Is your political identity really a choice? Or is it shaped by your brain?
Understanding the Neuroscience Behind Political Identity with Michael Long
In their third and final interview together, Friederike Fabritius and Michael Long discuss the sensitive topic of understanding political identities. A bigger and bigger wedge being driven between the political left and political right, and Friederike and Mike take a look at this from a neuroscientific and biological perspective. There is a surprising connection between brain chemistry and political inclinations which Mike explores in his first book, 'The Molecule of More.' He reveals that our hierarchy of personal values is influenced by our unique brain chemistry and that this is a driving factor in our political leanings. The pair examine the differences between people whose brains are more driven by dopamine (an anticipatory chemical) versus the so-called “here and now” chemicals and how that affects their priorities and political views. The conversation underscores the need for understanding and community cooperation rather than divisive political rhetoric. Listeners will be challenged to reconsider how they view politics and personal priorities.
Note: This conversation does get personal.
00:24 Dopamine, Serotonin, and Political Inclination
01:56 The Hierarchy of Priorities in Politics
04:54 Dopamine vs. Here and Now Chemicals
08:21 Smartness and Political Behavior
10:43 Personal Reflections and Final Thoughts
14:00 A Focus on Community
Follow Friederike on LinkedIn to stay connected and up to date on her neurohacks.
And if you're looking for more brain-friendly insights be sure to subscribe to The Brain-Friendly Newsletter.
Trained as a physicist, Michael Long is the author of the new book, Taming the Molecule of More, and co-author of the international bestseller, The Molecule of More, books that have changed the way the world talks about dopamine. A longtime lecturer at Georgetown University, Mike is also a produced playwright, an award-winning screenwriter, and a speechwriter. In addition, he delivers keynotes and seminars around the world on creativity, the craft of professional writing, and the neuroscience behind modern behavior. If you ask him what his career is, he’ll tell you he’s a “professional explainer.” For more, visit MikeLongOnline.com or TamingTheMolecule.com.
Links:
https://TamingTheMolecule.com
https://www.tiktok.com/@tamingthemolecule
https://www.lemon8-app.com/@evmariexo?region=us
https://www.facebook.com/MoleculeOfMore
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Friederike Fabritius (00:05):
Hello everyone.
I'm back with Mike Long.
He's the author and co-author of thebooks the Molecule of More and new out
in April this year, April 15, if I'mcorrect, Taming the Molecule of More.
Welcome back to the show, Mike.
Mike Long (00:21):
Always a pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Friederike Fabritius (00:24):
Today I want to talk to you about a concept from your
previous book, which has stuck with mefor years because it's been a couple
of, I dunno how long since I read it,but every time I see it play out in
real life, I'm reminded of your book.
So in your book you're saying thatthere's a link between dopamine
and serotonin or the "here and now"chemicals and political inclination.
(00:48):
So whether you are more to the right ormore to the left, can you speak on that?
Mike Long (00:53):
Yeah I'm happy to.
I think we knew we had gotten thispolitics thing right when we got comments
from people on both sides who said,how dare you criticize conservatives?
How dare you criticize progressives?
We weren't criticizing either side.
We, we weren't taking, I remembertwo different reviews and one
said I don't wanna read this bookbecause they're progressives.
(01:15):
And then I read another of this,said, I'm not gonna read this book
anymore because they're conservatives.
Friederike Fabritius (01:20):
You succeeded.
Mike Long (01:21):
You succeeded.
That, that, that tells you a lotabout about, about how influential
our own perspectives are on politics.
So what I'm gonna say is probablygonna disappoint both sides again.
People who want to hear that thisis governed by biology; it is not
in any way governed by biology.
(01:41):
There are certain interests, andI'll get into that, but you can't
reduce political choices to biology.
The most controversial thing I have tosay about politics is that what I'm,
what I will tell you isn't controversial.
It is that what matters iswe have different priorities.
We have a hierarchy ofpriorities on each side.
