Drew Westen, a professor of psychology in Atlanta, US, struggled with a political question in the early 2000s. Why was it that surveys showed American people agreeing with Democrats on most issues, but when it came to voting, Democrats were doing poorly?
To understand this, he conducted political experiments on the brain in 2004. He showed political messages to Democrat and Republican supporters and scanned their brains to see how the brain reacts. He found that the human brain responds to politics more through emotion than reason.
When a Democrat supporter was shown a message depicting a Democratic Party leader in a bad light, the brain quickly found ways to rationalise it, and once that was done, the emotional part of the brain lit up again.
The experiments proved that “confirmation bias” had a scientific basis and why politically partisan people loved fake news like a drug addiction. But they also explained what Democrats had been doing wrong and the Republicans had been doing right: using emotions in political messaging.
Also read: How India’s liberals and opposition can start winning the battle of ideas
Slave to emotion
From these experiments came out the book The Political Brain in 2007. It immediately became a rage in the Democratic circles and influenced the Democratic Party’s thinking about its messaging around the time of the first Obama campaign. Westen did not directly work on the Obama campaign, but Joe Biden and Bill Clinton were among the people who asked Democrats to take the book seriously. Westen wrote a pamphlet for Democrats titled, “Message Handbook for Progressives from Left to Center”.
Since then, The Political Brain has become a hugely influential book in politics across the world. It could not be more relevant in today’s India. You can replace Democrats with the Congress and Republicans with the BJP and book would make a lot of sense in India.
Westen writes in his book, “The brain registers the conflict between data and desire and begins to search for ways to turn off the spigot of unpleasant emotion.” Which is why “the political brain is an emotional brain. It is not a dispassionate calculating machine, objectively searching for the right facts, figures, and policies to make a reasoned decision”.
Westen cites a lot of research to prove his point, but philosopher David Hume said it nearly three centuries ago: reason is a slave to emotion/passion. Democrats, Westen writes, have an “irrational emotional commitment to rationality”.
Emotion makes us reason
The human mind uses both emotion and reason together. People who have lost one of these faculties in accidents, for instance, are unable to function normally. To sell reason, liberals will have to use emotion first.
Westen writes: “We do not pay attention to arguments unless they engender our interest, enthusiasm, fear, anger, or contempt. We are not moved by leaders with whom we do not feel an emotional resonance. We do not find policies worth debating if they don’t touch on the emotional implications for ourselves, our families, or things we hold dear. From the standpoint of research in neuroscience, the more purely “rational” an appeal, the less it is likely to activate the emotion circuits that regulate voting behaviour.”
Think of every successful politician or for that matter any public figure. You will see that they evoke emotions in people, and they do so partly because they use emotions in their messaging. This is true of Narendra Modi or Shah Rukh Khan, Steve Jobs or Benazir Bhutto. One politician who just doesn’t appeal to emotion at all is Rahul Gandhi.
The hesitation in using emotions is a major reason why the Congress, and liberal politics in India at large have lost the ability to influence the masses.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi channelises emotions so often that sometimes his eyes become moist. Whether or not it is an act, it is definitely a political design. He especially gets emotional when he talks about his humble roots.
The Congress is the party of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation; of Jawaharlal Nehru, the maker of modern India; of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, who gave up their lives for India. Yet, the BJP manages to own nationalism partly because the Congress doesn’t use emotions while reaching out to the people with its ideas and icons.
The Congress party, and especially Rahul Gandhi try to appeal to reason. Rahul Gandhi’s big failure has been the inability evoke emotions in people. Arvind Kejriwal’s decline in national politics has mirrored the decline in his ability to emotionally charge-up people.
Also read: Modi’s Kashmir move is biggest test for Indian democracy – and for the silent liberals
It’s the way you make me feel
“In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins,” Westen writes. The trouble is that liberals have come to associate emotional messaging with right-wing demagoguery and fascism. In doing so, liberals are denying science. They are denying how the human brain works.
Westen writes, “It is clear that “feelings” are millions of years older than the kind of conscious thought processes we call “reason” and they have been guiding behaviour for far longer”.
