I’ve been in Bali so I just noticed the cover of People Magazine last night at the market. Just now I was talking to Mark Waldman who wrote the piece below and he said I should share the Brain Research from the University of Pennsylvania that suggests that Mel Gibson’s “Alcoholism Excuse” is false. Just the fact that Mel Gibson was behind the wheel while impaired by alcohol makes him a candidate for the Ugly Man Award. Because he’s been an admired celebrity is cause for him to get the first Ugly Man Award. Here is a copy of the article mentioned above:
Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Waldman are the authors of Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth, which will be released in September, 2006
Although we would not normally join in the feeding frenzy surrounding Mel Gibson’s arrest and defamatory statements concerning Jews, several alcoholism experts have logged onto televised discussions and have made claims that we feel are blatantly and dangerously untrue. In these interviews, Gibson’s responsibility for his behavior was reduced with the claim that alcohol can make a person say things that he or she really doesn’t believe. Recent neuroscientific evidence confirms that cognition is impaired by alcohol, but there is not a single study showing that people are more prone to lie or disparage others while they are under the influence. Instead, research shows that people’s brains hold many negative thoughts and feelings that they often are not aware of. Various parts of the brain automatically suppress such thoughts, especially when society or public opinion deplores such thinking. But those thoughts are real. At some point in time, they were imprinted into memory by conscious choice. Anti-Semitic thoughts are not generated by alcohol; the alcohol may distort those thoughts, but the thoughts were already well-established in Gibson’s brain. Furthermore, the majority of people, when drunk, do not automatically spew hatred. Alcohol only disinhibits, and this allows underlying feelings to become uncensored. Most people, when they drink, get mellow, but those that get angry should get help. But the underlying angry personality cannot be dismissed.
Gibson’s behavior exposes a larger question: why is discrimination and racism so prevalent throughout the world? Converging evidence from gene research, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology show that humans are born with numerous aggressive, defensive, and prejudicial tendencies, and recently several brain-scan studies have shown that even the most liberal individual shows an alarm response when images of people from different cultures are seen. Although it appears that the brain is equipped with a negative “out-group” bias, most people (fortunately) can train themselves to interrupt these antisocial thoughts and replace them with constructive beliefs and behaviors. It’s not the alcohol that makes us prejudiced, it’s the person; the alcohol only serves to weaken our conscious control over emotional outbursts and feelings.
Our research demonstrates that people who are repeatedly exposed to any belief—be it religious or political—form stronger and stronger neural circuits that not only keep that memory and belief alive, but also provide a visceral sense of reality the longer such beliefs are held. Furthermore, once our beliefs are neurologically established, it becomes harder and harder to change them later in life. Gibson’s outbursts lend credence to the conjecture that his father and others have left a lasting impression that literally became burned into the circuits of his brain (children, by the way, are particularly vulnerable to the implantation of patently false ideas).
We applaud Mr. Gibson’s recognition that there is something wrong inside his brain, but we want to caution him, and the world, that it will take a gargantuan effort on his part to alter those destructive neural imprints (the same is true for any person who harbors feelings of hostility toward others). Sadly, our research suggests that it may take decades of intensive self-reflection before a person can replace racist beliefs with genuine traits of tolerance, compassion, and forgiveness. Even then, more work is required to translate constructive beliefs into effective behaviors that can benefit society. In an age where world violence seems to be escalating, I just hope there’s enough time to get so many people to change their negative beliefs.
* Andrew Newberg, MD
University of Pennsylvania
* Mark Robert Waldman
Associate Fellow, Center for Spirituality and the Mind
University of Pennsylvania
Another reason besides the anit-racial slurs is his comment to the female police officer about her breasts.
So, Mel Gibson, you are hereby our official First Ugly Man Award recipient. May you have success transforming your thinking about Jews and women.
With much disappointment in someone I previously admired,
Kara Oh
