Virtual Talk: Narcissism Broke Our Democracy. Can We Fix It

Democracy is about people governing themselves by expressing their collective will in elections. But what happens when their votes are driven more by intuition and passion than by reason? And what if the electoral system responds more to extremist minorities than to the will of the majority? In the first part of this talk, I will examine the role of narcissism in some of the passions that most easily lead us astray in the voting booth. The bad news is that this problem has deep roots in human nature, so it will always be with us. The good news, however, is that the wisdom of crowds often works out well anyway, but only if our elections truly reflect the will of the majority. Surprisingly, science and math have a lot to say about that, as we shall see in the last part of the talk.

John C. Wathey is a retired computational biologist whose interests include evolutionary algorithms, the biology of nervous systems, and electoral reform. He got his PhD in Neurosciences at U.C. San Diego and has spent most of his career working on computer simulations of protein folding. His first book, The Illusion of God’s Presence (Prometheus 2016), explores the evolution of the emotions and intuitions behind religious belief. His forthcoming book, The Phantom God: What Neuroscience Reveals about the Compulsion to Believe, is scheduled for release in the fall of 2022. It relates the motivating forces behind religiousness to neural development, embodiment, mother-infant bonding, adult sexual pair-bonding, addiction, selective attention, hallucinations, and many other neurological surprises.