Maggie's Farm

From Yale Psychiatrist (and author of Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation) Charles Barber on the above topic in The Wilson Quarterly, a quote:

The new neuroscience has emerged from the last two decades of formidable progress in brain science, psychopharmacology, and brain imaging, bringing together research related to the human nervous system in fields as diverse as genetics and computer science. It has flowered into one of the hottest fields in academia, where almost anything “neuro” now generates excitement, along with neologisms—neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuromarketing. The torrent of money flowing into the field can only be described in superlatives—hundreds of millions of dollars for efforts such as Princeton’s Center for the Study of Brain, Mind, and Behavior and MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Psychiatrists have been in the forefront of the transformation, eagerly shrugging off the vestiges of “talk therapy” for the bold new paradigms of neuroscience. By the late 1980s, academic psychiatrists were beginning literally to reinvent parts of the discipline, hanging out new signs saying Department of Neuropsychiatry in some medical schools. A similar transformation has occurred in academic psychology.

A layperson leafing through a mainstream psychiatric journal today might easily conclude that biologists had taken over the profession.  “Acute Stress and Nicotine Cues Interact to Unveil Locomotor Arousal and ­Activity-­Dependent Gene Expression in the Prefrontal Cortex” is the title of a typical offering. The field has so thoroughly cast its lot with biology, and with the biology induced by psychoactive drugs, that psychiatrists can hardly hope to publish in one of the mainstream journals if their article tells the story of an individual patient, or includes any personal thoughts or feelings about the people or the work that patient was engaged with, or fails to include a large dose of statistical data. Psychiatry used to be all theories, urges, and ids. Now it’s all genes, receptors, and ­neurotransmitters.

Read Barber's whole essay here.

We have touched on the subject here and here. A few comments: He correctly describes the currents in Psychiatry today - the emphasis on the mechanistic view. Of course, this is just one view of the elephant, and you cannot eliminate the words "mind" or "soul." After all, the main role of current neuroscience is to understand "the mind." I try to take a balanced view. I am fascinated by the neurosciences, and I think our psychiatric medicines are Godsends for many. But, for many problems - let's use addictions as an easy example - I believe that a soul-change is needed, and is possible. I think it's best if we shrinks remain modest about our knowledge and our powers.

Another quote from Barber:

I have no problem whatsoever with physicians easing terminal peoples' path out of life with merciful doses of morphine, but I have great problems with the Brave New World of government rationing of medical care, and the hustling of people into death to save money as they seem inclined to do in the UK, Canada...and in Oregon.

Dr. Bob discusses. One quote:

We have, at last, arrived. The destination was never much in doubt — once the threshold of medical manslaughter had been breached, wrapped as always in comforting words of compassion and dignity, it was only a matter of time before our pragmatism trumped our principles. Once the absolute that physicians should be healers not hangmen was heaved overboard, it was inevitable that the relentless march of relativism would reach its logical port of call.

In my view, easy abortion was the first big step in the direction of removing the annoying inconvenience of a human life. Perhaps it would be most expedient - or utilitarian - to do us in the minute we stop paying income taxes...assuming our function is to serve the "common good." Or at the moment of our birth, because it is certain that we will become expensively ill someday.

And when it comes to medical treatment in general, I like TigerHawk's idea much better than any governmental idea. WallMart! Just as long as I have my own doc who knows me and cares about me first.

Addendum: Father of Canada's medical system rejects what he created. "Woops. I goofed. So terribly sorry."

Part 2 of the Pew study of religion in America has been issued. It shows that there is a lot of non-dogmatic religious thinking going on, which is no surprise really. An excerpt from the piece on the subject in the CSM:

On some basics, the American faithful are much alike. Ninety-two percent believe in God, including 70 percent of those not connected with any religion. Three-quarters believe in life after death, and 79 percent believe in miracles.

Prayer is a widespread practice, in which 75 percent engage at least weekly and 58 percent daily. Thirty-four percent say they have experienced or witnessed a divine healing of an illness or injury.

Yet divergent perspectives coexist within many traditions. In regard to the conception of God, 60 percent of Americans believe in a personal God, while 25 percent believe in an impersonal force or universal spirit. Eastern Orthodox Christians split 49 to 34 percent on this question, while Muslims divide evenly, 41 to 42 percent. Among Jews, 25 percent believe in a personal God and 50 percent in an impersonal force.

