"We are currently in a lull in imagination", Liya Yu

Recent developments have frustrated and demoralized many people. However, there are many positive developments and people who have ideas for a good future and are consistently pursuing them. Political scientist and philosopher Liya Yu identifies a lack of visions for a desirable future. She wants to find a basis for a new social contract in order to overcome the ever more noticeable divisions within society. Yu is convinced that we can achieve this with the help of neuropolitics.
"We are currently in a lull in imagination"
Philosopher Liya Yu
We lack visions of how we could be, says philosopher Liya Yu, echoing the sentiments of German physicist, philosopher and climatologist Friederike Otto. "We think far too little in visionary terms," says political scientist and philosopher Liya Yu. However, there are visionaries around the world who are in the process of implementing their ideas, such as historian Rutger Bregman, who we also wrote about recently.
How each individual can make the world a better place: Rutger Bregman
The philosopher deals with the question of how we can create a fairer society. She is researching how neuroscience can help us to overcome the ever-increasing divisions within society.
Vulnerable brains - Neuropolitics
In her book "Vulnerable Minds: The Neuropolitics of Divided Societies", Liya Yu describes her aim as being "to find the basis for a new social contract in our hyperdiverse world. In my view, neuropolitics offers this basis."
The philosopher explains the term neuopolitics as follows: "Neuropolitical research assumes that there are explanations for certain political phenomena from brain research. Things happen at the brain level that we cannot explain with surveys and behavioral observation alone. For example, there are white people in whom the brain area for fear becomes active as soon as they see a black person, even if they do not describe themselves as racists and do not behave in a racist manner."
"We all have exclusionary brains."
Yu explains this in an interview with Zeit Online: "Our brains have always divided people into so-called ingroups and outgroups. We attribute more humanity to members of ingroups to which we ourselves belong, we empathize with them more and are more willing to help them. We attribute less humanity to outgroups. In neuropolitical research, this phenomenon is called dehumanization. From an evolutionary point of view, it even makes sense."
From childhood, we have a friend-foe schema within us
From an early age, I divide people into ingroups that I feel I belong to and outgroups that I dehumanize. Everyone carries this enemy-friend image within them. It is anchored in the place where our social behavior is anchored in the brain, in the prefontal cortex. According to Yu, this brain region is more active in liberal people, who are more resilient to fears, for example. Conservative people tend to do this, they tend to strive for security. However, this brain region can be changed.
In democratic discourse, we people constantly hear what we are losing. This has to change. We need to explain to people what they gain as opposed to living in autocratic or dictatorial systems.
Empathy with boundaries
Everyone can dehumanize others and does so from time to time, at least on a small scale. "Our capacity for empathy has limits. You actually want to help the disadvantaged, but after a hard day's work you walk past the homeless with your eyes averted. You read the news about victims of a distant war and feel nothing. Dehumanization is a few steps worse, for example, when you can torture without feeling pain."
Yu argues that cognitive dehumanization is the most important disruptive factor for cooperation and solidarity and that discourse based on liberal values is not sufficient against it.
What processes are set in motion in the brain when you dehumanize others?
"Studies have shown that when I dehumanize someone, the same areas of the brain are activated as when I look at a chair. I look at a person as an object, not with aggression, but with complete indifference. I don't even notice the other person. International conflict researchers have studied the Israel and Palestine conflict from this perspective and found out: If people feel dehumanized and ignored by the other party, just as Palestinians feel treated by the state of Israel, they are much more likely to fight back with violence than if they "only" feel disadvantaged. At the same time, Israelis are less willing to engage in peaceful relations if they feel dehumanized by Palestinians," explains the political scientist.
In her book "Vulnerable Minds", Yu presents a new neuropolitical language of persuasion that eschews moralizing or shaming and instead appeals to common neurobiological vulnerabilities. In it, she offers her readers practical strategies for addressing those with whom we most strongly disagree, and provides a timely guide to overcoming the challenge of engaging and humanizing others, the publisher says.
Considering how difficult we often find it to deal with people who have very little in common with us without simply looking away or ignoring them, Yu's approach can be a welcome, forward-looking step in the right direction.
"Vulnerable Minds: The Neuropolitics of Divided Societies", Columbia University Press, 2022, Liya Yu