Many of you will now be bristling at my reducing free will to mere chemistry, but I'm suggesting no such thing. These chemical processes occur not in isolation but in a social context that further modulates their effects through language and those shared beliefs that make up our culture - and our politics. In his interesting book
ADVERTISEMENT
On Deep History and the Brain, US historian Daniel Lord Smail views human history through the looking-glass of brain chemistry. Rulers quickly learn that keeping people scared makes them more passive and obedient, an observation that applies all the way from alpha-male chimps to al-Qaida bombers and New Labour home secretaries. Meanwhile, the ruled learn to stiffen their own brain amines against such onslaught by binge drinking, praying, smoking weed, watching football and soap operas, and so on. Any behaviour that raises levels of the good guys such as dopamine and serotonin, or lowers the bad guys such as cortisol, can become addictive. Videoing your box-opening ritual, furtively glancing at my Flickr score, drooling over car and camera porn, all produce the kind of biochemical buzz that chimps get from picking fleas out of each other's fur. But chimps may have the last laugh - fleas are far more sustainable.