(02:05):
And to say that one set of priorities isright and one set of priorities is wrong
in many, there are some absolute, I willassert, there are some absolute moral
rights and wrongs, but those are big ideas,they're not particular matters of policy.
And here's the example I often use with mystudents at Georgetown, my grad students.
I'll say when we talk about doingthe right thing, the wrong thing,
let's imagine a very grim situation: a new mother is standing at the end (02:25):
undefined
of a pier and she's holding a baby.
Someone bumps into her and shedrops the baby in the water.
The water is over her head.
She cannot swim.
There's no one else around.
What's she going to do?
It could be that she runs for help.
That's completely valid choice.
(02:45):
Or it could be that what most woulddo is they jump in the water anyway.
Now who's to say one choiceis better than the other?
But the idea is that we havedifferent hierarchies about our own
safety, about our own future, aboutother lives, about our own lives.
And so politics is generallydelivered into our brains by the
arrangement of this hierarchy.
(03:06):
And instead of criticizing the other sidebecause they don't agree with you on this
or that, or the other thing, what we'rereally doing is we're just saying, I
have a different set of priorities thanyou have, and therefore yours are wrong.
That's not useful.
That's not useful.
Because we run toward thathierarchy over and over.
We see it again, just to be specific on,among progressives, there's a hierarchy
(03:28):
of oppression that we talk about about whois the, which group has suffered the most.
And that's where we get theidea of intersectionality
about these joinings of things.
And those are reasonable discussionsthat progressives have among one another.
And again, I'm not criticizingprogressives, I'm describing
discussions that they have.
Who gets priority in this hierarchy?
It's not about, in most cases,about some larger moral outlook.
(03:50):
When we get down to the nuts andbolts of politics, it's about
the qualities of certain policiesthat appeal to our hierarchy.
And there are certain levels ofcertain levels of dopamine activity
that tend to encourage our favoritismtowards certain activities.
And we can talk about that too.
But but to reduce politics tobiology is a nice way to find
(04:12):
an excuse to hate somebody.
Friederike Fabritius (04:14):
Right.
And, but still, I mean, in, in the bookyou describe these differences, so to say.
So can you speak a little bitabout the typical hierarchy of
values, like, the differencesthat you described in the book?
Because it was pretty interestingbecause it was sometimes unexpected
and I've never seen it unpackedin that way anywhere else.
(04:36):
Yeah, what I liked about it was thatit wasn't judging, it wasn't clear
that you were on one side or the other.
It was simply an observation of behaviors.
And can we maybe look a littlebit into those behaviors?
So what are typical behaviors forsomebody who's leaning towards
a progressive side, for example?
Mike Long (04:54):
It's it's pretty easy to recognize when we talk about
this balance between the dopaminesystem, and we talk about the other.
Let's, Let's talk theories of mind here.
And let's let's say that the way Danand I talk about it in the first book
and the way I talk about it in thesecond book is we have the molecule of
more, dopamine, which is anticipatory.
(05:14):
It's about not things thatare, but things that might be.
You hear politics waving at you in thebackground there to mix my metaphors.
It's about what might be possible.
If you're high dopamine, you're alwayslooking toward what might be possible.
Now there's another set of chemicalsin the brain and that happens
to be every other one of them.
(05:34):
All the rest.
And those we're gonna call the"here and now" chemicals, the
H and N cheicals, here and now.
And those are consumatory those are aboutthings we experience with the five senses.
So we have dopamine over here doingall the heavy lifting for anticipation.
We have the H and Ns for allthe things in the present.
So what we find is that if you'reparticularly active with dopamine, you
(05:59):
tend to, there are exceptions, it'sa bell curve and you're all over the
curve, but you tend to favor the ideaof planning things well in advance.
You like the idea of experimentingto see how things might work out,
which is control dopamine in action.
The analytical part of the system.
You get a great deal of stimulationfrom the pursuit of a better thing.
(06:23):
And you don't need that better thingto be proven in order to pursue it.
Our brain makes us believe that, onthe whole, the thing we're pursuing
is probably going to help us.
