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lunes, 21 de agosto de 2017

Guts and Grease: The Diet of Native Americans

JANUARY 1, 2000 BY SALLY FALLON AND MARY G. ENIG, PHD

The hunter-gatherer’s dinner is front page news these days. Drawing from the writings of Dr. Boyd Eaton and Professor Loren Cordain, experts in the so-called Paleolithic diet, columnists and reporters are spreading the word about the health benefits of a diet rich in protein and high in fiber from a variety of plant foods 1,2. It’s actually amusing to see what the modern food pundits come up with as examples of the “Paleolithic Prescription.” Jean Carper offers a Stone Age Salad of mixed greens, garbanzo beans, skinless chicken breast, walnuts and fresh herbs, mixed with a dressing made of orange juice, balsamic vinegar and canola oil.3 Elizabeth Somer suggests whole wheat waffles with fat-free cream cheese, coleslaw with nonfat dressing, grilled halibut with spinach, grilled tofu and vegetables over rice, nonfat milk, canned apricots and mineral water, along with prawns and clams. Her Stone Age food pyramid includes plenty of plant foods, extra lean meat and fish, nonfat milk products, and honey and eggs in small amounts.4

Above all, the food writers tell us, avoid fats, especially saturated fats. The hunter-gatherer’s diet was highly politically correct, they say, rich in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids but relatively low in overall fat and very low in that dietary villain-saturated fat. This is the one dietary factor that health officials tell us is responsible for all the health problems that plague us-everything from cancer and heart disease to obesity and MS.

Remarkable Health

That the hunter-gatherer was healthy there is no doubt. Weston Price noted an almost complete absence of tooth decay and dental deformities among native Americans who lived as their ancestors did.5 They had broad faces, straight teeth and fine physiques. This was true of the nomadic tribes living in the far northern territories of British Columbia and the Yukon, as well as the wary inhabitants of the Florida Everglades, who were finally coaxed into allowing him to take photographs. Skeletal remains of the Indians of Vancouver that Price studied were similar, showing a virtual absence of tooth decay, arthritis and any other kind of bone deformity. TB was nonexistent among Indians who ate as their ancestors had done, and the women gave birth with ease.

Price interviewed the beloved Dr. Romig in Alaska who stated “that in his thirty-six years of contact with these people he had never seen a case of malignant disease among the truly primitive Eskimos and Indians, although it frequently occurs when they become modernized. He found, similarly, that the acute surgical problems requiring operation on internal organs, such as the gall bladder, kidney, stomach and appendix, do not tend to occur among the primitives but are very common problems among the modernized Eskimos and Indians. Growing out of his experience in which he had seen large numbers of the modernized Eskimos and Indians attacked with tuberculosis, which tended to be progressive and ultimately fatal as long as the patients stayed under modernized living conditions, he now sends them back when possible to primitive conditions and to a primitive diet, under which the death rate is very much lower than under modernized conditions. Indeed, he reported that a great majority of the afflicted recover under the primitive type of living and nutrition.”6

The early explorers consistently described the native Americans as tall and well formed. Of the Indians of Texas, the explorer Cabeza de Vaca wrote, “The men could run after a deer for an entire day without resting and without apparent fatigue. . . one man near seven feet in stature. . . runs down a buffalo on foot and slays it with his knife or lance, as he runs by its side.”7 The Indians were difficult to kill. De Vaca reports on an Indian “traversed by an arrow. . . he does not die but recovers from his wound.” The Karakawas, a tribe that lived near the Gulf Coast, were tall, well-built and muscular. “The men went stark naked, the lower lip and nipple pierced, covered in alligator grease [to ward off mosquitoes], happy and generous, with amazing physical prowess. . . they go naked in the most burning sun, in winter they go out in early dawn to take a bath, breaking the ice with their body.”

Greasy and Good

What kind of foods produced such fine physical specimens? The diets of the American Indians varied with the locality and climate but all were based on animal foods of every type and description, not only large game like deer, buffalo, wild sheep and goat, antelope, moose, elk, caribou, bear and peccary, but also small animals such as beaver, rabbit, squirrel, skunk, muskrat and raccoon; reptiles including snakes, lizards, turtles, and alligators; fish and shellfish; wild birds including ducks and geese; sea mammals (for Indians living in coastal areas); insects including locust, spiders and lice; and dogs. (Wolves and coyotes were avoided because of religious taboos)8.

