 Speaker 1: you have a chance at having a complexified relationship because 338 00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:00,160 Speaker 1: you generally like the person, and now you're slightly more 339 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,879 Speaker 1: likely to lean in and listen rather than write them off. 340 00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,439 Speaker 1: So this whole idea of complexification and new ideas for 341 00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:12,240 Speaker 1: social media algorithms, these are some of the things that 342 00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,919 Speaker 1: I'm working on to reduce polarization in society. But the 343 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:20,040 Speaker 1: good news is there are lots of approaches that researchers study. 344 00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:23,840 Speaker 1: For example, one approach to break the cycle of polarization 345 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:29,119 Speaker 1: comes from psychology's contact hypothesis, and the idea is just that, 346 00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,399 Speaker 1: under the right conditions, if you have personal contact with 347 00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:37,919 Speaker 1: members of an outgroup, that reduces prejudice. But and this 348 00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,879 Speaker 1: is crucial, it's not just any contact. If two groups 349 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,560 Speaker 1: are forced into contact where one holds power over the other, 350 00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,879 Speaker 1: then hostility usually increases. The key is to structure the 351 00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:55,480 Speaker 1: contact so they have equal status, cooperation, common goals, institutional support. 352 00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:00,160 Speaker 1: When you meet those conditions the brains social cognition circuits, 353 00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,439 Speaker 1: like the medial prefederal cortexs and the temporo pridal junction, 354 00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:08,040 Speaker 1: these begin to reawaken. For the outgroup, people stop seeing 355 00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,960 Speaker 1: the other as an abstract category and start seeing them 356 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,720 Speaker 1: as individuals. The silhouette of the other person regains a mind. 357 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,280 Speaker 1: There are lots of real world examples. For example, there 358 00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,840 Speaker 1: are several beautiful projects where Israeli and Palestinian kids are 359 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,320 Speaker 1: in musical groups together or go camping together, and that's 360 00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,159 Speaker 1: the kind of future we need. More generally, there have 361 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,360 Speaker 1: been lots of studies run in schools where children from 362 00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:39,560 Speaker 1: different backgrounds work together on collaborative projects. And biases shrink 363 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:44,159 Speaker 1: in neighborhoods where police officers live and interact with residents, 364 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:50,600 Speaker 1: trust grows. In workplaces where heterogeneous teams share responsibility, you 365 00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:55,360 Speaker 1: can measure that stereotypes fade. Obviously, none of this happens overnight, 366 00:25:55,720 --> 00:26:00,640 Speaker 1: but repeated contact under the right conditions chips away as division. 367 00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,200 Speaker 1: And there's another avenue that people have studied called compassion training. 368 00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,919 Speaker 1: For example, Tanya Singer and her colleagues have studied what 369 00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,920 Speaker 1: happens when people deliberately practice extending compassion not just to 370 00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:17,120 Speaker 1: their loved ones, but to strangers and even to rivals. 371 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:19,960 Speaker 1: They do this for some weeks of training, and you 372 00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,200 Speaker 1: can see their brains change. The regions involved in empathy 373 00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:28,879 Speaker 1: begin to fire more broadly. The medial prefedal cortex shows 374 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,800 Speaker 1: stronger activation for outgroups. In other words, compassion can be 375 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,920 Speaker 1: practiced like a muscle. Now, the problem is that most 376 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:39,760 Speaker 1: of the world is not going to sign up for 377 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:44,239 Speaker 1: compassion training right because that requires an active investment on 378 00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,400 Speaker 1: your part. But I'll tell you another thing that has 379 00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:51,280 Speaker 1: been studied, which I think is much easier to sneak in, 380 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:56,159 Speaker 1: and that is simply about perspective taking. So lots of 381 00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,240 Speaker 1: experiments show that when people are asked to write about 382 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,919 Speaker 1: a day in the life of someone from an opposing group, 383 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:08,200 Speaker 1: their biases soften. The act of imagining another person's experience 384 00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,760 Speaker 1: recruits theory of mind circuits in the brain, in other words, 385 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:18,080 Speaker 1: circuits that make the others inner life visible. Now, if 386 00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,280 Speaker 1: you can't get people to do compassion training, how are 387 00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,200 Speaker 1: you going to get them to do perspective taking? Well, 388 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,120 Speaker 1: that is not so hard. This is what I teach 389 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,520 Speaker 1: about in one of my classes at Stanford called Literature 390 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,360 Speaker 1: and the Brain. The trick is that stories give us 391 00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:37,720 Speaker 1: a way to see the humanity of the other side 392 00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:42,480 Speaker 1: by seducing us into perspectives we would otherwise never occupy. 