The Political Brain
The Emergence of Neuropolitics
Matt Qvortrup
- 120 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
The Political Brain
The Emergence of Neuropolitics
Matt Qvortrup
About This Book
We have politics on our mindâor, rather, we have politics in different parts of our brains. In this path-breaking study, Matt Qvortrup takes the reader on a whistle stop tour through the fascinating, and sometimes frightening, world of neuropolitics; the discipline that combines neuroscience and politics, and is even being used to win elections.
Putting the 'science' back into political science, The Political Brain shows how fMRI-scans can identify differences between Liberals and Conservatives, can predict our behaviour with sometimes greater accuracy than surveys, and can explain the biology of uprisings, revolutions, and wars.
Not merely a study of empirical evidence, the book shows how the philosophical theories of, among others, Plato, Aristotle, and Spinoza can be supported by brain scans. Along the way, it also provides an overview of the state-of-the-art knowledge of the organ that shapes our politics. The book shows that if we rely on evolutionary primitive parts of the midbrainâthose engaged when we succumb to polarised politicsâwe stand in danger of squandering the gains we made through the last eight million years.