The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to Be Happy (2010) (11 page)

Gray also attacks the idea of progress, rejects as illusory the concepts of morality, justice and truth, dismisses any possibility of dealing with the world’s problems and asserts that the world is inexorably bound for tyranny, anarchy, famine, pestilence and the eventual extinction of the human race. This is a contemporary version of the old ‘original sin’ concept in its extreme Manichean form. The human creature is fatally flawed and the world is rushing to inevitable ruin. All that has changed is the nature of the flaw: once it was implanted by God as a punishment; now it is the animal nature inherited from our ancestors. The program in the genes is the new original sin.

This determinism is attractive to many at each end of the social scale. For an authoritarian elite it justifies firm control of the essentially evil human brute and for the individual it justifies self-indulgence because this is inevitable in a fallen creature. Both are absolved of obligation. Attempts to improve either social conditions or personal behaviour would be equally futile.

But has anyone ever argued that behaving
well
is determined? Has anyone ever protested: ‘Hey, it’s my nature, I just can’t help being good? Determinism is invoked only to excuse behaving badly. No, on second thoughts, I recall reading somewhere about a criminal using genetic determinism as a legal defence. The wise old judge nodded affably: ‘I can quite accept that you are genetically determined to break the law. The problem is that
I
am genetically determined to uphold it.’ And he smiled apologetically. ‘So I have no choice but to impose on you the maximum sentence.’

John Gray bases his rejection of personal responsibility on the theory that action is unconscious, citing the work of neuroscien-tist Benjamin Libet, who claimed to have discovered that action takes place half a second before the brain makes a conscious decision to act. It is certainly true that much, perhaps even most, of what we do involves no conscious thought. This may even be true of decision-making, where conscious control is assumed to be essential. For several years I taught a course called Decision Theory, which explained various mathematical techniques for weighing the effects of a complex set of factors on an outcome. But gradually there grew the suspicion, which I did not reveal to students or colleagues, that this was merely superstitious mumbo-jumbo, another example of physics envy. And, finally, I slipped into the heresy that, not only did no manager ever use these techniques, but that the business of decision-making was barely rational at all. This was confirmed by a rare experience of decisionmaking in practice. As a teacher of database theory I was co-opted on to a team with the responsibility of choosing a new Database Management System, which would be used on all database teaching and for the university’s own information systems. There were three major database contenders and the team went to each corporation, sat through lengthy demonstrations and asked probing questions. But, in the end, without anyone publicly admitting it, we were exhausted by technical detail and opted for the presenters we liked best. In fact, their database became the market leader whereas the other two died. Hence, a useful technique – assess the vendor not the product.

This emotional basis for decision-making has also been demonstrated by Antonio Damasio, who discovered in the 1990
s
that some brain-damaged patients could no longer feel emotion, though their intelligence and ability to apply reason and logic were unimpaired.
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Delivered from the maelstrom of emotion, these people should have been able to make lucid, rational decisions based on a logical analysis of choices. In fact, it was just the opposite. They were unable to make
any
decisions, even the most simple. They could analyse the pros and cons of each possibility but, without feeling, they were unable to choose one over the others. So intuition or ‘gut feeling’ is not merely a part of the process but an essential feature of it.

Building on Damasio’s discovery, Joseph LeDoux proposed that the brain has two routes to decision, the low road’ and the ‘high road’.
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The low road involves no conscious reasoning or awareness and processes sensory data in the amygdala, the brain’s emotion centre. This route to action is instantaneous, overwhelmingly powerful and immensely difficult to control – and it is the route supporting the Gray⁄Libet theory. But there is also a high road to action via the prefrontal cortex, the centre for analysing, planning and conscious decision-making. This centre is connected directly to the amygdala so there is always an emotional input to the reasoning, as Damasio realized. But, according to LeDoux, the prefrontal cortex can – and frequently does – override the amygdala’s primitive desires and drives. And awareness of the emotional brain increases the power of the prefrontal cortex.