According to Dr. Eaton, these foods supplied plenty of protein but only small amounts of total fat; and this fat was high in polyunsaturated fatty acids and low in saturated fats. The fat of wild game, according to Eaton, is about 38 percent saturated, 32 percent monounsaturated and 30 percent polyunsaturated.9 This prescription may be just fine for those who want to promote vegetable oils, but it does not jibe with fat content of wild animals in the real world. The table below lists fat content in various tissues of a number of wild animals found in the diets of American Indians. Note that only squirrel fat contains levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids that Eaton claims are typical for wild game. In a continent noted for the richness and variety of its animal life, it is unlikely that squirrels would have supplied more than a tiny fraction of total calories. Seal fat, consumed by coastal Indians, ranges from 14 to 24 percent polyunsaturated. The fat of all the other animals that the Indians hunted and ate contained less than 10 percent polyunsaturated fatty acids, some less than 2 percent. Most prized was the internal kidney fat of ruminant animals, which can be as high as 65 percent saturated.

Sources of Fat for the American Indian10

	Saturated	Monounsaturated	Polyunsaturated
Antelope, kidney fat	65.04	21.25	3.91
Bison, kidney fat	34.48	52.36	4.83
Caribou, bone marrow	22.27	56.87	3.99
Deer, kidney fat	48.24	38.52	6.21
Dog, meat, muscle	28.36	47.76	8.95
Dog, kidney	25.54	41.85	7.69
Elk, kidney	61.58	30.10	1.62
Goat, kidney	65.57	28.14	0.00
Moose, kidney	47.26	44.75	2.11
Peccary, fatty tissues	38.47	46.52	9.7
Reindeer, caribou, fatty tissues	50.75	38.94	1.25
Seal (Harbor), blubber	11.91	61.41	13.85
Seal (Harbor), depot fat	14.51	54.23	16.84
Seal (harp), blubber	19.16	42.22	15.04
Seal (harp), meat	10.69	54.21	23.51
Sheep (mountain), kidney fat	47.96	41.37	2.87
Sheep (white faced), kidney fat	51.58	39.90	1.16
Sheep, intestine, roasted	47.01	40.30	7.46
Snake, meat	26.36	44.54	0.09
Squirrel (brown), adipose	17.44	47.55	28.6
Squirrel (white), adipose	12.27	51.48	32.3
Game fat, according to Eaton	38	32	30

Politically correct paleo-dieters also ignore the fact that the Indians hunted animals selectively. The explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who spend many years with the Indians, noted that they preferred “the flesh of older animals to that of calves, yearlings and two-year olds. . . It is approximately so with those northern forest Indians with whom I have hunted, and probably with all caribou-eaters.” The Indians preferred the older animals because they had built up a thick slab of fat along the back. In an animal of 1000 pounds, this slab could weigh 40 to 50 pounds. Another 20-30 pounds of highly saturated fat could be removed from the cavity. This fat was saved, sometimes by rendering, stored in the bladder or large intestine, and consumed with dried or smoked lean meat. Used in this way, fat contributed almost 80 percent of total calories in the diets of the northern Indians.11

Beaver was highly prized, especially the tail because it was rich in fat. But small animals like rabbit and squirrel were eaten only when nothing else was available because, according to Stefansson, they were so low in fat. In fact, small animals called for special preparation. The meat was removed from the bones, roasted and pounded. The bones were dried and ground into a powder. Then the bones were mixed with the meat and any available grease, a procedure that would greatly lower the percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids, while raising the total content of saturated fat.12When a scarcity of game forced the Indians to consume only small animals like rabbits, they suffered from “rabbit starvation.”

