THREAD on why Brexit is a battle between Reptiles and Mammals.
So another pointless month goes by on Brexit and still the two sides seem fundamentally not to even understand each other
So another pointless month goes by on Brexit and still the two sides seem fundamentally not to even understand each other
I’ve made countless attempts to engage Brexiteers with facts. What comes back – almost every single time – is something that feels almost like a different language. Highly emotional, but with little regard for facts. We are talking past each other. Why?
Remainers are endlessly frustrated by the obvious dishonesty of the Leave campaign and the ongoing failure of Leave to come up with anything like a policy platform. Very weirdly, to us, this doesn’t seem to bother Brexiteers
On the Brexit side it can feel like a re-run of greatest hits: ‘we won, get over it’ ‘believe in our future’ ‘taking back control.’ Powerful slogans, but no detail. Yet many Leavers still seem to find that compelling. Why?
Leavers also seem perfectly happy to change their arguments as they go. We have ended up where Leave is now extremely far away from its original promises, yet many Leavers barely seem concerned by this. Why?
The answer, I think, lies in the different parts of our brains. (Yes, I know this is going to sound like I am saying Remainers are more intelligent than Brexiteers. I’m not saying that.)
What I AM saying is that – generally - Brexiteers are using the part of the brain that is more concerned with fear and survival. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. It responds differently.
The evil genius of the Leave campaign was to target this part of the brain. The basic idea – straight from the Breitbart playbook – was to generate fear and talk about very basic survival needs, then provide a (false) solution
Part of their evil genius was to talk about ‘project fear’ when their own campaign was a textbook example of how to use fear effectively
The people who ran this knew exactly what they were doing. They just knew they had to raise an angry mob and they would have a chance of winning
Facts have no place here. This part of the brain cares about survival. It is what allows us to be here at all. Every attempt by Remain to rebut the Leave campaign – those posters are lies! The EU is not to blame! – was missing the point.
The Leave campaign didn’t need to be truthful. It still doesn’t. It just needs to engage people at a deep, inaccessible emotional level
They found figureheads – take a bow, Gove and Johnson - whose own emotions and ambitions meant they had no interest in truth. They were happy to use and provoke this basic anger for their own calculated political ends
(Some have observed that Farage has somewhat reptilian features. I fear this is coincidence rather than correlation.)
This ongoing demonisation of ‘others’ now extends to Remainers. We are now part of the basic primitive threat to Leavers that encompasses a vast range of people, bodies and states. It looks daft to Remainers but it FEELS that way to Leavers
I’m also saying that – generally – Remainers are using the part of their brain that is interested in reason, abstract thought and learning. That is why Remainers (in my experience) care more about facts and the detail of future scenarios
The link between Remain and education is not about intelligence. It is because extended education, especially to degree level, develops this way of thinking. Remainers like rational arguments. This is the mammalian brain
If you wanted to criticise this aspect of Remainers by the same logic (yes I know) it would be that Remainers are just indulging this outer brain by warbling on about facts as an act of intellectual self-gratification
To Remainers, Leavers can seem like toddlers, obsessively wanting something when they can’t even explain why they want it
To Leavers, Remainers can seem like professorial dullards, obsessively banging on about detail and rules without understanding the basic threats that Leavers feel
The failure of the Remain campaign was – and still is – to have nothing to say which appeals to Leavers at this level. The reptilian brain is stirred by very basic emotions
The failure of the Leave campaign was – and still is – to have nothing to say to Remainers which will convince them *in the way they need to be convinced*
The great danger here is that these emotions must find an outlet somewhere. What happens to this anger when Brexit does not solve the basic issues? Or even makes them worse?
It is also why the Leave campaign must inevitably fail. Because the outside world does ultimately need a rational, workable response. The EU is, above all, a rules-based system where everything has to be written down in fine detail
For now, this is why Remainers and Brexiteers often talk past each other. Reptiles and apes aren’t better or worse than each other, but they do have almost nothing in common. Until both sides understand what they are dealing with these debates will go nowhere. ENDS