So if you have a lot of dopamine activityyou tend to look forward to planning, you
tend to like controlling things so thatwhatever the motivation, I want a better
outcome for other people or whatever.
(06:44):
You can hear that's akind of progressive idea.
Now, if you're more or you'relower on the dopamine or higher
on the H and N side, you tend toappreciate things in the moment.
You appreciate what you have.
You appreciate the memoriesof what you have had.
You appreciate where you are in that time.
You tend to be less enamored of thepossibility of change, at least change
(07:09):
that is not absolutely proven and changethat takes away even a, a, a minor
measure of the autonomy of the individual.
So you can hear that there isconservative, libertarian range in there.
Now I'm speaking, and I know a fewpeople have already gone "to hell
with this guy!" and turned it off.
I'm not insulting anybody.
I'm sorry if this well, I'mnot sorry if it offends you.
(07:30):
It's just a fact.
We're talking about broadcurrents of thought that are
driven by these brain chemicals.
You, there are lots of high dopaminepeople who are conservative.
There are a lot of high H and N peoplewho are progressives or liberals.
But in the main, if you're trying tofigure out which policy is going to
appeal to someone, generally higherdopamine are more controlling, into
(07:55):
the future kind of things, makingplans, which is what government does.
And if you're looking at things thattend to pull back, that tend to be more
supportive of immediate family structure,that allow people to make decisions,
even if they are bad decisions, inyour estimate, for them, to allow them
to do that and to consume the thingsthat they want, for better or worse,
it tends to be more H and N people.
Friederike Fabritius (08:17):
Right.
And I just think that people don'tusually think about it this way.
It was very illuminating to me because Iwas thinking, you know, I used, I think
you started out with describing thatpeople try to find out who's smarter.
People tried to find out who'ssmarter, the progressive ones
or the conservative ones.
(08:38):
Who's helping other people more, theprogressive or the conservative ones.
So there were all these comparisonsand it was quite interesting that
you can actually find a differencein behavior in those groups.
Would you like to expand on this?
Mike Long (08:51):
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
One of the things I learned in writingthe second book, Taming the Molecule
More, one of the things that I found isthat it's more important than we know
to talk about varieties of smartness.
We can say that some people are smarterthan others, and that might mean to some
people that they're better at analysis.
Than others.
It could mean that they're better atmemorizing a bunch of facts than other.
(09:12):
What do you want to call smart?
Do you want a doctorwho knows all the facts?
Do you want a doctor who canwho can figure out the problem?
Well, You want a doctoras both of those things.
So to say one group is smarterthan another is tricky.
But I will answer your question.
I'll quit beating around the bush with it.
We tend to see, we tend to seethat there's a higher IQ score on
(09:32):
people who have higher dopaminelevels, which makes sense.
because there's more analysisgoing on there or more capacity
for analysis, if the control systemis the one that's more active.
Of course, you have too higha dopamine system you end up
with things like schizophrenia.
And that's why you see an overlap betweenquote unquote madness and creativity.
But yeah.
The progressive idea tends to attractpeople with high IQs because they are
(09:57):
driven to some extent toward planning,toward control, toward taking care
of things well before they occur.
Does that always makethat the best choice?
Well, uh, you know, the idea that wecan, really tiptoeing through a minefield
here, but we can name lots of regimesthroughout the history of the world,
filled with people who love to make bigplans, and uh, and there are monuments.
Friederike Fabritius (10:21):
Yeah.
And that is not alwaysYeah, yeah, we get it.
Mike Long (10:23):
There are monuments to their victims.
So we need both.
We need people who arewilling, we've gotta plan.
Hell, I mean, it's raining.
If I didn't plan for rain, Iwouldn't have a roof over my head.
We need planning.
But we also need the uh, theability to appreciate what it is
that we have now, because all wehave is the moment that we're in.
Let me give you, letme give you an example.
(10:45):
My mother passed away.
Three days ago.
And for me to think about her passing,I don't look at it as some arc that that
gives me some great philosophical feeling.
I remember the momentsI remember, excuse me.