393 00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,679 Speaker 1: You read these books, or you watch these movies, and 394 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,880 Speaker 1: you are in the shoes of the protagonist, and that 395 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:54,240 Speaker 1: reawakens this circuitry that you have for understanding another person. 396 00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,600 Speaker 1: You're cranking up this neural machinery that lets you imagine 397 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,040 Speaker 1: another person's inner life. Think about the impact of a 398 00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,959 Speaker 1: book like Uncle Tom's Cabin. This book was written at 399 00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:11,560 Speaker 1: a time when half of America viewed enslaved people as property, 400 00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:17,240 Speaker 1: and Harriet Beecher Stowe drew readers into the home of 401 00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:22,200 Speaker 1: a slave family. Now readers got to inhabit their fears 402 00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:27,160 Speaker 1: and loves and losses and moral struggles. The book allowed 403 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,720 Speaker 1: readers to feel the emotional spectrum of people that they 404 00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,119 Speaker 1: had been taught to see as less than human. And 405 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,320 Speaker 1: while historians debate the exact effect of the book on 406 00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,160 Speaker 1: the Civil War, they all agree it had a really 407 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:46,400 Speaker 1: profound impact on public opinion and helped intensify the national 408 00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:50,240 Speaker 1: debate over slavery. Or think of a movie like Dances 409 00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,280 Speaker 1: with Wolves, where you're with Kevin Costner who's a Union 410 00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,040 Speaker 1: Army officer in the Civil War. He gets sent to 411 00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:01,760 Speaker 1: a remote frontier outpost and he's isolated and cut off 412 00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:07,400 Speaker 1: from the army, and there he gradually forms deep relationships 413 00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:11,720 Speaker 1: with the Lakota Sioux Native Americans, and ultimately, over the 414 00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,400 Speaker 1: course of a year, he adopts their way of life 415 00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,120 Speaker 1: and becomes an honorary member of their tribe. So the 416 00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,600 Speaker 1: film starts off with the Lakota as the outgroup, but 417 00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:26,520 Speaker 1: as you watch the movie, you come slowly to identify 418 00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:30,040 Speaker 1: with them, and so it softens the mental boundary of 419 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,880 Speaker 1: us versus them. So the fact is you can't really 420 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:38,160 Speaker 1: force people to do perspective taking. Your psychology resists when 421 00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:42,480 Speaker 1: it feels threatened, but you can sneak people into perspective 422 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:49,280 Speaker 1: taking through compelling stories, stories bypass defensiveness, and before you 423 00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:53,120 Speaker 1: know it, you are having empathy with some group that 424 00:29:53,200 --> 00:30:00,440 Speaker 1: you hadn't yet thought to humanize. So generally, one of 425 00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,280 Speaker 1: the ways to think about building a less polarized world 426 00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,440 Speaker 1: is to have better models of other people. And there's 427 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,479 Speaker 1: a generally smart way that we can build in that direction, 428 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,560 Speaker 1: and that is understanding ourselves in relation to other people 429 00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:19,280 Speaker 1: and being aware of the differences. So let me unpack this. 430 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,400 Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating discoveries of the past few 431 00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:28,000 Speaker 1: decades is that polarization isn't always about facts or even identities. 432 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,600 Speaker 1: Sometimes it just comes down to this strong sense of morality, 433 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,680 Speaker 1: to the foundations on which we build our sense of 434 00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,200 Speaker 1: right and wrong. But here's the thing. You've probably noticed 435 00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,200 Speaker 1: that it can be difficult or impossible to convince someone 436 00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,960 Speaker 1: of your moral view. You both just see it differently. 