At Issue with "Neuromanagement"

In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Canadian journalist and social activist Naomi Klein discussed Electroconvulsive Therapy (shock therapy) and sensory deprivation techniques, which were efforts to alter mood and behavior via neuropsychological intervention, that is, direct manipulation of the brain.  Scottish-American psychiatrist Ewen Cameron, for example, sought to make a tabula rasa (blank slate) of the mind, essentially by 

attacking the brain with everything known to interfere with its normal functioning - all at once.  It was "shock and awe" warfare on the mind (p 31). 

Once at tabula rasa, the mind, and hence the individual himself or herself, can be programmed accordingly.  Cameron's work apparently became the foundation for CIA interrogation techniques, such as with prisoners of war. 

Tabula Rasa, by Dale Dunning

So as I read Are We Entering an Era of Neuromanagement? from Harvard Business School, I believe the corrected question is Are we re-entering this era?  Maybe we've never actually left that era, so then we're just reflecting on where we are. 

A recent study of "midlife northeast American adults" raises questions about whether we are entering the next stage in what might be termed an era of neuromanagement. In it, a group of researchers claim to have found that brain structure and the density of cells in the right posterior parietal cortex are associated with willingness to take risks. They found that participants with higher gray matter volume in this region exhibited less risk aversion. The results "identify what might be considered the first stable biomarker for financial risk-attitude," according to the authors.

It's a very thoughtful article, and as readers weigh in, it is clear that neuromanagement is an intriguing but complex subject, one that we hardly have a grip on, never mind agree on.  So, beyond this article, it's crucial to keep reflecting on it.

Human nature defies dichotomy

For decades we've had debates on whether humankind is fundamentally good or bad, saintly or evil, kindly or mean-spirited.  Me, I eschew efforts to dichotomize complex phenomena into simplistic categories, especially if such phenomena may actually span categories or even defy categorization.  My point is this: There are good and bad among us in the populace, and for sure there are degrees of good and bad within each of us.  So whenever we embark on, and utilize, technology advancements, we must account for this dual (i.e. complex) nature of who we are. 

Mind and body in dialectic

The fact is, what we do has an impact to some degree on both our psychological experience and our physiological makeup.  The ensuing impact on our mind and body then serves to influence what we do going forward.  What happens next further changes our experience and makeup, even minutely.  There is an running dialectic, in other words, between mind and body, which thinkers have long spoken about. 

Questions of privacy and intent

What underpins the excitement behind neuromanagement, I imagine, is the unprecedented insight on the brain that new technology affords us.  Increasingly we understand the complex links between what goes on outside us and what goes on inside us.  But what underpins its complexity, in large measure, is the Law of Unintended Consequences, for example, of doing a brain scan in the hiring process: What will it unearth about a candidate, which he or she may not want to unearth?  Given our voluble capacity to do good and do bad, how will an employer work make use of what may be unprecedented insight on a candidate? 

Neuromanagement is inevitable

Development, progress and insight are the hallmarks of our human trajectory over history.  But because technology often seems to outpace our understanding, even our ethics, we must proceed confidently but cautiously, and guard against those who might misuse it, even while in the midst of whatever excitement we might feel.  In brief, then, we must be careful to draw on our advancements to serve the greater good and manage efforts to deploy them for malevolent purpose.