Something I stumbled on: My worst date ever. A fairly bad date, but if that's his worst, I won't worry about him too much.

My best first date was a blind date. (Future) hubbie picks me up and takes me sledding at night in New Hampshire. 12 degrees (F). Had his toboggan tied to the roof of his old wreck of a Jeep, and a six-pack of beer on the back seat. You just had to like the guy. Tall, dark and handsome too, with plenty of interesting quirks. 

I guess it was a test of my gumption, but, to his credit, the toboggan on the steep hill made me end up holding on tight to him - a total stranger (well, with the introduction by a close family friend). But it did feel pretty good.

Only the beer was wrong. For nightime sledding, brandy is the thing, but he was a poor student at HBS at the time.

In commercial societies, everybody wants you to buy their stuff.

Even though retailers lose a bit of their profit in their credit card fees, credit cards make it so easy to spend money painlessly and impulsively that, overall, they are a boon to retail commerce.

The average American received 15 credit card mail solicitations last year, so they're making plenty of money on this too. Good for them.

Spending discipline, thrift, saving, and "making do" are traditional American virtues, but, like so many valuable traditional virtues, they seem to be gradually going by the wayside in the face of our prosperity and growth. As David Brooks discusses, Seduction of borrowed money is making U.S. a nation of debtors.

The Frontal Cortex has a piece on Credit Cards and the Brain. Predictably, spending cash and spending via plastic have different impacts on the brain.

Financial suicide is painless. My rule is that all of my credit cards must be paid in full each month.

Advocates for the "disabled," however defined, want them "mainstreamed" and "normalized" while, at the same time, they advocate for special treatment and "accommodations" for the disabilities. How can you have it both ways?

In the UK, the Disabilities Discrimination laws define "disability" as:

‘A physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’.

Everybody has strengths and serious weaknesses, and deserves respect for their efforts and for their humanity despite their frailities or unappealing characteristics. A nice cheerful young gal with Downs bags my groceries every week at my market. Meanwhile, I have patients with reasonably-controlled bipolar disorder who hire lawyers to help them get on Social Security Disability. (I do not approve of that one bit. I do not approve of "working the system," nor do I think it is good for them: it is terrible for them and for their dignity.)

Anyway, you may read a short essay at Spiked here which addresses these issues.

Editor's note:

Dr. Bliss' post leads to a typically-fine post by David Thompson on modern socialistic ideals titled Details, Details. Quoted by Thompson in his post:

Well, I’m not aware of a British political party that wants to abandon the welfare safety net – the “social state” as Bauman prefers to call it – let alone abandon “human solidarity,” and the arguments I’ve heard tend to centre on whether long-term welfare dependency is a desirable state of affairs for any human being. It’s one thing to rail against the “rule of capitalism” in abstract and fanciful terms; it’s something else entirely to address particulars – such as those of a soused, if amiable, woman drinking beer by the road. Is Bauman suggesting that this woman should be steered away from her morning refreshments? These do, after all, affect her employment prospects, finances and health, and thus make her one of society’s “weakest members”. Or does the professor believe that she should be compensated indefinitely by the state for being an unemployable alcoholic and not terribly bright? How, I wonder, is her life to be brought closer into line with mine or yours? Does she have a say in the matter? Do those of us who would have to pick up the tab?

I do not enjoy picking up her tab, but I would never leave her to die in the gutter. I'd be inclined to give her an educational kick in the butt and a few weeks in a drunk tank. Still, such questions keep life interesting, and force us to clarify our thinking.

However, I have yet to be convinced that government is the best agency for human mercy. Small "d" democratic government is about votes, jobs, money, perks and power - regardless of the virtue or venality of its practioners.

Women often can be heard adopting the passive-aggressive victim posture, and bitching about how easy and good men have it in life. Fortunately, there are plenty of wise women out there who appreciate how tough it is for a boy child to become a man: it is so tough that many never manage to do it. 

Think about it: we women have far more latitude in how we can be, and in our respectable choices in life.