437 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,840 Speaker 1: So my colleague Jonathan Hite has studied this and gives 438 00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,120 Speaker 1: a metaphor that captures this really well. He says, morality 439 00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,960 Speaker 1: is like a tongue with multiple taste buds. Our tongues 440 00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:05,320 Speaker 1: pick up sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and new mommy. And 441 00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,720 Speaker 1: in the same way, our moral sense comes with its 442 00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:17,840 Speaker 1: own flavors care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity. Now here's the key. 443 00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:23,280 Speaker 1: Some people have stronger sensitivity to sweetness or to bitterness, 444 00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:28,719 Speaker 1: and in the same way, different people emphasize different moral flavors. 445 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,160 Speaker 1: So speaking, very generally, liberals tend to put the greatest 446 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:37,800 Speaker 1: weight on care and fairness. Conservatives, on the other hand, 447 00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:43,040 Speaker 1: spread their attention more evenly across all five, including loyalty 448 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:47,480 Speaker 1: and authority and sanctity. That means when a liberal and 449 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:51,479 Speaker 1: a conservative argue, at the heart of their disagreement is 450 00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:56,120 Speaker 1: that they're tasting different flavors of morality. So let's make 451 00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,360 Speaker 1: this concrete. Take the issue of immigration. A liberal might 452 00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:04,200 Speaker 1: frame the moral question as one of care. How can 453 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,400 Speaker 1: we ensure that families are treated humanely? How can we 454 00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:12,840 Speaker 1: protect vulnerable people who are seeking a better life? A conservative, 455 00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,280 Speaker 1: on the other hand, might frame the moral question in 456 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,160 Speaker 1: terms of loyalty and authority. How can we protect the 457 00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,040 Speaker 1: integrity of the nation. How can we enforce the rules fairly? 458 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,640 Speaker 1: Both of these are moral arguments. Both come from genuine 459 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,239 Speaker 1: ethical concern, but they're tasting different flavors, and so they 460 00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,280 Speaker 1: end up talking past each other. Or take the debate 461 00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:39,320 Speaker 1: over healthcare. A liberal might frame it primarily in terms 462 00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,000 Speaker 1: of care and fairness. How do we make sure everyone 463 00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:47,000 Speaker 1: has access to life saving treatment? How do we reduce 464 00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:52,360 Speaker 1: inequality in health outcomes? A conservative might highlight authority and loyalty. 465 00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,400 Speaker 1: How do we ensure people have the freedom to choose 466 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,400 Speaker 1: their own doctors and plans. How do we maintain a 467 00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:03,200 Speaker 1: system that reward lord's hard work and personal responsibility. Both 468 00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:07,320 Speaker 1: arguments are just leaning on different moral flavors. Or look 469 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,360 Speaker 1: at discussions around school curricula. Liberals might focus on care 470 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,640 Speaker 1: and fairness. How do we make sure that students from 471 00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,920 Speaker 1: all backgrounds feel represented? How do we teach history in 472 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,600 Speaker 1: a way that acknowledges harm and promotes inclusion. Conservatives might 473 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:27,040 Speaker 1: emphasize loyalty and sanctity. How do we preserve national traditions 474 00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:31,240 Speaker 1: and shared narratives. How do we protect the core values 475 00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:35,280 Speaker 1: that hold society together? Again, both sides are approaching the 476 00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:39,400 Speaker 1: issue from sincere moral commitments, but they're sensitive to different 477 00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:44,400 Speaker 1: moral taste buds. And this is what makes polarization so slippery, 478 00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,800 Speaker 1: because when you're speaking from one set of taste buds, 479 00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:54,040 Speaker 1: the other set can feel incomprehensible to someone focused on fairness, 480 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:59,320 Speaker 1: appeals to sanctity can sound medieval. To someone focused on sanctity, 481 00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,520 Speaker 1: appeals to fairness can sound naive. It's not that either 482 00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:07,800 Speaker 1: side is blind, it's that they're tasting a flavor the 483 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,880 Speaker 1: other one barely registers. And you can see all of 484 00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,480 Speaker 1: this in brain skinning. When people are asked to make 485 00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:18,640 Speaker 1: moral judgments. Questions of care activate regions linked to empathy, 486 00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:23,520 Speaker 1: like the anterior insula. Questions of fairness activate networks associated 487 00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:28,840 Speaker 1: with reasoning about equality and justice, like the dorsilateral prefrontal cortex, 488 