THE MOLECULE OF MOREeven religions, and then quickly lose interest. They often accomplish a
great deal, but they can be difficult to live with.
The last stage of the bipolar spectrum belongs to people who inherit
a very limited amount of genetic risk. These people don’t experience any
abnormal symptoms, but they do enjoy such things as enhanced motiva-
tion, creativity, a tendency toward bold action and risk-taking, and other
characteristics that reflect higher than average levels of dopamine activity.DOPAMINE NATIONWe find bipolar genes and bipolar disorder in a relatively high con-
centration in the United States. What about those non-pathological
expressions of the condition? Is there any evidence that these condi-
tions are also widespread? In fact, the evidence is abundant, going all
the way back to the early years of the republic.
One of the earliest observers of American culture was Alexis de
Tocqueville, a French diplomat, political scientist, and historian. Toc-
queville described his observations of the character of Americans
during the nineteenth century in his book Democracy in America. He stud-
ied the new country because he believed that democracy was likely to
supplant aristocracy back in Europe. He thought that a study of the
effects of democracy in the United States would be useful to Europeans
as they navigated new forms of government.
Much of what Tocqueville observed could be attributed to the demo-
cratic principle of egalitarianism. But he also described characteristics of
Americans that did not seem to be related to political philosophy. Some
of these characteristics are strikingly similar to the symptoms of bipolar
disorder, or at least a dopaminergic personality. For example, he devotes
a chapter to “Fanatical Enthusiasm in Some Americans.” He wrote,
Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world
is the prevailing passion of the American people, certain
momentary outbreaks occur, when their souls seem suddenly
to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained, and