“The groups that depend on the blubber animals are the most fortunate, in the hunting way of life, for they never suffer from fat-hunger. This trouble is worst, so far as North America is concerned, among those forest Indians who depend at times on rabbits, the leanest animal in the North, and who develop the extreme fat-hunger known as rabbit-starvation. Rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source-beaver, moose, fish-will develop diarrhoea in about a week, with headache, lassitude and vague discomfort. If there are enough rabbits, the people eat till their stomachs are distended; but no matter how much they eat they feel unsatisfied. Some think a man will die sooner if he eats continually of fat-free meat than if he eats nothing, but this is a belief on which sufficient evidence for a decision has not been gathered in the North. Deaths from rabbit-starvation, or from the eating of other skinny meat, are rare; for everyone understands the principle, and any possible preventive steps are naturally taken.”13

The Whole Animal

Ruminant animals, such as moose, elk, caribou, deer, antelope and, of course, buffalo were the mainstay of the Amerindian diet, just as beef is the mainstay of the modern American diet. The difference is that the whole animal was eaten, not just the muscle meats.

Beverly Hungry Wolf describes the preparation and consumption of a cow in The Ways of My Grandmothers, noting that her grandmother prepared the cow “as she had learned to prepare buffalo when she was young.” The large pieces of fat from the back and cavity were removed and rendered. The lean meat was cut into strips and dried or roasted, pounded up with berries and mixed with fat to make pemmican. Most of the ribs were smoked and stored for later use14.

All the excess fat inside the body was hung up so the moisture would dry out of it, recalls Beverly Hungry Wolf. It was later served with dried meat. Some fats in the animal were rendered into “lard” instead of dried.

All the insides, such as heart, kidneys and liver, were prepared and eaten, roasted or baked or laid out in the sun to dry. The lungs were not cooked, just sliced and hung up to dry. Intestines were also dried. Sapotsis or Crow gut is a Blackfoot delicacy made from the main intestine which is stuffed with meat and roasted over coals. Tripe was prepared and eaten raw or boiled or roasted. The brains were eaten raw. If the animal was a female, they would prepare the teats or udders by boiling or barbecuing-these were never eaten raw. If the animal carried an unborn young, this was fed to the older people because it was so tender. The guts of the unborn would be taken out and braided, then boiled too. The tongue was always boiled if it wasn’t dried. “Even old animals have tender tongues,” she recalls.

The hooves were boiled down until all the gristle in them was soft. The blood was also saved, often mixed with flour or used to make sausages in the guts.

The second stomach was washed well and eaten raw, but certain parts were usually boiled or roasted and the rest dried. “Another delicacy is at the very end of the intestines—the last part of the colon. You wash this real good and tie one end shut. Then you stuff the piece with dried berries and a little water and you tie the other end shut. You boil this all day, until it is really tender and you have a Blackfoot Pudding.”

According to John (Fire) Lame Deer, the eating of guts had evolved into a contest. “In the old days we used to eat the guts of the buffalo, making a contest of it, two fellows getting hold of a long piece of intestines from opposite ends, starting chewing toward the middle, seeing who can get there first; that’s eating. Those buffalo guts, full of half-fermented, half-digested grass and herbs, you didn’t need any pills and vitamins when you swallowed those.”15

The marrow was full of fat and was usually eaten raw. The Indians knew how to strike the femur bone so that it would split open and reveal the delicate interior flesh. Eaton and others report that the marrow is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids but Stefansson describes two types of marrow, one type from the lower leg which is soft “more like a particularly delicious cream in flavor” and another from the humerus and femur that is “hard and tallowy at room temperatures.”16 According to Beverly Hungry Wolf, the grease inside the bones “was scooped out and saved or the bones boiled and the fat skimmed off and saved. It turned into something like hard lard.” More saturated fat the professors have overlooked!

Samuel Hearne, an explorer writing in 1768, describes the preparation of caribou: “Of all the dishes cooked by the Indians, a beeatee, as it is called in their language, is certainly the most delicious that can be prepared from caribou only, without any other ingredient. It is a kind of haggis, made with the blood, a good quantity of fat shred small, some of the tenderest of the flesh, together with the heart and lungs cut, or more commonly torn into small shivers; all of which is put into the stomach and toasted by being suspended before the fire on a string. . . . it is certainly a most delicious morsel, even without pepper, salt or any other seasoning.”17

Sometimes the Indians selected only the fatty parts of the animal, throwing the rest away. “On the twenty-second of July,” writes Samuel Hearne, “we met several strangers, whom we joined in pursuit of the caribou, which were at this time so plentiful that we got everyday a sufficient number for our support, and indeed too frequently killed several merely for the tongues, marrow and fat.”