I remember the little things wedid together, the places we went.
(11:06):
I don't remember making grandplans for the state of the world.
In a personal relationship whatI remember is that we went to
New York together with my kids.
I remember when I was a little boyand she bought me a swimming pool.
I remember in the moment.
So the having of a dopaminergic mindgives me the ability to appreciate all
(11:28):
the H and N experiences that we had.
Does that make me smart?
I don't think it does, but it does make meappreciate life and that's why I'm so sad
to see people so caught up in politics.
If you wanna help somebodyfor Pete's sake, go help them.
Go help them get up offyour ass and go help them.
Don't say well, I'm gonna gohave somebody else help them.
(11:50):
And don't leave helpingother people to other people.
If you say the life takes care of itself.
Well, no.
You're responsible foryour own little world.
If you wanna talk about politics, fixthe politics in your own community.
Fix the politics in your own family.
Fix the one in your own heart.
Use the powerful dopaminergic urgethat you have to plan and improve,
(12:10):
to plan and improve what you can.
And use the powerful H and Nelements of enjoying every moment.
Warren Zevon said before he died, "enjoyevery sandwich." Enjoy every sandwich.
Savor the bites.
Really breathe.
When you laugh, laugh likehell, as William Saroyan said.
(12:30):
Live, just live.
And all this, all this concernabout am I smarter than they are?
Are they progressive because theirbodies and minds made them that way?
It doesn't matter.
What matters is the quality of yourlife and the quality of life you
can add to the people around you.
And if we all took care of that, we wouldhave a world of these communities that
(12:53):
naturally cooperate with one another.
There's no need.
There's no need to suffer if we beginby making certain our house is in order.
Friederike Fabritius (13:04):
I am, I'm very touched by what you just shared with us.
Thank you so much.
I'm, I'm, I'm also verysorry about your loss.
And I think you nailed it.
That's exactly the point.
Um, We can think about all those ideasand what we should do, and get upset
about politics, but you should reallylook around the people you love, what
(13:27):
you do every day and take care of that.
And instead of just, in theory,helping other people or thinking
this and that other people should do.
Thinking about what you can do andhow you want to live your life.
So I don't think I haveanything to add to this.
I don't want to add to itbecause I think it was very
powerful, very powerful message.
(13:49):
I got goosebumps here.
So I was sitting, I was like, wow.
I'm so glad I invited you here becauseI think it's an important message.
People are so busy fighting with eachother and what's the point, right?
Mike Long (14:03):
And I'm not unsympathetic to the idea well, dammit, we're
gonna fight because they're myally and I have to help them.
Yes, you do have to help them.
But you can't change the world byforcing it on anybody for very long.
We learn by example.
We learn by the people who are around us.
Fix yourself.
Fix yourself, and thenlet it radiate outward.
(14:28):
No one ever.
And I'll tell you what again, Ithink I say to my grad students in
a lecture at the beginning of theyear, nobody ever won an argument
by beginning it with, Hey, stupid.
We're not.
Yeah.
We have we can't.
We've already established, if youaccept what I've said, we've already
established that you can't do alot about your dopamine levels.
So to criticize somebody for have, forbeing, oh, you're a progressive, or Oh,
(14:50):
you're a conservative, and that's madethat way by your chemicals in your brain.
You might as well criticize 'emand say well, you're Black or
you're a lesbian, or whatever.
If this is an immutable characteristic,how the hell do you get away with
saying "you are wrong?" No, they'reacting on their priorities, the
hierarchy of their priorities.
We can reason with one another.
We can love one another, and there arethings we have to stand up against.
(15:13):
Absolutely.
There are things we haveto stand up against.
But we have to be, we have to be right inour hearts about this, and that means that
we begin with, until proven otherwise,we begin with the assumption that
everybody around us is trying their best.
They're trying theirbest with what they have.
And that's a good place to begin.
If you're progressive, God love you.
(15:35):
If you're conservative, God love you.
If you're not in interested inpolitics at all, God love you.