The use of emotion is not always evil. It doesn’t have to be designed to make people discriminate and kill. “Emotions channel behaviour in directions that maximise our survival, reproduction, and care for the welfare of others in whom we are emotionally invested,” Westen writes.
A good comparison here would be how Modi sells the Ujjwala scheme to give free gas cylinders to households and how the Congress has (not) sold the Right to Food or indeed any of the UPA’s rights-based schemes. Modi will remind you of the suffering of mothers, the Congress will give you a statistic.
The day India can find a liberal politician who knows how to use emotions in messaging, Narendra Modi and the BJP will start losing elections. Take the ongoing economic slowdown and rising unemployment rates, for instance.
Have you heard any opposition leader trying to make you feel what it is like to be unemployed? Has a single opposition leader made you empathise with the automobile factory worker who has returned to his/her village after losing the job, and doesn’t know what s/he can do to earn a living again? The day an opposition leader can make you feel for the dispossessed in Modi’s India, the Modi story will be over.
Westen writes, “You know you have a good candidate when he or she can make you laugh, move you to tears, enunciate your shared values in a way that puts a shiver down your spine, deliver a eulogy or address a national tragedy in a way that puts a lump in your throat, criticise the other side with a sharp joke that is so disarming that you barely realise it’s more than a scratch until you see the bandage, and elicit moral outrage so powerful you want to go to the polls tomorrow.”
Also read: How liberals lost Gandhi as they lost their own intellectual moorings
Views are personal.
Rahul Gandhi and Appeal to reason – isnt that an oxymoron!
I am suggesting it again. Shekhar Gupta should keep Shivam Vij type authors away from ThePrint. ThePrint has a potential to grow and complete with main Indian media houses if Shekhar can keep journalist standards but not defined by fake liberals. Shekhar Gupta very well knows that for every thing there are competing interpretation that he frequently mention in his “Cut the Cutter” videos.
I was told by someone: “In every entity there are some self-limiting features”. The Print seems uninterested in enhancing its appeal. SG, in his second innings, wants to attract eye-balls through controversial articles.
Great article. This article coupled with the an earlier one by Sonali Ranade on Aristotle and Plato give a good insight on how the sarkar manages its hold on power and the public opinion. Coming to this specific article, it’s not just the messaging from the very top but even in quite a few of the WhatsApp memes and forwards that one can see elements of behavioral theory at work.
For eg. recently got a slickly produced video clip forward. The video showed portraits of few past (100 yrs or so) greats from different fields in science, arts etc to an audience. The audience is asked to recognize the people and they fail. The voice over mentions that it’s unfortunate that these greats haven’t been given their due and now it’s time to correct this. Very subtle and very effective. And mostly wrong, because the greats discussed in the video have their names associated with major institutions, in cases were brought in by past governments, and have been awarded as well. But the video chooses to gloss over this apparently minor detail.
Shivam’s articles are for NRI’s as very first line start with a reference of BIDEHSI (read US/UK/ all GORA countries) authors.. he has not read anything said by Indians or for Indians. He always have to go to SEEMAPAAR to justify his arguments.
All these FIBERALS don’t accept that this trait is most teasing for people like us who are “Desi and Gawanr” -according to Karan Thapar a fellow “KHAN MARKET” gangster .
Pawan is right. Most journalist who write in English know absolute nothing about great Indians to quote because Macaulay education has brainwashed them about India and kept them ignorant of Indian culture. Irrespective of what they write, their poor understanding on India is visible. Many of them hardly come out of their cosy living and churn out rubbish by rewriting the anti-India western stories.
Fiberals! 😎 Another addition to the list containing: sickulars, libetards!
Rahul is not interested in politics. Let him live the way he wants. Anyway Rahul has no brains.
I always thought that evms were the reason for this victory, now discovered emotional messaging as the reason. Further kindly note that in Kerala, TN, Orissa, Punjab, emotional messaging worked very well (without Rahul Gandhi), is the author saying the party of gandhis and Nehru, there are other leaders in the above states who did emotional messaging well. If so during the assembly elections why Modi was not able to do that. I am sure that the author with his huge wisdom will discover our various other reasons. Just remembering a quote, if you torture data, it will give you results what you want!