Certain parts of the animal were considered appropriate for men or women. The male organs were for the men, as well as the ribs towards the front, which were called “the shoulder ribs, or the boss ribs. They are considered a man’s special meal.” For women, a part of the “intestine that is quite large and full of manure
. . . the thicker part has a kind of hard lining on the inside. My grandmother said that this part is good for a pregnant mother to eat; she said it will make the baby have a nice round head. Pregnant mothers were not allowed to eat any other parts of the intestine because their faces would become discolored.”18

Sacred Foods

All of the foods considered important for reproduction and all of the foods considered sacred were animal foods, rich in fat. According to Beverly Hungry Wolf, pemmican made with berries “was used by the Horns Society for their sacred meal of communion.” Boiled tongue was an ancient delicacy, served as the food of communion at the Sun Dance. A blood soup, made from a mixture of blood and corn flour cooked in broth, was used as a sacred meal during the nighttime Holy Smoke ceremonies.19

Bear was another sacred food-altars of bear bones have been found at many Paleolithic sites. Cabeza de Vaca reports that the Indians of Texas kept the skin of the bear and ate the fat, but threw the rest away. Other groups ate the entire animal, including the head, but recognized the fat as the most valuable part. According to colonist William Byrd II, writing in 1728, “The flesh of bear hath a good relish, very savory and inclining nearest to that of Pork. The Fat of this Creature is least apt to rise in the Stomach of any other. The Men for the most part chose it rather than Venison.” Bear grease was thought to give them resistance by making them physically strong. “We eat it sometimes now and everybody feels better.”20

Bear was also considered an important food for reproduction. When Byrd asked an Indian why their squaws were always able to bare children, the Indian replied that “if any Indian woman did not prove with child at a decent time after Marriage, the Husband, to save his Reputation with the women, forthwith entered into a Bear-dyet for Six Weeks, which in that time makes him so vigorous that he grows exceedingly impertinent to his poor wife and ’tis great odds but he makes her a Mother in Nine Months.”

Fat-Soluble Nutrients

Indians living in coastal areas consumed large amounts of fish, including the heads and roe. Price reported that in the area of Vancouver, the candle fish was collected in large quantities, the oil removed and used as a dressing for many seafoods. Shell fish were eaten in large amounts when available.

Animal fats, organ meats and fatty fish all supply fat-soluble vitamins A and D, which Weston Price recognized as the basis of healthy primitive diets. These nutrients are catalysts to the assimilation of protein and minerals. Without them minerals go to waste and the body cannot be built tall and strong. When tribes have access to an abundance of fat soluble vitamins, the offspring will grow up with “nice round heads,” broad faces and straight teeth.

Certain fatty glands of game animals also provided vitamin C during the long winter season in the North. The Indians of Canada revealed to Dr. Price that the adrenal glands in the moose prevented scurvy. When an animal was killed, the adrenal gland and its fat were cut up and shared with all members of the tribe. The walls of the second stomach were also eaten to prevent “the white man’s disease.”

Plant Foods

A variety of plant foods were used throughout the North American continents, notably corn (in the temperate regions) and wild rice (in the Great Lakes region). Dry corn was first soaked in lime water (water in which calcium carbonate or calcium oxide is dissolved), a process called nixtamalizacionthat softens the corn for use and releases vitamin B3, which otherwise remains bound in the grain. The resulting dough, called nixtamal or masa, can be prepared in a variety of ways to make porridges and breads. Often these preparations were then fried in bear grease or other fat. Many groups grew beans and enjoyed them as “succotash,” a dish comprised of beans, corn, dog meat and bear fat. As an adjunct to the diet, corn provided variety and important calories. But when the proportion of corn in the diet became too high, as happened in the American Southwest, the health of the people suffered. Skeletal remains of groups subsisting largely on corn reveal widespread tooth decay and bone problems.21

Tubers like the Jerusalem artichoke (the root of a type of sunflower) were cooked slowly for a long time in underground pits until the hard indigestible root was transformed into a highly digestible gelatinous mass. Wild onions were used to flavor meat dishes and, in fact, were an important item of commerce. Nuts like acorns were made into gruel or little cakes after careful preparation to remove tannins. In the Southeast, pecans contributed important fat calories. In the southern areas, cactus was consumed; in northern areas wild potatoes.

