The two faces of national unity - Note for a Discussion, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United."

Eric Terzuolo, The Hill;  see also (1)

What should political leaders do at moments of crisis and danger? Appeal for national unity, of course. It’s a no-brainer. President Trump does not always say the expected things at the expected times, but his initial October 24 response to the bombing attempts against two former presidents, among others, was in the mainstream. “We have to unify. We have to come together, and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.” On the other side of the political fence, Hillary Clinton, herself a target of the bomber, maintained her decorum and stated “we have to do everything we can to bring our country together.”

It is not just a question, however, of national unity. Sharing values, national purpose, and basic rules of political life is necessary in a democracy. But a vital democracy also requires a lack of unity. Open contestation among differing ideas, without fear of reprisal by governmental or private actors, is an essential element of democratic life.

Mailing pipe bombs to people on a given side of the political spectrum is in itself an attack on democracy, on freedom of speech and open political debate. It would be no different had all the intended recipients of the pipe bombs been staunch advocates for the President.

Such actions open the way to a second threat to democracy: the submersion of reasoned analysis by emotion. The conduct of democratic political life engages high-level cognitive skills. It is the politics of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the locus of numerous complex functions, including decision making and controlling social behavior. But we can’t overlook the limbic system, sometimes termed the “emotional brain,” the “very fast subconscious evaluation and response system designed to keep us safe,” short-circuiting the higher level cognitive functions. The limbic system, however, can get things wrong, triggering a stress response, “fight or flight,” even when there is no actual danger, with results ranging from chronic low-grade stress to outright panic attacks.

In fairness, politics probably should, or even must have an emotional as well as a cognitive dimension. Politics is a quintessentially human activity, and trying to quarantine the emotional dimension can lead to ineffectiveness. But the intensity and the specific content of emotional appeals matter profoundly.

Relying on the emotional dimension has consequences. Seventeen years later, referring to 9/11 still triggers an immediate detour into the limbic system and blocks analytical discussion. Rationally we can understand, for example, that the shadow of 9/11 derailed a full, careful debate regarding intervention in Iraq, with its enormous human and material costs. But the “9/11 effect,” an automatic and instinctual circling of the wagons, is still very much with us. Overestimation of risk associated with dramatic and highly visible events is in fact a widespread problem.

Authoritarian and totalitarian leaders in particular have seen the benefits of appealing to the emotional brain, often by underlining purported threats to national unity. The emotionally supercharged rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini, for example, was a key to building their regimes, which were profoundly popular, but also heinously violent and anti-democratic.

It’s almost impossible not to think of Nazi and Fascist antisemitism when a virulent anti-Semite guns down people in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

In 1933, Hitler, recently appointed chancellor and in preparation for his crimes, called on the German parliament to approve the amendment to the constitution that legalized his dictatorship. This tellingly entitled “Law to Remedy the Distress of the German People and the Reich” was a response to the February 1933 fire at the parliament (Reichstag) building, blamed initially on a Dutch communist.

National unity was a major theme. Hitler blamed “Marxists,” soon to become the first occupants of Germany’s concentration camps, for the “disintegration of the nation into irreconcilably opposite world views,” leading to “destruction of the basis for any possible community life.” He argued that “the completely opposite approaches of . . . individuals to the concepts of state, society, religion, morality, family, and economy rips open differences which will lead to a war of all against all,” i.e. to “Communist chaos.” Hitler attacked the “unforgivable weakness on the part of former [German] governments” in the face of these threats, and promised a “thorough moral purging.” Education, the arts and literature, and the media all would be made to “work to preserve the eternal values residing in the essential character” of the German people.

Benito Mussolini, who adopted anti-Semitic laws in shameless imitation of Hitler, made a cult of the “State” (definitely with a capital “S”), terming it the “custodian and transmitter of the spirit of the people, as it has grown up through the centuries in language, in customs, and in faith.” The State gives the people “a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity,” unlike the European liberalism of the 19th century, with its focus on individual liberty and free markets, “the logical . . . forerunner of anarchy.” In one of his early speeches to parliament as prime minister, Mussolini characterized liberalism as giving “some hundreds of irresponsible people, fanatics and scoundrels, the power of ruining forty millions of Italians,” portraying vividly a divide between the pre-Fascist political elite and the vast but supposedly united common people of Italy. Of course, not quite all Italians were welcome.

“History does not repeat, but it does instruct,” historian Timothy Snyder wisely put it. I can’t help but be mindful of the risks of emotionally supercharged political rhetoric couched in terms of national unity. And I was saddened that, after an appropriate statement about the bombing attempts in a White House setting, President Trump later turned up the emotional heat at a rally in Wisconsin, blaming the media for fomenting division and political leaders for “treating . . . opponents as being morally defective,” and thus undermining prospects for bringing the country together. Aiming yet again at the emotion-driven limbic system rather than the thinking cortex.

Eric R. Terzuolo was a Foreign Service officer from 1982 to 2003, and since 2010 has been on contract to the Foreign Service Institute, the professional development unit of the Department of State, with responsibility for West European area studies. He holds a doctorate in European History from Stanford University. His knowledge of the human brain comes from his father Carlo Terzuolo, long-time professor at the University of Minnesota and a neuroscientist well before the term became fashionable.

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from [I am assuming, I hope wrongly, that the below-cited author is identical to the above-cited one]

	A retired diplomat and university professor from Bergen, Noord-Holland, the Netherlands... Eric Terzuolo
Date of first appearance: Early 1990. Total winnings: $64,000 (5 days) plus $5000 (Tournament of Champions) Favorite anecdote associated with being on the show? Finding other people with the last name Terzuolo, which is very rare even in Italy, much less the United States. Did being on Jeopardy! have any affect your life? Helped ensure that my daughter's college education was funded. Made it easier to retire early. Did you do anything crazy with your winnings? No. Mostly into college fund. Some to help buy a car. Is there anything else you would like viewers to know about you? I've been outside the U.S. almost the whole time since appearing on Jeopardy!, so I've missed a lot.
"When he first appeared in 1990, he was a foreign service officer. Now he's a university professor in Amsterdam. From the Netherlands..." 2005 Ultimate Tournament of Champions Round 1 winner: $29,801. 1990 Tournament of Champions semifinalist: $5,000. Season 6 5-time champion: $64,302.