But let's try to help ourselvesand each other without
coercing each other to do it.
Friederike Fabritius (15:46):
Right.
I think it's a very powerful messageto remind people to start with their
own lives and the people around them.
And doing good there,instead of in theory.
So I like that.
Thank you so much forsharing this with us.
I think it's a fresh perspectiveon politics that I have
not seen anywhere else.
(16:06):
So I really wanted to hear about it eventhough it was from your other book and not
from the new one that is just came out.
So I think people should read both.
Mike Long (16:14):
That's a good idea, yes.
What a great idea you got there.
Friederike Fabritius (16:21):
Yeah I first read The Molecule of More and
now Taming the Molecule of Moreand the books are very different.
So it's not that, like with some peopleyou read the first book and then you
read the second - there's nothing new.
It's just like you could askChatGPT to just rewrite it and
there wouldn't be much new.
But I found that with this one youreally get more if you read both.
Mike Long (16:43):
This is the science and this is the living.
Friederike Fabritius (16:46):
Cool.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing that.
Thanks for being with us today.
And yeah.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Mike Long (16:53):
My pleasure.
Thank you.
Hello everyone.
I'm back with Mike Long.
He's the author and co-author of thebooks the Molecule of More and new out
in April this year, April 15, if I'mcorrect, Taming the Molecule of More.
Welcome back to the show, Mike.
Mike Long (00:21):
Always a pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Friederike Fabritius (00:24):
Today I want to talk to you about a concept from your
previous book, which has stuck with mefor years because it's been a couple
of, I dunno how long since I read it,but every time I see it play out in
real life, I'm reminded of your book.
So in your book you're saying thatthere's a link between dopamine
and serotonin or the "here and now"chemicals and political inclination.
(00:48):
So whether you are more to the right ormore to the left, can you speak on that?
Mike Long (00:53):
Yeah I'm happy to.
I think we knew we had gotten thispolitics thing right when we got comments
from people on both sides who said,how dare you criticize conservatives?
How dare you criticize progressives?
We weren't criticizing either side.
We, we weren't taking, I remembertwo different reviews and one
said I don't wanna read this bookbecause they're progressives.
(01:15):
And then I read another of this,said, I'm not gonna read this book
anymore because they're conservatives.
Friederike Fabritius (01:20):
You succeeded.
Mike Long (01:21):
You succeeded.
That, that, that tells you a lotabout about, about how influential
our own perspectives are on politics.
So what I'm gonna say is probablygonna disappoint both sides again.
People who want to hear that thisis governed by biology; it is not
in any way governed by biology.
(01:41):
There are certain interests, andI'll get into that, but you can't
reduce political choices to biology.
The most controversial thing I have tosay about politics is that what I'm,
what I will tell you isn't controversial.
It is that what matters iswe have different priorities.
We have a hierarchy ofpriorities on each side.
(02:05):
And to say that one set of priorities isright and one set of priorities is wrong
in many, there are some absolute, I willassert, there are some absolute moral
rights and wrongs, but those are big ideas,they're not particular matters of policy.
And here's the example I often use with mystudents at Georgetown, my grad students.
I'll say when we talk about doingthe right thing, the wrong thing,
let's imagine a very grim situation: a new mother is standing at the end (02:25):
undefined
of a pier and she's holding a baby.
Someone bumps into her and shedrops the baby in the water.
The water is over her head.
She cannot swim.
There's no one else around.
What's she going to do?
It could be that she runs for help.
That's completely valid choice.
(02:45):
Or it could be that what most woulddo is they jump in the water anyway.
Now who's to say one choiceis better than the other?
But the idea is that we havedifferent hierarchies about our own
safety, about our own future, aboutother lives, about our own lives.
And so politics is generallydelivered into our brains by the
arrangement of this hierarchy.
(03:06):
And instead of criticizing the other sidebecause they don't agree with you on this
or that, or the other thing, what we'rereally doing is we're just saying, I
have a different set of priorities thanyou have, and therefore yours are wrong.
That's not useful.
That's not useful.