From the Daily Mail, a book review: The Return of Real Men: Ladies, get ready to meet Mr. Retrosexual.

They're back? I didn't know they ever went away.

Let's bring some politics into this, just for fun. McCain is the Retrosexual: he knows guns, wouldn't back away from a fight and can use his fists, bait a hook, and can mess with an old Chevy carburetor. Obama: pure Metrosexual, with clean nails, probably never used a chain saw or shot a handgun in his life, and probably hires illegal Mexicans to do his gardening. "I'll have a chardonnay spritzer, please, when you have a chance."

Photo: Atticus Finch, a portrayal of a real American man.

Columbia's Brain and Mind Symposium has archived (on online video) a wonderful and relatively non-technical series of lectures by the world's greatest neuroscientists.

These talks were presented in 2004 as a part of Columbia University's 250th Anniversary. (h/t, Neurophilosophy)

Politics is irrational because people are only partially rational, and even less so when it comes to politics and other peoples' money. We recently linked to a piece by Stumbling, who asked:

...what role should empirical evidence have in policy-making? Here’s a theory - very little.  Evidence-based policy-making (EBPM) is a sham. I say so for four reasons:

You can read his reasons here.

Case in point: The Polar Bear story. An entirely healthy bear population is put on the Endangered List for purely political reasons: Who wants a sound bite out there claiming "He or she refused to protect the cuddly Polar Bears."? It makes you sound heartless and evil, and nobody is going to listen to the statistics. It's about sentiment.

However, many of my central beliefs about life are about sentiment too. My belief in the freedom of the individual from the power of the state and of the collective, for example, represents my emotional attachment to our Constitution, its vision, and its cultural underpinnings. To me, a self-evident truth, but some would claim that Resistance is Futile to the power of the Borg.

Courage to tell the truth is rare in politicians, of course, because they have their sinecures to look after (which is rational, if cowardly). I give McCain credit for telling the truth about Ethanol, but it's going to hurt him in the corn states: they want to stay on that gravy train (which is rational on their part, if venal and ignoble). Thus people can be most rational when self-interest is directly involved, and sometimes most irrational when it is not.

Image: Polar Bear with a fresh seal dinner. Cute, cuddly-looking Polar Bears are believed to kill over 40% of the cute cuddly baby seals born each year in the Arctic regions in which they dwell. They do catch adult seals, too. Polar Bears eat the skin and the blubber, and leave the rest.

Editor's note:  There is talk going around that the real reason the bears emerged as an issue was as a sentimental proxy issue for preventing drilling in the Arctic, comparable to the familiar "It's for the children..." The thought occurs to me - would this work as well if the bears were black?  Is there a racial subtext here? Inquiring minds want to know.

Donald Boudreaux considers his colleague Bryan Caplan's much-discussed book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. One quote:

Each of us has muted incentives to study the facts and issues carefully -- and to reflect upon them dispassionately -- because no one of us is responsible for deciding which policies the government will implement.

But Bryan Caplan explains another reason why each of us as a voter generally exercises less wisdom than we do in our private affairs. This other reason springs from what Caplan calls our "preferences over beliefs." Each of us wants to believe certain things. Each of us gets satisfaction simply by holding certain beliefs firm to our hearts. Just as many of us enjoy feeling loyal to our favorite sports teams, many of us enjoy believing that our favorite political party is an especially wise steward of the public interest.

Many of us enjoy believing that our troubles are caused by foreigners. Many of us enjoy believing that if the rich pay higher taxes, middle-class and poor people will be better off. We resist rejecting these beliefs even if the evidence before us suggests that they are mistaken.

Indeed, people are only sometimes rational, and even less often rigidly logical. We are not computers, or Mr. Spocks. In most things humans do, we engage our souls, hearts and our minds, and it is the challenge of adulthood to monitor, critique, and to balance those things in ourselves. For example, were it not for our hearts and souls, it might make sense for us to vote for a thoroughly pragmatic, efficient, and logical Brave New World. 

Wisdom is not the same thing as logic, and logic is not the same thing as virtue.

Therefore I am in favor of a degree of irrationality in voting. And, anyway, who is the Grand Arbiter who gets to define "rational voting"? People like Thomas Frank, who believe that it is "rational" to vote yourself other peoples' money? Or "values voters" like me?  Politics, government - and life itself -is messy and complicated, and even more so with freedom.

