Some day ago, I read this news on internet: Paying taxes lights up the brain.
The tool used for this “amazing” discovery is the functional magnetic resonance, a device that is too much overestimated. Practically, every link among a neural configuration and the human behavior is a novelty! But it isn”t a novelty, rather it is like “discover the warm water”.
The research of the University of Oregon was directed by a cognitive psychologist and two economists (what terrible triumvirate!). They found that two ancient regions of our brain fixed when we spent our money voluntarily (like in charity and in mandatory taxations). This regions are the same that fixed when basic needs such as food and pleasures (sweets or social contact) are satisfied.
But this research is so banal and obvious! Is incredible that the american University spent their money in this way! And that isn”t all, folks. In fact, if the research team had draw the correct conclusions, I didn”t criticize anything.
The psycologist Ulrich Mayr says:
The surprising element for us was that in a situation in which your money is simply given to others – where you do not have a free choice – you still get reward-center activity. I don”t think that most economists would have suspected that. It reinforces the idea that there is true altruism.
What is there of amazing in discovering that “charity” satisfies a basic need? It satisfies our need to appease the sense of guilt provoked by to think about the least fortunate lives than our life. And it isn”t an altruistic demand, but entirely egoistic. Like eating and drinking. In fact, said Prof. Alberto Giovanni Biuso (I do the translation from the italian text):
The one who take a decision, that has a certain style of life, that take choices, do it always and inevitably because decisions, style and choices gratify him. [...] There”s nothing negative or perverse in all this! It is inevitable and correct that it is like that. In the world there is no worth and there is no guilt. [...] Let”s free us from the morals, from the senses of guilt, from the remorses, from the punishment.
The power of our body-mind is the necessary motor of our actions. The charity, the altruism and the love are beautiful consequences, not causes.
One Comment
Great work.