Because we run toward thathierarchy over and over.
We see it again, just to be specific on,among progressives, there's a hierarchy
(03:28):
of oppression that we talk about about whois the, which group has suffered the most.
And that's where we get theidea of intersectionality
about these joinings of things.
And those are reasonable discussionsthat progressives have among one another.
And again, I'm not criticizingprogressives, I'm describing
discussions that they have.
Who gets priority in this hierarchy?
It's not about, in most cases,about some larger moral outlook.
(03:50):
When we get down to the nuts andbolts of politics, it's about
the qualities of certain policiesthat appeal to our hierarchy.
And there are certain levels ofcertain levels of dopamine activity
that tend to encourage our favoritismtowards certain activities.
And we can talk about that too.
But but to reduce politics tobiology is a nice way to find
(04:12):
an excuse to hate somebody.
Friederike Fabritius (04:14):
Right.
And, but still, I mean, in, in the bookyou describe these differences, so to say.
So can you speak a little bitabout the typical hierarchy of
values, like, the differencesthat you described in the book?
Because it was pretty interestingbecause it was sometimes unexpected
and I've never seen it unpackedin that way anywhere else.
(04:36):
Yeah, what I liked about it was thatit wasn't judging, it wasn't clear
that you were on one side or the other.
It was simply an observation of behaviors.
And can we maybe look a littlebit into those behaviors?
So what are typical behaviors forsomebody who's leaning towards
a progressive side, for example?
Mike Long (04:54):
It's it's pretty easy to recognize when we talk about
this balance between the dopaminesystem, and we talk about the other.
Let's, Let's talk theories of mind here.
And let's let's say that the way Danand I talk about it in the first book
and the way I talk about it in thesecond book is we have the molecule of
more, dopamine, which is anticipatory.
(05:14):
It's about not things thatare, but things that might be.
You hear politics waving at you in thebackground there to mix my metaphors.
It's about what might be possible.
If you're high dopamine, you're alwayslooking toward what might be possible.
Now there's another set of chemicalsin the brain and that happens
to be every other one of them.
(05:34):
All the rest.
And those we're gonna call the"here and now" chemicals, the
H and N cheicals, here and now.
And those are consumatory those are aboutthings we experience with the five senses.
So we have dopamine over here doingall the heavy lifting for anticipation.
We have the H and Ns for allthe things in the present.
So what we find is that if you'reparticularly active with dopamine, you
(05:59):
tend to, there are exceptions, it'sa bell curve and you're all over the
curve, but you tend to favor the ideaof planning things well in advance.
You like the idea of experimentingto see how things might work out,
which is control dopamine in action.
The analytical part of the system.
You get a great deal of stimulationfrom the pursuit of a better thing.
(06:23):
And you don't need that better thingto be proven in order to pursue it.
Our brain makes us believe that, onthe whole, the thing we're pursuing
is probably going to help us.
So if you have a lot of dopamine activityyou tend to look forward to planning, you
tend to like controlling things so thatwhatever the motivation, I want a better
outcome for other people or whatever.
(06:44):
You can hear that's akind of progressive idea.
Now, if you're more or you'relower on the dopamine or higher
on the H and N side, you tend toappreciate things in the moment.
You appreciate what you have.
You appreciate the memoriesof what you have had.
You appreciate where you are in that time.
You tend to be less enamored of thepossibility of change, at least change
(07:09):
that is not absolutely proven and changethat takes away even a, a, a minor
measure of the autonomy of the individual.
So you can hear that there isconservative, libertarian range in there.
Now I'm speaking, and I know a fewpeople have already gone "to hell
with this guy!" and turned it off.
I'm not insulting anybody.
I'm sorry if this well, I'mnot sorry if it offends you.
(07:30):
It's just a fact.
We're talking about broadcurrents of thought that are
driven by these brain chemicals.
You, there are lots of high dopaminepeople who are conservative.
There are a lot of high H and N peoplewho are progressives or liberals.
