Opinion – Suzana Herculano-Houzel: Hear and be heard

My neurons thank, relieved, for the effort of 60,345,999 voters in declaring loud and clear that the current Misgovernment has a date and time set to leave the Planalto Palace — and they come to share something they learned from neuroscience, in the hope that this knowledge makes a difference to anyone paying attention right now.

There are 58,206,354 voters in the country who would prefer some aspect of what the current Misrule represents to the democratically elected alternative. Someone who aspires to govern the country for all Brazilians needs to know how to listen to so many semi-happy people, at least because it is not possible to count on a repetition of the efforts of today’s discontented people in four years’ time, especially when they represent not change, but continuation.

Neuroscience explains: doing something requires effort, action, energy, and those who have a brain only move to action when the said one finds some positive expectation, hanging on the tip of the wand of what the brain sees in front of him, that makes the effort to act worth it. Dopamine, those things. To do nothing, on the other hand, just stay where you are. Zero effort, immediate return guaranteed by the continuity of the situation. It is no wonder that the US Congress lives on a seesaw: it becomes a Republican when the president is a Democrat, it becomes a Democrat when the president is a Republican. Damn inertia of whoever it is for the situation.

But I digress. I was in the 57-odd million voters who, once again, voted for Misrule (it just wasn’t enough this time). Four years have passed, nearly 700,000 people have died from a new disease that could have been prevented in at least half of them with immediate vaccination that Misgovernment dispensed with, and yet, 58-odd million preferred the situation. Because?

Because Bolsonaro represents something for these voters that needs to be heard and understood, but has been ignored in Brazil, as well as Trump in the US and the fascist electoral voter of the moment in other countries: blank letters supported by a technological machine that has long since learned to neuroscience lesson that everyone needs to have positive expectations to take action.

It’s the Wild Candidate. Do you want everything that you think “tradition” represents, because the moderns of the time piss you off saying you need to update yourself? Vote for the Joker, who upholds tradition. Tradition is not your thing, but the word “communism” sounds ominous, and the family laughs at your fear? Vote for the Joker, who is also anti-communist, no matter that no de facto communist plan exists on the Brazilian horizon.

Neuroscience also explains. The Joker “listens,” and being listened to is one of the brain’s most basic desires: you exist when someone organizes their behavior around you. Validation and recognition don’t even have to be real; it is enough for the brain to feel heard and represented, as if the Joker knew how to read your thoughts, understood your frustrations. The Joker won’t do a damn thing for you—but he’ll keep winning your vote, because he reflects whatever discontent is projected onto him.

The Joker is leaving, but it leaves 58 million Brazilians who need to feel heard. The Neuroscientist on duty is rooting for a government that really wants to listen to them, and not call them ignorant.