Books that need to be written:

"The Myth of the Rational Human" (well, Freud covered a lot of that ground already)

"The Myth of the Rational and Virtuous Government"

"The Myth of the Rational and Virtuous Politician"

"The Myth of the Rational and Virtuous Bureaucracy"

and

"The Myth of the Rational Expert"

Editor's Comment: Great blog minds think alike. Bainbridge today on The Imperfectibility of Human Institutions. He quotes:

The Framers understood that the self-interest which in the private sphere contributes to welfare of society — both in the sense of material well-being and in the social unity engendered by commerce — makes man a knave in the public sphere, the sphere of politics and group action. It is self-interest that leads individuals to form factions to try to expropriate the wealth of others through government and that constantly threatens social harmony. John O. McGinnis, The Original Constitution and Our Origins 19 Harv. J.L.& Pub. Policy 251, 253 (1996).

I know that it is trite to tout exercise, but it is worth mentioning that we keep learning more about its health benefits. I recently attended a talk on breast cancer in which daily exercise compared favorably with several widely-used chemotherapy protocols.

Humans were not designed to sit on their butts all day watching TV or reading ephemeral stuff on the Internets.

You name it, and exercise helps it, in the NYT by Jane Brody.

Is recreational sex a good thing? Good for whom? And how do I define "good"? Does our pop culture contain any sexual morals anymore? Are women naturally as sexually predatory and opportunistic as some men can be? And what does "natural" have to do with it anyway, since we are humans, not monkeys?

Were I a smarter person, I'd have all the answers.

Anchoress on Prudery, Virginity, and Do-Me Feminism

And Harvey Mansfield reviews Hook Up or Shut Up

It's about "nudging," and our blog friend Dr. Helen discusses it here, with a podcast.

Of course, our government nudges already in innumerable ways - mortgage deductions, for one. Pension deductions and charitable deductions for more on the plus side, and gas and tobacco taxes on the negative side. I happen to be a flat-taxer, on principle: I will give you 13% of my income to pay you off and to preserve our civilization, and I will do whatever I want with the rest.

What principle? The principle that I do not need or want anybody else to "improve" me: My life is my gift from God and nature. It is my problem, my challenge, my adventure, and presents my own dilemmas, my own choices, my own consequences. That is the core and the meaning of human dignity in a free society, and I expect everybody else in my vicinity to buy into that revolutionary and inspiring idea.

The reason I would not waste my time on the book is that, while I respect Sunstein as a smart guy, I do not generally regard him as wise. In this case, the premise that government or government-acquired or politically-processed "expertise" is something that "we the people" want or need - or wish to pay for with our tax money - is absurd. Are we retarded?  Everyone in the world these days gets advice from other people, and can get it from anywhere. From Oprah to my doctor to my pastor to the politicians to the internet, everybody seems to be sure that they know how I ought to live.

We are swamped by the Advice du Jour, which usually turns out to be wrong - whether from the government or from anyone else. For one example, if I followed our government's dietary recommendations, I would weigh 300 lbs and resemble the revolting American happily-overfed blimps at Disney World.

What people want, I believe, is a government that has the humility to stay out of our personal lives. That's the way to grow strong, self-sufficient people who do not turn to the government in a dependent, whining, or entitled manner. God, the internet, the library, and our brains are all that we need to take charge of our own lives. Plus we need to know the laws, so we don't break them, because breaking laws is a bad idea.

The arrogance of the Government-Academic Complex never ceases to amuse and to exasperate.

Does Cass run his life better than I run mine? I doubt it. Are his investments doing better than mine? I doubt it. Does he run more miles per week than I do? I doubt it. Is his marriage more fun than mine? I seriously doubt it. Does he have a more interesting life than mine? I doubt it. Is his worship more heart-felt than mine? Doubt it. Does he view me, his fellow Citizen, as somehow pitifully deprived of the wisdom and knowledge of my betters (despite government schools which are supposed to prepare us)? No doubt.

Government is no font of wisdom, and everybody knows that. Here's my message to the condescending experts:

"Shut the hell up, because when it comes to running a life, we are all on training wheels."