7 Comments
Nov 8Liked by Maggie

As someone who reads scientific articles almost on the daily, I greatly appreciate that you included the correlation vs. causation disclaimer.

I am also really enjoying this new direction of your substack. I liked Momsplaining, but the topic of estrangement has had a lot relevancy in my life within the last 10 years. I feel seen.

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My BIL and I have a lot of issues talking about politics, since he became a Trump supporter 8 years ago. I rarely talk to him outside of the times I see him at holiday gatherings and family trips. this difference makes him an outsider in our liberal family. When my sister married him, I knew he was less supportive of gay marriage than we were but he had voted for Obama and I never would have predicted his future path. My sister has remained a steadfast liberal and always votes blue.

I sent this post to my sister and mom because my BIL had very authoritarian parents and this connection to conservativism was so interesting to me.

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author

Thanks for your story Elizabeth and thanks for sharing the post.

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Omg! I am SO INTO the rebrand and writing about estrangement in so many ways. I love your brain!!

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As I've tried to understand my own estrangement from my family, I've come to believe that authoritarian parenting can be a factor in the neurobiological differences between conservatives and liberals.

You mentioned that liberals tend to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex and conservatives often have a larger amygdala. Studies that examine impacts of trauma on the brain also chart these differences: "Findings from animal studies have been extended to patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) showing smaller hippocampal and anterior cingulate volumes, increased amygdala function, and decreased medial prefrontal/anterior cingulate function." (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3181836/)

In my experience, and in many of the stories from Talia Lavin (https://theswordandthesandwich.substack.com/) and the Strongwilled Project (https://strongwilled.substack.com/), authoritarian parenting is pretty much gauranteed to cause cPTSD.

Does this mean that those of us who are beaten, emotionally neglected, sexually abused, etc are more likely to lean conservative? I think it's likely.

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author

Appreciate your comment. So if I’m understanding, is this a way to understand the idea of “hurt people hurt people” from a neurobiological perspective?

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In the sense that traumatized people are more likely to be drawn to authoritarian parenting and government because they provide structure and security, yes.

I think it's an opportunity to practice empathy--someone's past pain may make their brain more vulnerable to a bloviating orange man.

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