Image: pinterest.com
We are seeing an uptick in the exploitation of the threat of migrants to help the careers of some politicians. This seems to have worked for genius politicians such as Nigel Farage, Marie Le Pen, and Donald Trump. A recent BBC series shows how Vladimir Putin was able to exploit the (manufactured) threat of Muslim Chechens as an excuse for a war, lifting his polling and promoting election victory.
New Zealand’s very own populist party is exploiting the Indian migration aspect of the current government’s proposed Trade Agreement with India. As Richard Prebble pointed out in a perceptive column, Indian migrants are more visible, and so more amenable to targeting than other ethnicities.
Why is attacking migrants a vote-winner? Prebble makes the important point that when there is social anxiety, we are likely to look for a reason “outside”. Threats to jobs and affordability are current issues. Outsiders can be portrayed by dubious politicians as out-competing us, potentially pushing us down the social hierarchy.
History provides many examples – the Romans had Barbarians at their gates. The Han Chinese had Mongols over the wall. It seems that whenever a civilisation succeeds, there are aggressive outsiders who want to tear it down and cart away the wealth. There is evidence that the threat from outsiders was also prehistoric. Competition for land and other resources was a feature of hunter-gatherer times. From time before, people who looked different and spoke funny were scary and worth guarding against.
The world is going to continue to be challenging. And our evolutionary inclination to look warily at those who seem different can be weaponised.
Is there any point in rational arguments such as “we’re all migrants”, or “diversity in thinking, social networks and restaurants enriches us all”? It is hard work thinking your way out of emotional reactions. And humans generally default to the easy way,
Instead, let’s try another angle. What else are people pre-programmed to get emotional about? One good example is well-being. For good reason we are averse to pollution, bad smells, vectors of disease such as little furry mammals and creepy insects. It’s not hard right now to persuade the good people of Wellington that it is a bad idea to swim on the South Coast.
This seems like a useful front to open up. What are politicians doing to ensure that we are not going to be swimming in sewage? How are they going to ensure that we are not sitting ducks for the next plague? Or, perhaps, how are we going to ensure that we are not victims of junk food?
The evidence is clear that a large part of present health issues is the result of our industrial approach to food production and marketing. The incentives are for food producers to encourage consumption of more product, not to enhance the health of consumers.
Food producers are using the marketing strategies of big tobacco and the alcohol industry to exploit human psychology, especially our built-in preferences for short-term rewards. Our ancestors needed to maximise the opportunities that showed up. They didn’t have a door they could open to tasty food and drink. Coca-Cola aims to have a coke “within an arms reach of desire”. Many of us are that close to our fridge.
Kevin Hall and colleagues arranged for lucky research participants to alternate between an “ultra-processed food” diet and less processed, more fibrous, and more nutritionally rich food. The participants alternated between these two diets during the month-long study. They gained an average of 1kg over the two weeks of the UPF diet, which they then lost when eating healthy food.
A 2021 review in Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports concludes that UPFs produce addictive‑like responses not seen with naturally occurring foods, consistent with substance‑use models. A 2022 analysis in Addiction applied the same four criteria the Surgeon General used to classify tobacco as addictive (compulsive use, psychoactive effects, reinforcement, cravings) and found that highly processed foods meet all four criteria.
Yes, the evidence is that these foods are not great. But, my point is that people don’t make choices entirely based on the evidence. If the coke is within easy reach, you are more likely to go for it.
My larger point is that a front could be opened up against the political sponsors of such addictive, unhealthy food by using signals that are recognised by our emotional brains.
Peel back the shiny wrapper – and see faeces. For an extreme example. Sorry about that, but your reaction is the point I’m making.
Label the politicians who promote health-destroying pseudo-foods in ways that trigger disgust. The science is there, but the message needs to resonate with our evolutionary horror at impure, dangerous disease vectors.