00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,880 Speaker 1: but questions of loyalty and authority these pull in areas 489 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:37,279 Speaker 1: tied to social emotions and deference to hierarchy, like the 490 00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,520 Speaker 1: amigdala and orbit or frontal cortex, and sanctity, which is 491 00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,040 Speaker 1: often connected with disgust, lights up the same region that 492 00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,680 Speaker 1: flares when you smell something rotten. I mention all this 493 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,719 Speaker 1: to say that the way to understand moral foundations is 494 00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:57,560 Speaker 1: not that these are abstract concepts. These are embodied experiences, 495 00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:01,360 Speaker 1: they are felt in the body, and when two people 496 00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:07,239 Speaker 1: debate morality, they are experiencing the world through different sensory lenses. 497 00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,440 Speaker 1: History gives us lots of examples of this sort of clash. 498 00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,319 Speaker 1: Think about prohibition in the nineteen twenties. To its supporters, 499 00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:36,600 Speaker 1: banning alcohol was a matter of sanctity and authority, protecting families, 500 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,080 Speaker 1: upholding moral order, and forcing discipline. To its opponents, it 501 00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,759 Speaker 1: was a matter of fairness and care. Adults should be 502 00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,600 Speaker 1: able to make their own choices, and the band created 503 00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,040 Speaker 1: more harm than good. The nation was split along moral 504 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:51,839 Speaker 1: taste buds, and the result was one of the most 505 00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,600 Speaker 1: polarized eras in American social life. And today we see 506 00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:59,200 Speaker 1: this in debates over climate change and vaccines, and gun 507 00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:04,160 Speaker 1: rights and repri auctive rights. Each side emphasizes different moral foundations. 508 00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,680 Speaker 1: Each side insists they are on the side of morality, 509 00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,560 Speaker 1: and both are correct within their own moral framework. So 510 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,640 Speaker 1: what does this mean for polarization. It means that part 511 00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:19,120 Speaker 1: of our problem is translation. If you are speaking fairness 512 00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,439 Speaker 1: to someone who cares most about authority and social order, 513 00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,400 Speaker 1: your words are not going to land. If you are 514 00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:30,320 Speaker 1: speaking sanctity to someone who values care, your message falls flat. 515 00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,880 Speaker 1: It's not enough to be moral. You have to speak 516 00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:36,880 Speaker 1: in the moral language of your audience. There's a study 517 00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:42,520 Speaker 1: in which researchers reframed arguments about environmental protection. To liberals, 518 00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:48,919 Speaker 1: they emphasized care protecting vulnerable species, preventing suffering. To conservatives, 519 00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:53,560 Speaker 1: they emphasized sanctity, protecting the purity of nature, keeping the 520 00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,040 Speaker 1: earth unspoiled. And what they found was that conservatives were 521 00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,000 Speaker 1: more persuaded by the sanctity frame, while liberals were more 522 00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,560 Speaker 1: or moved by the careframe. Same issue, different taste buds, 523 00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,080 Speaker 1: different results. When we recognize that the person across the 524 00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,360 Speaker 1: aisle is not immoral, but simply tasting a different flavor, 525 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:14,759 Speaker 1: it opens a small space. It doesn't mean we're going 526 00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:17,600 Speaker 1: to agree, but it means we can see the clash 527 00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:22,720 Speaker 1: for what it is, not good versus evil, but sweet 528 00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:26,880 Speaker 1: versus salty. Of course, this recognition doesn't immediately solve everything. 529 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:30,480 Speaker 1: Our taste buds are stubborn and they're shaped by our culture, 530 00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,080 Speaker 1: are upbringing, our religion, our genetics. They don't shift easily. 