Democracy’s Brain

Democracy’s Brain

escrito por Dini Harmita

Abstract

LIke to travel, for some people especially scholars, to think, to read, and to write is to live. Following the current development where authoritarianism and populism tend to rise to the point of affecting and threatening freedom and democracy, the author is delighted to study deeper how our brain works in determining what are the real values of freedom and democracy. At the same time, with both natural and social science approaches, this paper is also aimed to invite the readers to define by themselves in participatory ways what kind of democracy they need and how they could achieve it without harming others.

Keywords: Democracy, freedom, brain, authoritarianism, populism

Brain development is one of courses that interests advanced countries including Japan, Germany, and Israel. I chose the word ‘advanced’ instead of ‘developed’ because not all developed countries focus on either brain development as part of their problem solution or escape goats. I see Nazi’s action in classifying and killing children with autism as one of the ways of both solving their fears and escaping from the possibilities of how dangerous the children could be, when actually they could also be the part of the solution. One of the fears is from democracy. This paper is not trying to blame the Nazi and those who are still living with the values consciously or not, but to seek what we could learn from for democracy. 

One of the companies that has cooperation with a research center in brain development is Boehringer Ingelheim. The research center is owned by a couple of Israeli philanthropists.

In politics, scholars tend to see brain development as brain drain including Zea (2019). One of the articles even says that the Russians are hacking their brain (Linvill, 2019). 

In democracy, perhaps it’s better to see it from the mental health perspective, especially because one of the main requirements of being presidential and parliamentary candidates is to be healthy both physically and mentally. Joe Biden was even rumored to have bipolar disorder. 

I would like to discuss democracy’s brain because of how authoritarianism and populism think is really interesting. Both tend to attack the opponents vigorously but at different levels. Russia is very well known with its dictatorship through their education including militarism. Every country has military education but what makes them different? The education system of Russia’s militarism is similar to the education system of terrorism in radical Islamic contexts but perhaps one formal and the other one mostly non-formal and informal. For example, once the leaders told the followers to kill someone or bring with themselves heavy ammunition to deploy in the middle of a prayer in a mosque despite the fact that both sides are Muslims; then no matter how afraid to die the followers are, they need to do it or the leaders will kill them. The brainwash [such as Israelis and Palestinians think of each other as bad] interests me to differ what people with freedom and democracy values think with them, work upon the puzzles inside and outside the systems; afterwards hopefully and naively touch everyone related to the violences to consider more civilized and honest ways to fight, especially in kindness. Like democracy itself, it may take time but it needs to start somewhere. It could actually start in the family because even what Russians tend to study in their formal schools are also embedded in their informal and non-formal ones such as homes. 

Buzsáki (2019) analyzed the brain inside out and wrote a book about it. He said he spent most of the time writing it in between waiting for flights. “Perception is what we do” (Buzsáki 2019. p.21). 

Children with any kinds of differences be it autism, ADHD, or disorders by the modern medical terms, usually were born with specialties; either their sensory or motor is built earlier or later. Therefore, some of them didn’t speak or couldn’t walk properly yet in the ages where children usually do. Those kinds of children were the ones who were diminished because of the fear of democracy. At that time, the term was not ‘democracy’, but rather something that they have been afraid of. 

Nonetheless, the classification of those medical terms were born long before it happened, thus the fear has been there since centuries ago. With the development of everything, generations to generations eat better and learn faster thus the number of those children is increasing time by time. 

Technically, the message sent from and to our brain is moved from and to other parts of our body, especially blood given that it’s the nexus of. Thus when we are jolted because of happiness or sadness our blood moves faster hence our cardiovascular moves faster, and so does our brain. It requires a very fast movement of our brain indeed. Interestingly, when we have medicines for our diseases, it goes either through our mouth, vena or artery, or skin such as balm; despite the fact that the source of the diseases is faraway from those doors. How do the medicines know where to move? 

Let’s take a sample of antibiotics, the medicine for almost all diseases. Patangia et. al (2021) confirmed that like vaccines and political party (system) institutionalization (Casal Bértoa, 2017), antibiotics are also partly generated from the diseases themselves; such as bacteria, be it aerobic who needs oxygen to survive or anaerobic who doesn’t. Thus, medicines we see, be it in the kiosk or drug store contain more than one element, because they’re meant to take trips to reach the source of the diseases. Therefore, it needs time. When it becomes difficult to handle, surgeries hence take place. It directly touches and cures the source, with life and death consequences a little bit more.

Van Gogh was treated badly even judging by his room. For a person who likes beauty such as paintings, to live in such a cubicle was disastrous thus taking his own life was his only way to survive. Also those who could communicate with other beings than humans such as Louis Wain.

Buzsáki (2019) mentioned that for the sake of the journal one of his articles was rejected. For current scholars it’s inevitable to be rejected at least twenty times including him. Nonetheless we couldn’t accept the reason of ‘for the sake of the journal’. We tend to causally find reasons or excuses why our articles have something to do with the reputations of the journals.  That’s the values of what people like Van Gogh and Louis Wain believe. For the sake of certain regimes or values, people like them need to be normalized or eliminated. For them, especially when the room was still like Van Gogh’s, being normalized is equal to being eliminated. 

In politics and democracy, those people in Indonesia for example, tend to be eliminated even prior to the elections; with only one simple fact: If you do not choose one religion, for example, you are stamped as having mental health issues. Nonetheless, it doesn’t happen only in Indonesia. Is it too much to take the good values of each religion and implement it? 

There are billions of cases where the candidates became crazy simply because they had used their mountains of gold but then they lost not only in elections but also translations. Experimental research would actually be interesting to know the size and depth of the brain, from each representative of authoritarianism, populism, and democracy. Is it as huge as whale’s or as big yet lousy as empty enormous cans? Since we couldn’t do it when they are still alive, we measure perception. Buzsáki (2019) discussed in which part of the brain that perception is located but the answer is not a place, but the verb; that the parts of the brain and body interact with each other very fast to learn, build, and rebuild perception, afterwards result statements and actions. 

There when the cognitive parts are equally and consistently measured with the affective and psychomotor parts. If you know that killing people is not good, and you do not want to do it, yet you are still doing it; what makes you? A reflective thought that requires trials and errors.

Ideology tends to be attached with our creators because we need greater things than us, something innocent that could literally solve our complex problems; at least to make them simple. For those who believe and have reached the level where when we know our God(s) we know ourselves, supposedly know how a learning from doing a job is to measure the level of our purity and kindness; and which part of the brain and body to develop it; and is that depth yet simple purity and kindness only belonged to freedom and democracy?