Politics and the three brains

I feel guilty about planning to leaving the country when things look so bad. On election day, I went for a run after hearing that the exit polls were favoring Kerry, and It Was Good. I remember thinking that democracy was self-correcting, the US knew which way was up, and that all the horrors of the last four years could start to be undone, one by one. Then I came back... Our very good friends, Tom and Robyn, came over and we watched the election results together. It was a gloomy night, probably accurately portending the next four years.

I've read a lot of excellent commentary on the election since. Even though he is a conservative, I particularly like Andrew Sullivan. He's no fan of Dubya.

As a secular, scientific Buddhist/Darwinist, I think that many of our problems in life come from the hack job that evolution made of the human brain (which is a good argument against Intelligent Design, by the way). Learning to meditate taught me a lot about my own monkey mind. It's an eye opener to sit quietly for 10 - 15 minutes and just attend to the gibberish that flows around the brain (I'm told that my brain isn't alone in this respect).

Politics is where the failings of the brain are exploited to their utmost. The best piece of political commentary in this regard is "Cheney speaks to the reptile brain". Recommended!

Clearly evolution isn't going to help us sufficiently quickly - we have to vote again in four years and I fear a similar virtuoso tickling of the three brains by the successor to Karl Rove.

So anyway, good luck to the US. We'll be watching you, and, yes, we will be back here again. Please, please make it easy for us to come back home.

Tim