Staples like corn and beans were stored in underground pits, ingeniously covered with logs and leaves to prevent wild animals from finding or looting the stores. Birch bark was used to make trays, buckets and containers, including kettles. Water was boiled by putting hot rocks into the containers. Southern Indians used clay pots for the same purpose.

In general, fruits were dried and used to season fat, fish and meat-dried blueberries were used to flavor moose fat, for example. Beverly Hungry Wolf recalls that her grandmother mixed wild mint with fat and dried meat, which was then stored in rawhide containers. The mint would keep the bugs out and also prevent the fat from spoiling.

The Indians enjoyed sweet-tasting foods. Maple sugar or pine sugar was used to sweeten meats and fats. In the Southwest, the Indians chewed the sweet heart of the agave plant. In fact, the Spanish noted that where agave grew, the Indians had bad teeth.22

Fermented Foods

Use of sour-tasting fermented foods was widespread. The Cherokee “bread” consisted of nixtamalwrapped in corn leaves and allowed to ferment for two weeks.23 Manzanita berries and other plant foods were also fermented.

The Indians also enjoyed fermented, gamey animal foods. The Coahuiltecans, living in the inland brush country of south Texas set fish aside for eight days “until larvae and other insects had developed in the rotting flesh.24 They were then consumed as an epicure’s delight, along with the rotten fish.” Samuel Hearne describes a fermented dish consumed by the Chippewaya and Cree: “The most remarkable dish among them. . . is blood mixed with the half-digested food which is found in the caribou’s stomach, and boiled up with a sufficient quantity of water to make it of the consistence of pease-pottage. Some fat and scraps of tender flesh are also shred small and boiled with it. To render this dish more palatable, they have a method of mixing the blood with the contents of the stomach in the paunch itself, and hanging it up in the heat and smoke of the fire for several days; which puts the whole mass into a state of fermentation, which gives it such an agreeable acid taste, that were it not for prejudice, it might be eaten by those who have the nicest palates.”25

A number of reports indicate that broth and herbed beverages were preferred to water. The Chippewa boiled water and added leaves or twigs before drinking it.26 Sassafras was a favorite ingredient in teas and medicinal drinks.27 Broth was flavored and thickened with corn silk and dried pumpkin blossom. California Indians added lemonade berries to water to make a pleasantly sour drink.28 Another sour drink was produced from fermented corn porridge.29 In the Southwest, a drink called chichi is made with little balls of corn dough which the women impregnate with saliva by chewing. They are added to water to produce a delicious, sour, fizzy fermented drink.30

Guts and Grease in a Glass

Modern food writers who assure us we can enjoy the superb health of the American Indian by eating low fat foods and canned fruits have done the public a great disservice. The basis of the Indian diet was guts and grease, not waffles and skimmed milk. When the Indians abandoned these traditional foods and began consuming processed store-bought foods, their health deteriorated rapidly. Weston Price vividly described the suffering from tooth decay, tuberculosis, arthritis and other problems that plagued the modernized Indian groups he visited throughout America and Canada.

Modern man has lost his taste for the kinds of foods the Indians ate—how many American children will eat raw liver, dried lung or sour porridge? How then can we return to the kind of good health the Indians enjoyed?

Price found only one group of modernized Indians that did not suffer from caries. These were students at the Mohawk Institute near the city of Brantford. “The Institute maintained a fine dairy herd and provided fresh vegetables, whole wheat bread and limited the sugar and white flour.”31So the formula for good health in the modern age begins with the products of “a fine dairy herd”—whole, raw, unprocessed milk from cows that eat green grass, a highly nutritious substitute for guts and grease and one that every child can enjoy, even native American children who are supposedly lactose intolerant. Add some good fats (butter, tallow and lard), aim for liver or other organ meats once a week (but don’t fret if you can’t achieve this with your own children), make cod liver oil part of the daily routine, eat plenty of meat and seafood, and augment the diet with a variety of plant foods properly prepared, including a few that are fermented. Keep sugar and white flour to a minimum. It’s a simple formula that can turn a nation of hungry little wolves into happy campers.

Meanwhile, be skeptical of government guidelines. The Indians learned not to trust our government and neither should you.

The authors are grateful to Don Coté for his help with this article.

