Our true colours?
By Khaled Diab
The
idea that we might all be knee-jerk DNA political reactionaries is far-fetched
and dangerous – politics should be about persuasion.
March 2008
Future expectant parents may not only be
speculating about the possible colour of their offspring’s eyes or hair, but
also their political hue, if recent research is to be believed.
Last week, the New Scientist ran a cover
feature on how “political positions are substantially determined by biology
and can be stubbornly resistant to change”. One political scientist quoted in
the piece suggested that your political hue is as hereditary as your eye
colour: “Trying to persuade someone not to be liberal is like trying to
persuade someone not to have brown eyes.”
After a particularly arduous thread on CiF, where opposing factions dig into their trenches
and refuse to budge, I’m almost tempted to agree. And I’m sure many of us have
had those moments at parties when, after being held hostage by a fanatical
debater who will accept no dissent, we eventually crack, then surrender, and
humour him or her to secure our release.
But what about all those reasonable, sensible
people who are willing to be swayed – is that also genetic?
Looking at myself,
there seems to be at least a grain of truth in the theory. Both my parents are
dedicated socialists. While I like to think of myself as non-aligned
ideologically and see all political systems as imperfect (although some are
more imperfect than others), my views tend to fall on the left-liberal side of
the spectrum.
But how much of this is nature and how much
nurture? In addition, how does this theory explain the areas where I have
radically different views than my parents?
I’m actually not convinced that we’re born with
hardwired political stripes and I would actually be interested to see how
innate Cifers think their own political leanings are.
One problem I have with this ‘determinist’
theory is that it seems to sideline rationality in the political equation and
rob us somewhat of our freewill. It also seems to suggest that our political
leanings cannot change radically or evolve gradually in a completely different
direction.
I am a person who likes to think that my
political beliefs were largely arrived at through the hard graft of weighing up
various alternatives and choosing between them. Of course, I do realise that
some people prefer to go with their instincts, or their ‘gut’ if they happen to
be the current ‘leader of the free world’. But I prefer to keep my politics out
of the sewer.
Moreover, I find the evidence presented so sparse and circumstantial as to prove inconclusive, and
even if our genes do affect our politics, the relationship is so complex that
we will likely never understand it.
Since politics is a very recent development in
our evolutionary history, there is no actual genetic code for ‘red’, ‘blue’,
‘green’ or ‘pinko’. According to this theory, the
correlation between our genes and our politics is not a direct one but passes
via the medium of personality which supposedly plays a large part in
determining our politics.
So people with an ‘open’ personality are more
likely to be liberal, while ‘conscientious’ folk are more likely to be
conservative. In addition, despite the conservative accusations that liberals
are ‘cowardly’, research on the link between fear and politics found that
conservatives are four times more likely to be afraid of such things as death
than liberals.
While it’s flattering to think of oneself as
more open, surely there are open-minded conservatives out there. And why should
a liberal tend to be less conscientious? I mean we liberals can find the time
during our busy limp-wristed, tree-hugging,
woolly-minded, bleeding-heart schedules to put in an honest day’s work.
And even if there is a clear link between
personality types and politics, how exactly do we measure something as
mercurial, elusive and subjective as ‘openness’ and ‘conscientiousness’?
In one test, 40 subjects were asked to push a
button every time a certain letter flashed up on a computer screen. In 20% of
cases, a different letter appeared. Those who resisted pushing the button when
this occurred were deemed to be more able to deal with conflicting information,
a hallmark of openness. And as chance, or our genes, would have it, the
resisters tended to be the most liberal politically.
The first problem with such an experiment is
that the sample is too small to be generalised. I’m also dubious that such a
simple test can even begin to penetrate the mystery and complexity of a notion
as expansive as ‘openness’.
More importantly, even if we do possess a
certain genetic disposition for particular personality types, there is no
guarantee that this will be ‘activated’. There are so many other factors at play
– the influences of family, friends, society, experience, education, etc. – as
to make the net effect negligible.
It is tempting to believe that there is some
essential, inviolable ‘me’ lurking deep inside, and this search to uncover him
or her in our genes is like a secular quest to find our souls. But this
probably isn’t the case. For instance, if I’d been raised by different parents,
had different friends, studied other subjects, read different books and lived
in different environments, I would be a very different person – perhaps even,
horror of horrors, a conservative!
At the moment, this is all harmless academic
fun, but what if political genetics one day becomes politicised? What if political
groups start using genetics to identify the ‘enemy’? How frightening would that
be in totalitarian or authoritarian states?
There are countries round the world who, for various historical and geopolitical reasons, do not
enjoy the benefits of democracy. Perhaps some geneticists of the James
Watson ilk might start ‘developing’ this theory further to suggest that
certain races or groups are just not genetically equipped to deal with or
appreciate democracy – a variation on the ridiculous notion that foreigners
hate us because they hate our freedoms?
Politics is about persuasion and it would be
admitting defeat to start believing that our biology makes it difficult or
unlikely to change people’s political colours.
This column appeared
in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 8
February 2008. Read the related
discussion.
ã2008 K. Diab.
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