The whole man in political philosophy

Here is a thought experiment in political philosophy applying the use of the three brains of humans, the reptilian, limbic, and new mammalian brain including the frontal neocortex. The far left and modern liberals want to use only the newest neocortex in their egalitarian idealism, virtually ignoring the other parts of the brain, the far right want to apply only the primitive territorial reptilian brain, ignoring the other parts of the brain, and the Burkean conservatives and perhaps centrists tend to include all three brains.

So what happens when the whole man is not utilized? As I have written before in this blog, physiological psychologists like Cattell and Eysenck talked about the difficulties caused by our triune brain which evolved in stages, with all three brains still working almost as complete brains in themselves.

As Eysenck saw it, modern neuroses arises when there is conflict between messages from the primitive brain and the less powerful second neocortex system---the rational neocortex recognizes the “inappropriate” nature of the feelings (anxiety, fear, anger, etc) but it seems powerless to override the primitive system.

Modern cultural/social schemes seem to want to drop the primitive brain entirely which then allows the neocortex to think up all manner of cultural/social schemes which may not relate to real human nature or the three brains. Biologically based traits such as gender differences, age-grading, marriage-making, hierarchy, ethnocentrism, religion-making, group-selection, which help define a more whole human nature, seem to derive mainly from parts of our brain that are millions of years old---trying to ignore them creates a general modern form of neuroses.

Reality has always been difficult to see or face for humans. The denial of the three-brained human nature becomes a modern neurosis, the affirmation of whole human nature becomes the way to health. What to override and what not to override is the cultural question. Coordination of the three brains seems important to our health. We want to continue evolving and improving, watched over by the rational mind, but we can't ignore what we still are and be healthy, or even survive, as we evolve. This seems to affirm the conservative way of evolving, that is, with Ordered Evolution, taking into account the whole man, and not with radical revolution using only selected parts of human nature.