But in the main, if you're trying tofigure out which policy is going to
appeal to someone, generally higherdopamine are more controlling, into
(07:55):
the future kind of things, makingplans, which is what government does.
And if you're looking at things thattend to pull back, that tend to be more
supportive of immediate family structure,that allow people to make decisions,
even if they are bad decisions, inyour estimate, for them, to allow them
to do that and to consume the thingsthat they want, for better or worse,
it tends to be more H and N people.
Friederike Fabritius (08:17):
Right.
And I just think that people don'tusually think about it this way.
It was very illuminating to me because Iwas thinking, you know, I used, I think
you started out with describing thatpeople try to find out who's smarter.
People tried to find out who'ssmarter, the progressive ones
or the conservative ones.
(08:38):
Who's helping other people more, theprogressive or the conservative ones.
So there were all these comparisonsand it was quite interesting that
you can actually find a differencein behavior in those groups.
Would you like to expand on this?
Mike Long (08:51):
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
One of the things I learned in writingthe second book, Taming the Molecule
More, one of the things that I found isthat it's more important than we know
to talk about varieties of smartness.
We can say that some people are smarterthan others, and that might mean to some
people that they're better at analysis.
Than others.
It could mean that they're better atmemorizing a bunch of facts than other.
(09:12):
What do you want to call smart?
Do you want a doctorwho knows all the facts?
Do you want a doctor who canwho can figure out the problem?
Well, You want a doctoras both of those things.
So to say one group is smarterthan another is tricky.
But I will answer your question.
I'll quit beating around the bush with it.
We tend to see, we tend to seethat there's a higher IQ score on
(09:32):
people who have higher dopaminelevels, which makes sense.
because there's more analysisgoing on there or more capacity
for analysis, if the control systemis the one that's more active.
Of course, you have too higha dopamine system you end up
with things like schizophrenia.
And that's why you see an overlap betweenquote unquote madness and creativity.
But yeah.
The progressive idea tends to attractpeople with high IQs because they are
(09:57):
driven to some extent toward planning,toward control, toward taking care
of things well before they occur.
Does that always makethat the best choice?
Well, uh, you know, the idea that wecan, really tiptoeing through a minefield
here, but we can name lots of regimesthroughout the history of the world,
filled with people who love to make bigplans, and uh, and there are monuments.
Friederike Fabritius (10:21):
Yeah.
And that is not alwaysYeah, yeah, we get it.
Mike Long (10:23):
There are monuments to their victims.
So we need both.
We need people who arewilling, we've gotta plan.
Hell, I mean, it's raining.
If I didn't plan for rain, Iwouldn't have a roof over my head.
We need planning.
But we also need the uh, theability to appreciate what it is
that we have now, because all wehave is the moment that we're in.
Let me give you, letme give you an example.
(10:45):
My mother passed away.
Three days ago.
And for me to think about her passing,I don't look at it as some arc that that
gives me some great philosophical feeling.
I remember the momentsI remember, excuse me.
I remember the little things wedid together, the places we went.
(11:06):
I don't remember making grandplans for the state of the world.
In a personal relationship whatI remember is that we went to
New York together with my kids.
I remember when I was a little boyand she bought me a swimming pool.
I remember in the moment.
So the having of a dopaminergic mindgives me the ability to appreciate all
(11:28):
the H and N experiences that we had.
Does that make me smart?
I don't think it does, but it does make meappreciate life and that's why I'm so sad
to see people so caught up in politics.
If you wanna help somebodyfor Pete's sake, go help them.
Go help them get up offyour ass and go help them.
Don't say well, I'm gonna gohave somebody else help them.
(11:50):
And don't leave helpingother people to other people.
If you say the life takes care of itself.
Well, no.
You're responsible foryour own little world.
If you wanna talk about politics, fixthe politics in your own community.
Fix the politics in your own family.
Fix the one in your own heart.
Use the powerful dopaminergic urgethat you have to plan and improve,
(12:10):
to plan and improve what you can.
And use the powerful H and Nelements of enjoying every moment.
