Opening Week 2024: Wide Horizons
2024-10-11 How can social divisions be overcome? Political scientist Liya Yu suggests taking a neuroscientific approach: "Things are happening at the brain level that we cannot explain with surveys and behavioural observation alone," she says, and argues that "we have to become enlightened beings of our dehumanised brains."
Liya Yu still has to go to Berlin. She has been nominated as a "Progressive Voice" by the non-profit organisation "Brand New Bundestag". But she is not yet coming to the station: after the talk about her book "Vunerable Minds: The neuropolitics of a divided society", the first-semester students still have many questions – such as which areas of the brain differ between right-wing and left-wing voters or how important emotional intelligence is.
Liya Yu grew up in Germany as the child of Chinese immigrants and reports on her own experiences of discrimination: "I have met people who say the nicest things about human rights, about inclusion or about democratic values. But when you interact with these people, you realise: they don't see you as fully human."
The scientist reported on a social psychology experiment conducted in the United States in the 1960s: The white subjects had claimed that they were not racists. But when black people entered the room, the white people sweated more than before. The researchers interpreted the body reactions as fear, describes Liya Yu. "Even if people say they are not racist, they have racist thoughts," explains the researcher, summarising her controversial thesis: "We have all dehumanised someone today."
Sometimes this also happens for self-protection, for example when the content of news programmes does not make us sad, even though they are sad. "That's how our brain works, that's our biology." In her conversation with political scientist Prof. Dr. Sarah Engler, Liya Yu demanded: "We have to become enlightened beings of our dehumanised brains." She rejected the accusation that she could be biologistic: "If we as humanities scholars and social scientists do not embrace this biological reality and define what it means to be human, then others will do so. However, we will not like the result."
This is not Liya Yu's first time as a guest at Leuphana. She last spoke at the Utopia Conference. She likes the concept of the University of Lüneburg: "The study model is humanising and inclusive. I also like the fact that the topics are challenging. Young people can do much more than people often give them credit for. It's good to start with broad horizons."