531 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:38,640 Speaker 1: But understanding our own taste buds and other peoples can 532 00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:43,239 Speaker 1: help us navigate polarization with a little bit more humility, 533 00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:45,600 Speaker 1: because one thing that should be clear to all of 534 00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:50,120 Speaker 1: us is that moral battles are rarely one by shouting 535 00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,240 Speaker 1: louder in your own language. They are one by learning 536 00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,680 Speaker 1: to speak at least a little bit in the language 537 00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,040 Speaker 1: of the other side. In other words, the recognition that 538 00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:03,680 Speaker 1: while we made agree, we're both chewing on the same world, 539 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,840 Speaker 1: we're just savoring it differently. And if this sort of 540 00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:12,000 Speaker 1: thing can become part of education, not just on a podcast, 541 00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,239 Speaker 1: but in junior highs and high schools and colleges and 542 00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,880 Speaker 1: all over social media, then we might be able to 543 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:23,759 Speaker 1: get even just a small foothold against polarization. One of 544 00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:27,200 Speaker 1: the most powerful tools we have is simply teaching people 545 00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,960 Speaker 1: how the brain responds to political language, to group identity, 546 00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,919 Speaker 1: to dehumanizing cues. When we understand the machinery operating under 547 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:41,200 Speaker 1: the hood, we are far less likely to be manipulated 548 00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:45,080 Speaker 1: by it. Students and of course adults too, need to 549 00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:51,040 Speaker 1: learn to spot the warning signs when rhetoric starts collapsing 550 00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:56,080 Speaker 1: some group of humans into pests and parasites, When headlines 551 00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:02,040 Speaker 1: caricature opponents as monsters, when memes flatten entire populations into 552 00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:07,520 Speaker 1: jokes or stereotypes. These are triggers designed to bypass empathy 553 00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,799 Speaker 1: and pull these really ancient levers in the brain. It 554 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,600 Speaker 1: is critical for young people to learn how to recognize 555 00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:19,400 Speaker 1: these moves, because propaganda is not going anywhere. Human brains 556 00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,440 Speaker 1: are wired for tribalism, and there are always going to 557 00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,719 Speaker 1: be individuals and movements and institutions who are ready and 558 00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,879 Speaker 1: willing to exploit that wiring, sometimes out of ideological convictions, 559 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,520 Speaker 1: sometimes for power, just because it gives them a sense 560 00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:40,279 Speaker 1: of belonging. The motivations might vary, but the tactics of 561 00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:46,080 Speaker 1: dehumanization are the same, and that's why awareness is our 562 00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:50,640 Speaker 1: best defense. Once you can recognize these psychological maneuvers from 563 00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,360 Speaker 1: a distance, they lose their magic. You are no longer 564 00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:59,239 Speaker 1: a passive recipient of whatever emotional current someone is trying 565 00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:03,440 Speaker 1: to generate. You become an active observer who can say, 566 00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,320 Speaker 1: hold on, I know this trick, and that small moment 567 00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:11,400 Speaker 1: of recognition can be enough to keep the spark of 568 00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:15,400 Speaker 1: empathy alive even when someone is trying very hard to 569 00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:20,200 Speaker 1: snuff it. And of course you know that. My favorite 570 00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:23,760 Speaker 1: topic is brain plasticity. The brain is not a machine 571 00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:27,680 Speaker 1: of fixed circuits. It's more like a living city. It's 572 00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:32,200 Speaker 1: always building and demolishing pathways in response to its experience, 573 00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:37,520 Speaker 1: which means the grooves of polarization are not permanent. They 574 00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:42,600 Speaker 1: can be reshaped by new experiences, new rituals, new narratives. 575 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,640 Speaker 1: And the good news is we see this kind of 576 00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:49,640 Speaker 1: thing happen all the time. Think about South Africa after apartheid. 577 00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:53,680 Speaker 1: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission wasn't perfect, but it was 578 00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:58,000 Speaker 1: an attempt to rewire the national circuitry, to create a 579 00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:02,040 Speaker 1: space where stories could be told, where victims and perpetrators 580 00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,279 Speaker 1: could see each other as humans again. It was a 581 00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:10,239 Speaker 1: giant experiment in perspective taking. Or think about Germany after 582 00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,840 Speaker 1: World War Two, a country that had been saturated with 583 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:20,200 Speaker 1: dehumanizing propaganda, to spend decades deliberately teaching the opposite memorials 584 00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:26,080 Speaker 1: to the Holocaust, education about Nazism, cultural rituals of remembrance. 585 00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,960 Speaker 1: The goal reached beyond just the teaching of fact. It 586 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:35,400 Speaker 1: was about retraining empathy, to keep the circuits of humanness 587 00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,400 Speaker 1: switched on. You can see this in more local programs. 