Sidebar

Native Americans and Diabetes

American Indians know all too well the havoc that Type II Diabetes can wreak on the human body. What they may not know is that Uncle Sam is to blame.

Thousands of American Indians depend on the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). What do participants receive? It should come as no surprise that the commodities are loaded with carbohydrates with very little protein on the menu and even less fat. And the fats Indians do receive are loaded with trans fats. These foods are cheap and the multinational giants that produce them are equipped with lawyers and lobbyists to ensure that their products are the ones our government buys. The federal government feeds 53 million people per day. Is it any wonder they’re out to cut costs, whatever the consequences to our health?

Even in light of the latest research on the ill effect of excess carbohydrates on the human body, federal agencies have no choice. The National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990, also known as Public Law 101-445, states that all federal agencies shall promote the current US Dietary Recommendations in carrying out any federal food, nutrition or health program. The USDA Food Pyramid is more than a recommendation; it’s a federal prescription written in stone. And it’s speeding the death of most if not all Americans.

The Indians are hit harder and faster than the rest of us because they are only two generations away from the “old way” of life, based on game animals and fish. Uncle Sam will never admit that the Indians were tall, lean and healthy just two generations ago. If ever someone wanted proof that humans weren’t designed to eat a grain-based diet, look at the American Indian population-almost all of them are battling overweight, diabetes, and heart disease. Addictions are common. Yet many Indians have vivid memories of life before federal handouts, a time when diabetes and other diseases of civilization were unheard of among the Indians.

The US government has failed miserably when it comes to treating its native peoples. But without a change in US law, Indians will continue to receive a recipe for death. One possible remedy is the Tribal Self-Governance Project, created by Congress in 1988, which allows tribal governments more flexibility in the decision-making and administration of their contracted programs. Indians must take a stand and demand that government subsidies reflect their native diet. Better yet, Indians who can should refuse their “gift” from the government and return to hunting and fishing-the only way to reclaim their health.

Michael Eades, MD
Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades are the authors of Protein Power Lifeplan (Warner, 2000)

References

S. Boyd Eaton, MD with Marjorie Shostak and Melvin Konner, MD, PhD, The Paleolithic Prescription: A Program of Diet & Exercise and a Design for Living, Harper & Row
Loren Cordain, PhD and Boyd Eaton, “Evolutionary aspects of diet: Old genes, new fuels. Nutritional changes since agriculture,” World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics 1997:81
Jean Carper, USA Weekend
Elizabeth Somer, MA, RD, “Stone Age Diet,” SHAPE, October 1998
Weston A. Price, DDS, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, (619) 574-7763, pages 73-102
Ibid., p 91
The explorer Cabeza de Vaca is quoted in WW Newcomb, The Indians of Texas, 1961, University of Texas.
Ibid.
Eaton, op cit, p 80
USDA data, prepared by John L. Weihrauch with technical assistance of Julianne Borton and Theresa Sampagna
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, The Fat of the Land, MacMillan Company, 1956
Frances Densmore, “Chippewa Customs,” Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 86, page 43
Stefansson, op cit
Beverly Hungry Wolf, The Ways of My Grandmother, pages 183-189
John (fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, Lame Deer Seeker of Visions, Simon and Schuster, 1972, page 122
Stefansson, op cit, page 27
The Journals of Samuel Hearne, 1768.
Hungry Wolf, op cit
Hungry Wolf, op cit
Inez Hilger, “Chippewa Child Life,” Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 146, page 96
William Campbell Douglass, MD, The Milk Book, Second Opinion Publishing 1994, page 215
Personal communication, Florence Shipek, expert on the Californian coastal Indians.
Mary Ulmer and Samuel E. Beck, Cherokee Cooklore, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 1951
Cabeza de Vaca, op cit
Samuel Hearne, op cit
Frances Densmore, op cit, page 39
“Wildman” Steve Brill with Evelyn Dean, Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants, Hearst Books, New York, 1994, page 220
Personal communication, Florence Shipek, op cit
Mary Ulmer, op cit
Keith Steinkraus, ed, Handbook of Indigenous Fermented Foods, Marcel Dekker, New York, 1983
Weston Price, op cit, page 31

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Spring 2001.

jueves, 20 de julio de 2017

NOAM CHOMSKY: NEOLIBERALISMO Y AMENAZAS GLOBALES.