Warren Zevon said before he died, "enjoyevery sandwich." Enjoy every sandwich.
Savor the bites.
Really breathe.
When you laugh, laugh likehell, as William Saroyan said.
(12:30):
Live, just live.
And all this, all this concernabout am I smarter than they are?
Are they progressive because theirbodies and minds made them that way?
It doesn't matter.
What matters is the quality of yourlife and the quality of life you
can add to the people around you.
And if we all took care of that, we wouldhave a world of these communities that
(12:53):
naturally cooperate with one another.
There's no need.
There's no need to suffer if we beginby making certain our house is in order.
Friederike Fabritius (13:04):
I am, I'm very touched by what you just shared with us.
Thank you so much.
I'm, I'm, I'm also verysorry about your loss.
And I think you nailed it.
That's exactly the point.
Um, We can think about all those ideasand what we should do, and get upset
about politics, but you should reallylook around the people you love, what
(13:27):
you do every day and take care of that.
And instead of just, in theory,helping other people or thinking
this and that other people should do.
Thinking about what you can do andhow you want to live your life.
So I don't think I haveanything to add to this.
I don't want to add to itbecause I think it was very
powerful, very powerful message.
(13:49):
I got goosebumps here.
So I was sitting, I was like, wow.
I'm so glad I invited you here becauseI think it's an important message.
People are so busy fighting with eachother and what's the point, right?
Mike Long (14:03):
And I'm not unsympathetic to the idea well, dammit, we're
gonna fight because they're myally and I have to help them.
Yes, you do have to help them.
But you can't change the world byforcing it on anybody for very long.
We learn by example.
We learn by the people who are around us.
Fix yourself.
Fix yourself, and thenlet it radiate outward.
(14:28):
No one ever.
And I'll tell you what again, Ithink I say to my grad students in
a lecture at the beginning of theyear, nobody ever won an argument
by beginning it with, Hey, stupid.
We're not.
Yeah.
We have we can't.
We've already established, if youaccept what I've said, we've already
established that you can't do alot about your dopamine levels.
So to criticize somebody for have, forbeing, oh, you're a progressive, or Oh,
(14:50):
you're a conservative, and that's madethat way by your chemicals in your brain.
You might as well criticize 'emand say well, you're Black or
you're a lesbian, or whatever.
If this is an immutable characteristic,how the hell do you get away with
saying "you are wrong?" No, they'reacting on their priorities, the
hierarchy of their priorities.
We can reason with one another.
We can love one another, and there arethings we have to stand up against.
(15:13):
Absolutely.
There are things we haveto stand up against.
But we have to be, we have to be right inour hearts about this, and that means that
we begin with, until proven otherwise,we begin with the assumption that
everybody around us is trying their best.
They're trying theirbest with what they have.
And that's a good place to begin.
If you're progressive, God love you.
(15:35):
If you're conservative, God love you.
If you're not in interested inpolitics at all, God love you.
But let's try to help ourselvesand each other without
coercing each other to do it.
Friederike Fabritius (15:46):
Right.
I think it's a very powerful messageto remind people to start with their
own lives and the people around them.
And doing good there,instead of in theory.
So I like that.
Thank you so much forsharing this with us.
I think it's a fresh perspectiveon politics that I have
not seen anywhere else.
(16:06):
So I really wanted to hear about it eventhough it was from your other book and not
from the new one that is just came out.
So I think people should read both.
Mike Long (16:14):
That's a good idea, yes.
What a great idea you got there.
Friederike Fabritius (16:21):
Yeah I first read The Molecule of More and
now Taming the Molecule of Moreand the books are very different.
So it's not that, like with some peopleyou read the first book and then you
read the second - there's nothing new.
It's just like you could askChatGPT to just rewrite it and
there wouldn't be much new.
But I found that with this one youreally get more if you read both.
Mike Long (16:43):
This is the science and this is the living.
Friederike Fabritius (16:46):
Cool.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing that.
Thanks for being with us today.
And yeah.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Mike Long (16:53):
My pleasure.
Thank you.
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