Damasio makes the same point: ‘We can be wise to the fact that our brain still carries the machinery to react in the way it did in a very different context ages ago. And we can learn to disregard such reactions and persuade others to do the same.’
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Unusually for a scientist, Damasio has a thrillingly specific suggestion for the exercise of free will: ‘We humans…can
wilfully
strive to control our emotions. We can decide which objects and situations we allow in our environment and on which objects and situations we lavish time and attention. We can, for example, decide not to watch commercial television, and advocate its eternal banishment from the households of intelligent citizens.’
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So the neuroscientific view of human behaviour is entirely consistent with the Buddha⁄Spinoza⁄Freud model of the self and Sartre’s insistence on personal responsibility and choice.

Neuroscience even rescues us from the tyranny of the genes. Matt Ridley, the genetics writer and author, states: ‘By far the most important discovery of recent years in brain science is that genes are at the mercy of actions as well as vice versa…They are cogs responding to experience as mediated through the senses. Their promoters are designed to be switched off and on by events.’
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Ridley’s conclusion is magnificently unequivocal: ‘Free will is entirely compatible with a brain exquisitely prespecified by, and run by, genes.’ And, en route, he dispels the idea of genetics as an evil science endorsing selfishness, ruthlessness and brute strength. For instance, there is a question that may have vexed visitors to the zoo: if chimpanzees are only a fraction of the size of gorillas, how come their testicles are sixteen times as large? Since male gorillas have harems, which they need to protect, they have developed impressive size and fearsome appearance – but they do not need prodigious equipment to fertilize since they have no competition. In other words, they need only appear to have balls. Chimp females, however, are promiscuous, so the males who ejaculate frequently and copiously are more likely to have offspring. Male chimps really do need big balls. Which is better – to look big and ferocious but have modest testicles and limited orgasms, or to be small and unintimidating but have huge balls and come like an exploding supernova? Nature seems to be teaching the same lesson as Stoic philosophers – that the little guy unconcerned with appearances has lots more fun.

As for evolutionary psychology (EP), the theory is that behaviour is determined by the human brain evolving in certain ways as a result of natural selection during the Pleistocene period, with no development since because there has not been enough time. EP explanations of behaviour can seem dauntingly scientific but often the reasoning is dubious and the evidence thin or nonexistent. This is a self-validating theory like that of divine will. If everything that happens is planned by God, then the task of establishing meaning is to provide plausible divine intentions – and these, in turn, validate the original theory. Similarly, if everything we think, feel and do is the result of a survival adaptation, then the task is to suggest plausible adaptation stories – and this requires only imagination since there is little evidence of what went on in the Pleistocene period. For instance, I could argue that imagination itself evolved because ability to con the gullible greatly improved survival prospects.

There is a Steve on each side of the determinism debate – so both sides can say, ‘Our Steve is smarter than your Steve’. The psychologist and determinist Steven Pinker has argued that, as a consequence of evolution in the African savannah, humans have a universal preference for art depicting green landscapes and water.
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But I can supply evidence disproving the ‘universal preference’ – Duke Ellington hated grass because it reminded him of graves.

The biologist Steven Rose suggests that the preference for greenery, if indeed it exists, is as likely to be due to the pastoral nostalgia of urban societies. I can also propose evidence for this theory – the hunger for landscape art is overwhelmingly strong in southern England, which also happens to be nearly all motorways and concrete.