588 00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:44,760 Speaker 1: Think about restorative justice programs where offenders and victims meet 589 00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:50,239 Speaker 1: face to face in those encounters, stereotypes degrade because now 590 00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,640 Speaker 1: the offender is no longer just a criminal and the 591 00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:58,200 Speaker 1: victim is no longer just a statistic. Both parties become 592 00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:03,440 Speaker 1: people again. Possibly they become worthy of empathy again. Now 593 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,880 Speaker 1: none of this is easy. The grooves of polarization are deep, 594 00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:11,120 Speaker 1: and they are constantly being reinforced by politics and media 595 00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:13,719 Speaker 1: and our own psychology. But the point is they are 596 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:18,680 Speaker 1: just grooves. They're not permanent, and they can be redirected. Now, 597 00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,759 Speaker 1: one of the challenges is scale. It's one thing to 598 00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:27,080 Speaker 1: soften polarization in a classroom or a workplace or a neighborhood. 599 00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:31,440 Speaker 1: It's another to do it across a nation of millions. 600 00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:38,600 Speaker 1: But the same principles apply, shared goals, complexified relationships, structured contact, 601 00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,440 Speaker 1: perspective taking. This is what we need to concentrate on 602 00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:48,200 Speaker 1: if we want societies to survive their cycles of division. 603 00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:50,840 Speaker 1: And I want to say that at the individual level, 604 00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,080 Speaker 1: each of us has a role because every time that 605 00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:58,240 Speaker 1: we resist a caricature of the other side, every time 606 00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:04,320 Speaker 1: we choose curiof over outrage, every time we practice perspective taking, 607 00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:08,399 Speaker 1: even if we don't agree, we are nudging our own circuitry. 608 00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:13,440 Speaker 1: Towards rehumanization. And if you imagine these small shifts in 609 00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:18,200 Speaker 1: the brain multiplied across millions of people, we may just 610 00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:26,240 Speaker 1: be able to slightly bend the arc of polarization. Okay, 611 00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,920 Speaker 1: so we've spent these last two episodes talking about polarization 612 00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,200 Speaker 1: and what we might do about it, and one of 613 00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:34,839 Speaker 1: the lessons is that we are always looking to our 614 00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,239 Speaker 1: congresses in our social media to analyze our situation, but 615 00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:43,120 Speaker 1: we're not looking nearly hard enough at our own neural circuitry. 616 00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,040 Speaker 1: What we find when we look there is that our 617 00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:50,759 Speaker 1: tribal wiring predisposes us to divide into us and them. 618 00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:57,400 Speaker 1: When we think about polarization, red versus blue, rural versus urban, team, 619 00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:02,200 Speaker 1: stir versus robber, baron, woke us versus magastan whatever, we 620 00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:05,640 Speaker 1: have to remember that what's firing in our brains is 621 00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,520 Speaker 1: ancient machinery. It was designed for survival in a world 622 00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:14,239 Speaker 1: of scarcity and danger, and there's absolutely nothing new or 623 00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:19,640 Speaker 1: surprising about polarization. In last episode, we began with propaganda 624 00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:23,160 Speaker 1: across nation and time, and we saw how quickly the 625 00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:28,560 Speaker 1: brain can switch off empathy when the right metaphors are deployed. 626 00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:32,759 Speaker 1: When you call other groups animals or pestilence or viruses. 627 00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:36,360 Speaker 1: We followed that circuitry into the lab where our empathy 628 00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,560 Speaker 1: gets stoked up for in groups, but it dims for rivals. 629 00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,640 Speaker 1: We saw children at summer camps turn into enemies in 630 00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,839 Speaker 1: a matter of days when they're given different labels. We 631 00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:52,520 Speaker 1: traced the amplifiers of emotion, the pull of identity, the 632 00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:56,719 Speaker 1: power of disgust, the shadow side of the neurochemicals that 633 00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,520 Speaker 1: bond us but give us sharper division with our groups. 634 00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:04,600 Speaker 1: And we've seen how history again and again has weaponized 635 00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,840 Speaker 1: these vulnerabilities. But we also saw today that this doesn't 636 00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:12,120 Speaker 1: have to be our destiny. The same boys at summer 637 00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:16,000 Speaker 1: camp who threw rocks at each other ended up sharing meals. 