Apna time ayega. BJP and RSS (two sides of same coin) waited for nearly forty years to capture power, two short term and then near full term ended in 2004 under Atalji when RSS did not use its full energy and inspite of better performance BJP under Vajpayee lost. When BJP could not win second time it was called Kati Patang by its own senior member and Minister. Kite is flying high sixth year. People in India rarely think and vote excepting Kerala where very rarely same party combination get second term. Whichever party, they need to be kept on their toes they and leaders are not masters. People at the moment has no alternative, stagnation would be too dangerous. The fact people are slowly feeling pinch of inflation and related rozi roti issues until then wait and watch
How much I wish that Shivam Vij would learn how to write well. But, this guy just struggles. Just one example after a quick browse: “The Congress party, and especially Rahul Gandhi try to appeal to reason. Rahul Gandhi’s big failure has been the inability evoke emotions in people. Arvind Kejriwal’s decline in national politics has mirrored the decline in his ability to emotionally charge-up people.”
A school kid could come up with general statements like these.
Didn’t it occur to you that the author might have made the “general statements” for the benefit of the readers who may have difficulty understanding anything other that what a school kid can write?
Dear print, this writer seriously needs medical help. This neurosis about and obsession with Modi is possibly a sign of depression, very low self esteem, no friends and probable incel-hood.
Personally I – a drop in such a vast electoral ocean – would feel much happier if politics were a lot more about reason and honest messaging. Our problems are real enough. I feel an instinctive aversion to too much of emotion entering the sacred covenant between citizen and state. And when a large part of the electorate is not very educated or economically well off, emotion can connote manipulation, or stirring up hurtful passions. ( I was genuinely shocked, hope the statistic is untrue, to read last night that the figure for female literacy in India is just 59%, vs 91% in Saudi Arabia). Charisma and communication skills are important in politics, but they should be underpinned by substance. President Obama comes readily to mind, as a blend of both.
Whose “charisma and communication” has sidelined female literacy? Manmohan Singh’s? Because, as is your wont, you are indirectly pointing fingers towards Modi. But Modi came only in 2014.
Also, did Obama do anything about the gun law? Perhaps now you would say that had he continued as President for third time till eternity, gun reforms in the US would have happened. Stop presenting twisted logic.
Nowhere the author of the comment has meant to say that somebody’s “charisma and communication” has sidelined female literacy.
Instead of asking, “did Obama do anything about the gun law?”, you should have asked, “why couldn’t Obama do anything about the gun law?” In short order, Obama couldn’t do anything about the gun law for lack of suitable opportunity. Right now, after recent multiple shootings and so many deaths as a result, there is an outcry for restrictions on gun purchases, but Trump doesn’t even agree with a proposal of background check for a gun purchaser! He says those who go on shooting rampage are mentally sick or influenced by video games! The pro-gun National Rifle Association had contributed millions of dollars to his election campaign in 2016, and would contribute millions in 2020 election!
Bit patronising to lay all the onus only on the less educated and less economically privileged. For the last 72 years India’s political story has been only about emotions, starting with the love affair with Chacha Nehru and his ilk. A love affair that had all in its grip including the educated and economically well off. And when one is riding an emotional rollercoaster who cares about literacy, healthcare etc. etc. So no surprises if India remains at the bottom of the heap, even below Saudi Arabia. The current state of the pocket boroughs of the Nehru Gandhis in UP, are ample evidence of emotion over reason.
Shivam, it is indeed very painful to see you so depressed. Almost 2-3 articles of gibberish a week, don’t you tire.
A simple fact of life is this, Indian masses are intelligent, far more mature, patient, resilient and intelligent, people like you can acknowledge. If the current govt stop catering to the good of the masses, they will be rejected as well, however, you being a ‘journalist’ peep out of your ivory towers , see and experience the hinterland of hoi-polloi…. maybe you will understand that emotions do work, if and only if, backed by actions… don’t be a “koop mandukah” , there’s a vast world outside your well too….
Killer move every one.
Shivam Vij has made (yet another) new discovery that he is reasonable and Modi voters are stupid. Wow. How refreshing.