It has been noted many times in many places that conservatives lack a sense of humor, in part because of their inability to understand irony. I can’t recall reading or seeing anything anywhere that explains why … until now.
Raw Story
A new study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.
…
Based on previous research, the experimenters predicted that the prefrontal cortex would play a role in religious fundamentalism, since this region is known to be associated with something called ‘cognitive flexibility’. This term refers to the brain’s ability to easily switch from thinking about one concept to another, and to think about multiple things simultaneously. Cognitive flexibility allows organisms to update beliefs in light of new evidence, and this trait likely emerged because of the obvious survival advantage such a skill provides. It is a crucial mental characteristic for adapting to new environments because it allows individuals to make more accurate predictions about the world under new and changing conditions.
The part in bold pretty much describes the necessary skills for recognizing and understanding irony. Irony always involves a juxtaposition of two concepts which clash, creating a WTF ??? moment. But if your brain’s structure or functioning only allow you to hold one concept in mind at a time, and not allow a quick and easy transition from one to the next, then you lack the tools to even be able to perceive the clash … hence no WTF ??? moment.
This same dynamic is what allows them to listen to Donald Trump contradict himself over and over without having their heads explode from the disconnect. There IS NO DISCONNECT, no cognitive dissonance for them because there is no cognition, no recognition, of that dissonance. Each new utterance stands as its own edifice of bullshit, unrelated to any other rhetorical turd he has dropped.
Now it can be argued that this study only refers to religious fundamentalism and not the broader brush of conservatism. BUT, I would argue, the types of concrete, dogmatic thinking that distinguishes religious fundamentalism also pervade conservatism at large.
I also believe that if they were to study the effect of cannabis on the regions of the brain being discussed in this article, that they would find that cannabis stimulates activity in those regions and helps ameliorate these issues over time. This is purely an intuitive theory. I base this on my decades of observing people being introduced to cannabis, and continuing to use. I’ve seen some fairly hardcore conservative thinkers evolve over their years of cannabis use. And others who have become curmudgeons after giving up pot years ago. I still meet some closed-minded pot smokers from time to time, but by and large even they aren’t exceptionally conservative. Even pot-smoking Republicans tend to be of the Libertarian type rather than the fundy conservative type.
My $0.02 ...