POLITICSof their decisions. Raise a tax, cut funding, send someone to war; the
person taking home less pay, receiving less help, or hunkered down in
a foxhole will rarely be in the company of the person who put him in
that position, as long as that person is in Washington, DC. There’s no
opportunity for H&N circuits to trigger distressing emotions that would
make these decisions more difficult.
WHY WASHINGTON MUST ALWAYS
“DO SOMETHING!”Apart from distance, another way in which government is fundamen-
tally dopaminergic is that it is about doing something. It’s almost unheard
of for a politician to campaign on a promise that he will go to Wash-
ington and do nothing. Politics is about change and change is driven by
dopamine. Whenever tragedy strikes, the cry goes up, Do something! So
airport security is beefed up after a terrorist attack despite evidence that
the long, humiliating rituals travelers must endure don’t really increase
safety. Undercover TSA agents who test the system can almost always
get weapons through. Nevertheless, the mandate to do something gets
fulfilled.
According to GovTrack.us, the federal government enacted
between 200 and 800 laws during each two-year congressional session
since 1973. That’s a lot of laws, but it’s nothing compared to what pol-
iticians tried to do. During these sessions, Congress made attempts to
pass between 8,000 and 26,000 laws. When the people think something
ought to be done, politicians are happy to oblige.
This desire for control is unavoidable. Some people in Washing-
ton call themselves liberal and others call themselves conservative, but
pretty much everyone involved in politics is dopaminergic. Otherwise
they couldn’t get elected. Political campaigns require intense moti-
vation. They require a willingness to sacrifice everything to achieve
success. Long hours take a toll on family life in particular. H&N peo-
ple, who make relationships with loved ones a priority, can’t succeed
in politics. In the United Kingdom, the divorce rate among members