{"id":36468,"date":"2024-03-07T20:30:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T04:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36468"},"modified":"2024-03-07T20:30:34","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T04:30:34","slug":"postmodernism-goes-against-our-brain-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/postmodernism-goes-against-our-brain-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Postmodernism goes against our brain structure"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week as I read, Explaining Postmodernism, <\/em>by Stephen Hicks, I kept thinking about the brain and our emotions. Please bare with me as I discuss how our brain, emotions, and immune system are connected by God and how this goes entirely against most of what postmodernism postulates.<\/p>\n

Anterior Midcingulate Cortex (aMCC)<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a brain structure called the anterior midcingulate cortex. When people do something, they don\u2019t want to do like add an extra hour of exercise per day or per week or when people are trying to diet or lose weight by resisting food, this brain structure grows bigger. When people do anything (and this is the important part) that they don\u2019t want to do, this brain structure grows bigger. It\u2019s not about adding more work. It\u2019s about adding more work that you don\u2019t want to do. When this happens, this brain area gets bigger and here\u2019s what\u2019s especially interesting about this brain area. The anterior midcingulate cortex is smaller in obese people. It gets bigger when they diet. It\u2019s larger in athletes. It\u2019s especially large or grows larger in people that see themselves as someone who overcomes challenges.<\/p>\n

To strengthen this area, we need to continue to invest in things that are hard for us…things that we don\u2019t want to do. It\u2019s this part of the brain that gives us resilience.<\/p>\n

The Emotional System And The Immune System<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our Emotional System has the role of allowing in what is nurturing, loving, and healthy and to keep out what isn\u2019t nurturing, loving, and healthy.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the role of the Immune System? To keep out what is unhealthy, unwelcomed, and toxic and to let in what is nurturing and healthy. The immune system is called a floating brain. It allows in nutrients, vitamins, and healthy bacteria, while keeping out and destroying toxins and unhealthy invading organisms. The immune system and the emotional system have exactly the same role.<\/p>\n

God has designed the aMCC to help us become resilient in times of difficulty. When this area of the brain is strengthened our ability to do the hard things in life are also strengthened. But the aMCC is also connected to our Emotional and Immune Systems. When we are not critical thinkers we can allow distorted thoughts, depressed thoughts, and\/or anxious thoughts to impact our emotional state, which in turn impacts our immune system. Jason Swan Clark comments on this system in his March 7, 2024, blog, \u201cOnce we know how and why we think and feel, we can accept those things and come to terms with them. Accepting emotions and feelings that may feel out of your control and mindfully accepting their experience is necessary for well-being\u201d1<\/sup> Part of this well-being comes from a strengthened aMCC.<\/p>\n

Many people with autoimmune diseases, pain in the muscles, and\/or certain mental health challenges are people who have a very small aMCC. Speaking about the hidden cost of stress on the body, Gabor Mate said, \u201cAn intimate relationship exists between the brain and the immune system.\u201d2<\/sup> \u00a0Richard Paul and Linda Elder wrote in their book, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking, <\/em>\u201cCritical thinkers have an abiding interest in the problematic aspects of their own thinking, and they seek out these problem areas, target them, and change something about their thinking in order to reason more rationally, logically, and justifiably…thereby experiencing a happier, more satisfied inner sense of self.\u201d3<\/sup> \u201cFundamentally, postmodernism is an assault\u201d4<\/sup> on the way God designed the brain and how he designed for us to connect and engage with ourselves and others. So how does postmodernism relate to all of this?<\/p>\n

Postmodernism<\/strong><\/p>\n

To help us understand postmodernism, Stephen Hicks emphasizes in his book, Explaining Postmodernism,<\/em> that postmodernism arose as a reaction to the failures of modernism, particularly in the realms of politics, economics, and art. Modernism, with its emphasis on reason, science, and progress, had promised utopia but often delivered oppression and conflict instead. \u201cMany deconstruct reason, truth, and reality because they believe that in the name of reason, truth, and reality Western civilization has wrought dominance, oppression, and destruction.\u201d5<\/sup><\/p>\n

Hicks shares that Postmodernism is a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in the latter half of the 20th century. It challenges the notion of objective truth and universal values. To the postmodernist, there is no single, universal truth or way of understanding the world. This person would say, \u201creason, upon, which all progress had been based, had always been philosophically incomplete and vulnerable.\u201d6 <\/sup><\/p>\n

To continue with postmodern thinking, it focuses on power dynamics within society, highlighting how knowledge, language and social norms are used to maintain existing power structures and oppress marginalized groups. Power is used to advance one\u2019s own interests and values. \u201cWe cannot ground any values objectively. Values are subjective.\u201d7 <\/sup><\/p>\n

Interestingly, postmodernism focuses on a few emotions, but they are negative ones, \u201cand those emotions don\u2019t connect to a rational reality.\u201d8 <\/sup>Part of being human is to experience love, beauty, pain, sadness, loss, suffering, joy. God made our brains, bodies, and emotions to feel all of these. To be a well-differentiated leader one must be emotionally mature. In other words, we need to develop an emotional and rational capacity to lead well. Part of being a RARE leader, is \u201creturning to joy\u201d9 <\/sup>after experiencing a conflict because \u201cemotions cause more problems when resisted than when they are accepted.\u201d10 <\/sup>A RARE leader learns to \u201cendure hardship well\u201d11<\/sup> because \u201csuffering and unpleasant emotions can\u2019t be avoided.\u201d12 <\/sup>God knew this and this is one of the reasons he created the Anterior Midcingulate Cortex.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part of the role of the aMCC is to help us return to joy and endure hardship well. It is the resilient part of the brain. God designed it this way. This is why it can be difficult to buy into the entire postmodern movement. God also designed for our brain to work in unison with our body, emotions, and immune system. What impacts one impacts them all. Besides, as our aMCC grows our critical thinking skills grow and that is an excellent skill for a leader.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Jason Swan Clark. SpyEx Blog, Mental Health and the Spiritual Exercises: Ignatius\u2019 depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation. March 7, 2024<\/li>\n
  2. Gabor Mate. When the Body Says No. 5.<\/li>\n
  3. Richard Paul and Linda Elder. The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking. 7.<\/li>\n
  4. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. Stephen Hicks: Philosophy and Postmodernism, May 5, 2019. Quote at 1:03:37.<\/li>\n
  5. Stephen Hicks. Explaining Postmodernism. 3.<\/li>\n
  6. Ibid. 24.<\/li>\n
  7. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. Stephen Hicks: Philosophy and Postmodernism, May 5, 2019. Quote at 27:50.<\/li>\n
  8. Ibid. 1:05:36.<\/li>\n
  9. Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder. RARE Leadership. 161.<\/li>\n
  10. Ibid. 161.<\/li>\n
  11. Ibid. 175.<\/li>\n
  12. Ibid. 175.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n

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    This week as I read, Explaining Postmodernism, by Stephen Hicks, I kept thinking about the brain and our emotions. Please bare with me as I discuss how our brain, emotions, and immune system are connected by God and how this goes entirely against most of what postmodernism postulates. Anterior Midcingulate Cortex (aMCC) There\u2019s a brain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[3097],"class_list":["post-36468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-hicks-dlgp02","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36472,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36468\/revisions\/36472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}