Latest Issue of the MindBrainEd Think Tank + (ISSN 2434-1002) 3 MindBrained Bulletin Think Tank Work Mem Mar 1 2 | Page 17

From this point it is more concerned with moulding the environment to mirror its
inner arrangement: resisting change in the outside world and hanging on to elements
of the physical and social environment that are consonant with the world in which it
grew up. The title of Chapter 4 “Self-Preservation and the Difficulties of Change in
Adulthood” sums up this part of the argument. Faced with exterior circumstances
that continue to change despite the fact that the adult brain has an increasingly
inflexible view of how things should be, the individual engages in two sets of
behaviours: one is an attempt to perceive the world in terms of existing mental
structures; the other attempts to influence the physical and social environment to
make it more like those internal structures.
It is at this point that Wexler’s presentation of evidence to support his argument
changes. Gone are the summaries of controlled experiments, the careful build-up of
evidence, the accretion of solid layers of supporting case studies. Instead, we take a
walk on the wild side of cultural interaction, as Wexler introduces us in quick
succession to the European fascination with Africa in the nineteenth century, people
from far-away places exhibited at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis and later at the
New York Zoo, and “barbarians” in the ancient world.
His definition of “culture” has clearly shifted here. It is no
longer “the world outside the head” but now involves people
from different areas of the world who, historically, have
developed separately, but now find themselves thrust
together in a world shrunken by transport and
communication technology. Wexler sees evidence for his
thesis about the adult brain and change in the fate of the
Cathars, the Crusades, genocide in Rwanda, and the plight of
indigenous peoples around the world. In each of these cases
he sees actions taken by adults to destroy those whose
worldviews differ from their own, literally reshaping the human world to match to
match their internal beliefs. His sympathy for the victims of cultural clashes is clearly
genuine and his conviction that such clashes are caused by the insistence of the adult
brain on bringing the world into line is not misplaced, but I could not keep from
thinking that this is not his field and the evidence presented is more eye-catching
than forensic.
In a tantalising middle section of the book, he
does look at two kinds of misalignment
between internal and external worlds that are
familiar to us from our daily lives:
bereavement and immigration. Both involve
massive changes in the outside environment
and should provide plenty of case studies of
the mechanisms that are central to Wexler’s
thesis: how does the individual brain deal with such upheaval by trying to re-make
How does the
individual brain deal
with upheaval by
trying to re-make the
world around it?
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