New scientific studies that shed light on the nature of emotions and social interaction could lead to improvements in many fields of endeavor, including education and U.S. foreign policy, New York Times columnist David Brooks said during the Sun Valley Writers' Conference on Friday.
Brooks delivered a humorous and profound recap of many of the ideas in his most recent book, "Social Animal," at the Sun Valley Pavilion, exalting the place of emotions over abstract reasoning in human affairs.
"Social Animal" examines the elements of financial and social success based on recent studies in neuroscience and human relationships. In his otherwise nonfiction book, Brooks incorporates these studies in a narrative of fictional characters brought up under very different socioeconomic circumstances.
"The book is about how the mind works," Brooks said. "Most of our thinking goes on without us knowing it."
Brooks, a former political reporter, maintains that decision-making is based primarily on emotion rather than reason. He said studying and training the emotions together with abstract thinking can lead to the quintessential goal of human societies around the world: communion with others.
"This is our deepest desire and what the mind constantly hungers for," Brooks said.
In his talk, Brooks described the "impressive social skills" of politician Mitt Romney, whom he watched campaigning at a diner full of strangers.
"When he left the diner, he first-named everybody there," Brooks said.
Brooks, who is considered a moderate Republican, said the U.S. Congress is the epitome of a "dysfunctional family." He said that feeling frustrated during his political reporting, he found a deeper understanding of human nature during his sojourn through the emerging fields of neuroscience.
"I found that these scientists had a more emotional and humanistic view of who we are," he said.
He said his findings have implications in the fields of education, personal development and foreign policy.
"We learn from those whom we love, but if you say that at a congressional hearing, they'll think that you're Oprah," he said.
Brooks' talk outlined the developmental stages of mental and emotional growth in human beings, from the mirroring of actions and formation of parental attachments to acquiring sympathy with others and recognizing patterns in the social landscape. All those skills, he said, promote a person's, and a nation's, ability to practice restraint, communicate well and work well with others.
"For many years we were thought to have divided selves, one of reason and one of the emotions, and that society proceeded to the extent that we reason could suppress the emotions," he said. "In fact, emotions are the foundation of reason because emotions assign values to things. Emotions are what we must pay attention to in order to process thinking."
He said there are "cognitive revolutions" happening in science today, significant enough to rival the revolution started by Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychoanalysis.
The studies Brooks cites in "Social Animal" shed light on the mysterious processes that underlie the decision-making processes: Couples subconsciously read one another's genetic predisposition to infectious diseases by trading saliva while kissing; some soldiers have the extraordinary ability to "sense" whether a street in Baghdad is rigged with mines.
"They can't tell you how they know this. They just say that they get a cold feeling inside," Brooks said.
He also said studies indicate that gathering together with friends once a month can boost levels of happiness.
"Men getting together once a month for a club increase their level of happiness equal to a doubling of their income," he said.
Brooks referred to "I Am a Strange Loop," by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas Hofstadter, a writer who combined the study of mathematical theories with personal autobiography.
"In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles," wrote Hofstadter, an idea that Brooks thinks could alter our view of ourselves as individuals and as a nation.
"Our policy failures are due in part to an imperfect view of one another," Brooks said, "policies that do not take into account these loops that connect us. We are relationships first and individuals later. We interpenetrate one another more than we think."
Brooks said U.S. policy toward Russia at the end of the Soviet era failed, not because of a lack of good ideas and economic plans, but due to lack of trust between the two countries. He said failures in wars today are because the U.S. is "oblivious" to other countries' cultural values.
"In Afghanistan you would be considered corrupt if you had a job [available] and did not offer it to your cousin," he said.
Brooks said emotional awareness does not have to come at the expense of rational thinking.
"Because we focus on emotions doesn't mean we are out of control," Brooks said. "We have the power to educate our emotions, by following a piece of art, such as the stories we will hear and read this week at the writers' conference. Following the paths of characters in stories can widen and deepen our repertoire of emotions."
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
Photo by Barbi Reed, courtesy of Sun Valley Writers’ Conference
New York Times columnist David Brooks signs copies of his new book last weekend in Sun Valley.