Rose argues that living organisms are not mere passive vehicles separating genes and environment. ‘Rather, organisms actively engage in constructing their environments, constantly choosing, absorbing and transforming the world around them. Every living creature is in constant flux, always at the same time both
being
and
becoming
. ‘
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Neuroscientists have also challenged the ‘hard-wired brain’ theory, suggesting instead that the human brain is extraordinarily plastic. Far from being fixed millions of years ago, the individual brain constantly rewires itself throughout a lifetime in response to experience. It is true that, broadly speaking, specific functions are carried out by specific parts of the brain, but the detailed processing is likely to be different in each brain. And, if a functional area is damaged, the brain may be able to rewire itself to process the function in a different way. More importantly for everyday life, almost any form of persistent, attentive activity produces new brain configurations. The neurons that fire together wire together. Musicians who play stringed instruments have larger brain maps for the left hand, taxi drivers have larger hippocampi (the area that stores spatial information), experienced meditators have bigger and thicker prefrontal cortices (the area responsible for attention and concentration). The bad news is that less desirable activities – anxieties, obsessions, compulsions, addictions, bad habits – also develop their own dedicated brain networks, which become efficient and self-sustaining and difficult to change.
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So, the ‘chemical imbalance in the brain’ form of determinism, the supposed cause of ‘disorders’, may be a confusion of cause and effect. If certain chemical brain states correlate with behaviour, it may be the behaviour that has produced the states rather than the other way round. For instance, there is a high correlation between attention disorders and television viewing in early childhood.
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There is no justification for the old excuse, ‘This is just how I am.’ Individual temperament (formed by a combination of genetic inheritance, family influences and cultural factors) certainly encourages attitudes, behaviours and moods and is extremely hard to override, never mind permanently change. This is what psychology defines as the ‘set point’. But, as well as temperament, there is character. Temperament is what you are – but character is what you do. Temperament is a given; character may be forged. We can choose to oppose the dictates of temperament and, if we act differently in a certain way for long enough, the new behaviour will establish its own brain connections. As Hamlet says to his weak mother: ‘Use, almost, can change the stamp of nature.’
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That ‘almost’ is the touch of genius. Shakespeare seems to have understood even the nature versus nurture debate – and, as always, avoided taking sides.

The word ‘character’, however, has a fatally old-fashioned ring. The age of entitlement does not seek character, which demands obligation, but identity, which demands rights. Identity can be sought in money, status or celebrity but is most easily conferred by belonging to a group – usually based on ethnicity, race, religion or sexual orientation. The group will be especially attractive if it can claim to have suffered injustice. Then its members can be victims and enjoy the luxury of having someone else to blame.

And blame is the new solution to the contemporary inability to accept random bad luck. Once misfortune was explained as the mysterious ways of God – the suffering had a purpose, which would be revealed in the fullness of time. Now, what makes misfortune meaningful is culpability. Someone must be to blame and it is never the victim. Shit happens – but it is always some other shit’s fault. Just as the pharmaceutical industry is happy to cash in on blaming disorders, the legal profession is more than willing to be paid for blaming the other shit. The medical profession is also willing to oblige. The
British Medical Journal
recently initiated an extraordinary project aimed at removing the word ‘accident’ from the English language. ‘Purging a common term from our lexicon will not be easy’, conceded the august journal. Nevertheless, ‘The
BMJ
has decided to ban the word accident.’
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This inability to accept randomness is what makes conspiracy theories so attractive. Such theories invest the banal and random with glamour and significance, and put the blame for personal irresponsibility on secret, sinister forces. It is so much more satisfactory to believe that Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered in a car crash engineered by the Duke of Edinburgh and that Marilyn Monroe was killed by a poisoned suppository inserted on the orders of Robert Kennedy. The pitiful truth would expose too much personal irresponsibility – that one was killed by a drunk driver and the other by alcohol and drug abuse.

The problem with shifting blame is that now no one is prepared to accept blame. Here is a twenty-first century story. A 37-year-old man, Gary Hart, divorced from his first wife and separated from his second, meets a woman called Kristeen Panter in an internet chat room and stays up until 5 a.m. talking to her online. Then he sets off on a 145-mile journey driving a Land Rover with a trailer. But he falls asleep at the wheel and runs off the road down an embankment into the path of a train, causing a crash that kills ten people and injures seventy-six more. Hart (‘My life is 1,000 miles per hour – it’s just the way I live’
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) is charged with dangerous driving but, at the trial, denies falling asleep and claims that the problem was mechanical failure, though a meticulous reconstruction of the Land Rover has revealed no problems. Hart is convicted and given a five-year prison sentence. When he gets out of prison he appears on a television documentary about the incident, denies any responsibility and claims that he, too, is a victim. Invited to consider photographs of the carnage, Hart does express sadness – but for the mangled wreckage of his Land Rover: ‘I loved that old truck.’
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