Beyond Stupid: A Neurological Explanation for Incomprehensible Dumbassery

This morning as I grazed through the news reports of (predominantly) white people across the country protesting stay at home prohibitions, I had an epiphany. I couldn’t process the level of what I perceived as stupidity.

That’s when it hit me: this isn’t a question of intelligence. This is neurochemistry.

My inability to fathom what looks to me like moronic behavior is as much tied to the way my brain works, as theirs. Brains are complex things, and the decision making process is a weave of neurons and chemicals and consciousness (whatever the fuck that is). While your whole brain works together in a way no one really understands, science has identified certain parts of the brain as responsible for certain functions.

Says Dr. Ronnie Siddique of Embolden Psychology:

“The foundation of protest movements is cognitive dissonance, which as you know is a high degree of mental discomfort, leading to a change in beliefs or behaviors to reduce this discomfort and restore “balance.”

This makes sense to me. I have marched against the extrajudicial killing of Black people at the hands of the police, because it was easier to act than to wrap my mind around my perceptions of gross injustice.

Dr. Siddiqe continues:

“In order to find comfort, [quarantine protestors] are able to disregard medical data which doesn’t help restore their mental balance of the terror of the unknown and financial hardship.”

This also checks out. One part of your brain (in this case, the part that processes terror) is overruling the part which processes empirical data.

Says Dr. Siddique:
“Two of the biggest sources of cognitive dissonance are
1. Identifying with the group that feels threatened or powerless
2. Sense of deprivation, feeling that they’re treated less fairly and have grievances.”

This rings true. Here’s where the divergence happens:

“In order to protest laws and regulations put in place to save lives, medical data has to be disregarded.”

One part of your brain telling another part of your brain to ignore what it knows because of how it feels sounds like some of the relationships I’ve been in.

There’s more:
“Anger starts in the amygdala, and then neurotransmitters are released that fuel the anger (catecholamines, especially acetylcholine, or ACH). These mobilize people for action, and also significantly narrows attention onto the target of your anger, disregarding other data once again. The narrowing of attention is the most interesting thing. They might seem stupid, but they are actually not able to pay attention to anything except the focus of the anger. Of course this was evolutionarily adaptive at one point.

After a protest, the predominant emotions are not anger, but happiness and satisfaction.”

In other words, your emotions overrule your intellect, assume control over your actions, and then reward you with endorphins and dopamine.

Which explains both why seemingly intelligent people are doing things that fly in the face of all logic, and why I can’t understand what the fuck they’re thinking. Our brains are processing information differently on a neurochemical level.

Except the only person who’s hurt by your actions if you text an ex, despite every rational brain cell telling you that you shouldn’t, is you. The actions of these protesters are endangering themselves and everyone else.

Logic based decisions aren’t contagious; viruses are.

Having elected officials and media companies that deliberately provoke amygdala based decisions over incontrovertible science is making things infinitely worse. In a world where no one’s choices are inconsequential, I asked Dr. Siddique how we could address this.

Her response? “I don’t know.”

I don’t either. But I refuse to let SOME of us kill ALL of us.