638 00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:22,240 Speaker 1: We saw how superordinate goals can redraw the boundaries of us, 639 00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:25,680 Speaker 1: like the way we always see when natural disasters turn 640 00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:30,760 Speaker 1: strangers into collaborators. We saw how perspective taking, for example, 641 00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,600 Speaker 1: through books and movies, can bring silhouettes back to three D. 642 00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,960 Speaker 1: And we saw how complexifying the relationships around us so 643 00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:43,200 Speaker 1: that we have cross cutting ties can bind a tighter 644 00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,600 Speaker 1: social fabric that doesn't have a weak direction that it 645 00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:50,600 Speaker 1: tears along in other words, I assert the challenge is 646 00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:54,719 Speaker 1: not to abolish tribalism, because we probably can't, but to 647 00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:58,920 Speaker 1: entangle it with lots of cross cutting knots. And one 648 00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,279 Speaker 1: of the main things I can't emphasize enough is the 649 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:06,160 Speaker 1: importance of education. Just imagine if all students learned about 650 00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,560 Speaker 1: the variety of moral taste buds, so that as they 651 00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,560 Speaker 1: grew up, they just understood that someone who disagrees with 652 00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:18,640 Speaker 1: them is not necessarily a troll or misinformed, but instead 653 00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:22,600 Speaker 1: someone who perhaps puts emphasis on different parts of the equation. 654 00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:26,160 Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that two people are going to definitely 655 00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:29,120 Speaker 1: come to agreement, but it'll damn sure give them a 656 00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:34,160 Speaker 1: richer understanding that can reach beyond the naive notion that 657 00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,200 Speaker 1: each of them has exclusive access to the truth and 658 00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,600 Speaker 1: Lord only knows why the other side is so deluded. 659 00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:45,040 Speaker 1: And obviously, everything I'm saying about students applies to all 660 00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:49,839 Speaker 1: of us at every age. A basic education about polarization 661 00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:55,240 Speaker 1: means recognizing propaganda when it strips away humanness. In other words, 662 00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:59,680 Speaker 1: refusing to let caricatures do the work of collapsing other 663 00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:05,120 Speaker 1: peoples inner cosmosis down to points that you can snuff 664 00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:08,880 Speaker 1: out it means asking how we can leverage our technologies 665 00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:13,280 Speaker 1: to build bridges instead of simply amplifying outrage. And most 666 00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:17,160 Speaker 1: of all, it means holding on to that simple, sometimes 667 00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:21,920 Speaker 1: difficult truth that the person across the divide possesses a 668 00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:26,760 Speaker 1: brain like hours. They are predicting, they're fearing, they're hoping, 669 00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:30,719 Speaker 1: They have the agony and the ecstasy just like you do. 670 00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:35,719 Speaker 1: Polarization thrives when we forget this, when we let the 671 00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:39,600 Speaker 1: circuits of empathy dim, when we allow the metaphors of 672 00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:44,680 Speaker 1: vermin and parasites and mobs to overwrite the complexity of 673 00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:47,040 Speaker 1: human beings. But if we can remember, if we can 674 00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:50,759 Speaker 1: keep those lights on, then we have a chance of 675 00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:55,000 Speaker 1: changing the story, of letting the candle of empathy flicker 676 00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:58,920 Speaker 1: back to life. The task for each of us is 677 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,520 Speaker 1: to guard that can, to shield it against the winds 678 00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:07,960 Speaker 1: of propaganda, to tend to it in the storms of outrage. 679 00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:11,759 Speaker 1: Because if disgust and fear and anger can make us 680 00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:17,320 Speaker 1: see our neighbors as contaminants, just remember that recognizing propaganda 681 00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:21,840 Speaker 1: and taking a different perspective and surfacing what we have 682 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,600 Speaker 1: in common can make us see our neighbors again as 683 00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:31,960 Speaker 1: fellow travelers. Improvising their way through the same noisy world. 684 00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:40,680 Speaker 1: Go to eagleman dot com slash podcast for more information 685 00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:45,560 Speaker 1: and to find further reading. Join our weekly discussions on 686 00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:49,920 Speaker 1: my substack, and check out and subscribe to Inner Cosmos 687 00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,200 Speaker 1: on YouTube for videos of each episode and to leave comments. 688 00:48:54,080 --> 00:49:01,520 Speaker 1: Until next time. I'm David Eagleman and this is Inner Cosmos.