A fair number of people are implacably opposed to seeing any hope for the future after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. But there’s one good reason to be hopeful. Many observers saw quite quickly that Trump’s personality was highly disordered. People with yet more dangerous personality disorders have gained power many times in human history – probably far more often than not. This time, however, the phenomenon is being scrutinised on those terms. The opportunity for everyone to learn a lot about this domineering, exploitative, unstable and superficially charismatic personality type has presented itself on a grand scale.
In fact, there has never been a better time than now for human beings to start gaining far greater insight into ourselves, what makes us so creative and what makes us so destructive. And it’s not just a matter of information. All the neuroimaging, all the psychological theorising, all the psychiatric experimentation with pharmacology, it’s already prompting a huge need for careful, scientifically anchored engagement with the ethical and philosophical debate about what it is to be human.
There’s no doubt that people are wary. For some, calling a serial killer a psychopath is somehow excusing them. In the judicial system, where brain scans have been used by defence lawyers, the “it wasn’t me, it was my brain” defence is mistrusted. It is odd, this idea that we are anything at all, if not our brains. We like to believe we have free will, and have become used to judging criminality as a moral failing rather than a neurological failing. Yet scientific evidence that ethical choices are the consequence of the processing of information through an adequately developed mind, is mounting.
The idea that every human brain is mechanically perfect – with cruel or annihilating impulses somehow separate from it, as if repugnant thoughts were like stagnant water running through an infallibly reliable plumbing system – is silly but somehow comforting.
Donald Trump regularly advertises the marvellous health and tip-top functioning of his brain. Even relatively benign neurological quirks – say, learning disabilities such as dyslexia – attract cynicism and suspicion. They are seen by some as deluded excuses rather than helpful explanations.
A New Zealand study reported earlier this month that “high social cost” adults could be predicted from as young as three from a 45-minute survey of their brain. It has long been known that early intervention is important for vulnerable children. But the Dunedin Longitudinal study is a real wake-up call. It signposts how catching early developmental problems and helping children develop their minds more fully is of benefit to all of society, if only we have the will.
Humans find threatening the idea that thought is the product of complex, robust, yet highly plastic physical processes, that can be flawed from birth and can develop, repair or compensate for flaws, depending on environment. Somehow, even in our secular age, we prefer to believe we have souls. Yet our potential for understanding that it’s all in our minds, and working out how individual minds can develop in a well-adjusted way, has never been greater. That, to me, gives great hope for the future.
