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Brainstorming : how the brain sciences can inform social justice strategies

University of British Columbia

Anthropogenic climate disruption (global warming) and income inequality are in the process of spiraling out of control, pushing humanity to the brink of global collapse and mass extinction of species. Underlying this profound issue is an epic struggle taking place between two alternate worldviews. Corporate institutional power has morphed economics, capitalism and the “free market” into a suicide machine that increasingly extracts, exploits and selfishly hordes the bulk of the world’s wealth for the few. The obscene wealth and power of the plutocrats and oligarchs has rigged both economics and politics to benefit the one percent and destroy the environment. Alternately, social justice led by activists have made valiant attempts to slow down this process and regain some sanity with a return to community, sociality and cooperation. A world worth living in hangs precariously in the balance. This interdisciplinary research focuses on the critical, yet unexplored, intersection of social justice and the burgeoning brain sciences. The “brain sciences” refers to the rapidly increasing interdisciplinary understanding (from neuroscience, biology, social sciences etc.) of the human brain, mind, consciousness and their relationship to institutions, cultures, society and human belief and behaviour. A synthesis of the knowledge arising out of the brain sciences, as it applies to existing social activist strategies and tactics, now seems a necessity in the attempt to restrain corporate institutional power that is currently running amok in North America and globally. Extensive interviews with fifteen North American activists on the current state of social justice movements and their understandings of the brain sciences comprised the core of the research. Using grounded theory methodology, initial analysis confirmed that corporate institutional power was the roadblock, obfuscating any positive social change on both anthropogenic climate disruption and income inequality. Deeper analysis of the data, along with the integration of the brain sciences, resulted in a specific strategic recommendation: A global mythology for the 21st century, cognizant of the science of our time and powered by moral outrage, has to “culturally evolve” and spread around the world inhabiting many minds in many places enabling a global cultural environment that nurtures connection, cooperation, cognition and childhood. We can be magnificent, together.  

Text

2014-12-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/51352

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/