Conferencia en Uruguay acompañado por José "Pepe" Mujica, al cual decidió visitar en estos días.

El intelectual estadounidense, Noam Chomsky habla sobre los desafíos para construir democracias solidarias en la Intendencia de Montevideo, la capital uruguaya. La actividad fue organizada por la Fundación Liber Seregni. (Julio 2017)

jueves, 29 de diciembre de 2016

Las izquierdas en la crisis del imperio

Una nota reciente de Santiago Alba Rico examina lo que, a su juicio, constituye un grosero error de interpretación de “conocidos militantes anti-imperialistas latinoamericanos” que, como el que suscribe esta nota, piensan que el asesinato del embajador de Rusia en Ankara es, en términos objetivos, una “respuesta” al creciente protagonismo de ese país en el sistema internacional. [1] En su escrito Alba Rico incurre en una serie de equivocaciones que no pueden ser pasadas por alto y que es preciso señalar y corregir. Dado que para ilustrar ese diagnóstico equivocado, según nuestro autor, se toman textualmente algunos pasajes o expresiones de un artículo de mi autoría publicado poco antes en este mismo medio siento, a los efectos de evitar confusiones entre los lectores, la necesidad de formular algunas precisiones. [2] Seré breve, pese a la amplitud de la temática, para poner en cuestión algunas líneas esenciales de la argumentación de nuestro autor.

1. Jamás he dicho, ni conozco alguien que lo hubiera hecho, que la sola puesta en aprietos a la dominación norteamericana en el tablero de la geopolítica mundial se corresponda automáticamente con un ataque al capitalismo y el avance de la revolución, la democracia y los derechos humanos en todo el mundo. No hay automatismos ni determinismos en la dialéctica de la historia, de modo que aquella ecuación debe ser descartada de antemano.

Pero, por otro lado, no se puede ignorar el papel crucial, indispensable, insustituible, de Estados Unidos en la reproducción y mantenimiento global del capitalismo. Derrotas o retrocesos de Washington en el tablero de la política internacional no necesariamente abren las puertas a la democracia y los derechos humanos, pero cuando el sostén fundamental –o el “sheriff solitario”, para usar la expresión de Samuel P. Huntington- del capitalismo mundial y de los despotismos que asolaron al mundo desde finales de la Segunda Guerra Mundial experimenta un traspié eso, en principio, es una buena noticia porque se abre una pequeña fisura en un muro herméticamente sellado. ¿O acaso la derrota de EEUU en Vietnam no significó un avance democrático y en materia de derechos humanos en ese país devastado por once años de bombardeos norteamericanos? Y el reflujo de la influencia norteamericana experimentado por Washington en América Latina desde la elección de Hugo Chávez Frías a la presidencia de Venezuela, en Diciembre de 1998, ¿no inauguró acaso un ciclo que, con todos sus defectos e insuficiencias, podríamos caracterizar como virtuoso y positivo para nuestros pueblos? Y las revoluciones en el mundo árabe, que derrocaron a las tiranías de Ben Ali y Hosni Mubarak en Túnez y Egipto, fieles sirvientes de la hegemonía norteamericana en la región, ¿no nutrieron la esperanza –lamentablemente frustrada después- de un nuevo comienzo?

2. En su nota nuestro autor incurre en un grave error desgraciadamente muy extendido en el campo de las izquierdas: habla de “los imperialismos”, así, en plural. Pero el imperialismo es uno sólo; no hay dos o tres o cuatro. Es un sistema mundial que, desafortunadamente, cubre todo el planeta. Y ese sistema tiene un centro, una potencia integradora única e irreemplazable: Estados Unidos. Tiene el mayor arsenal de armas de destrucción masiva; controla desde Wall Street la hipertrofiada circulación financiera internacional; decreta la extraterritorialidad de las leyes que sanciona su Congreso e impone sanciones a terceros países que incumplen las leyes estadounidenses; controla a su antojo los flujos de comunicaciones que se procesan a través de la Internet y la telefonía a escala mundial; dispone de un fenomenal aparato de propaganda –sin rivales en el mundo- con epicentro en Hollywood; casi la mitad del presupuesto militar mundial y según sus propios expertos, cuenta con algo más de un millar de bases militares instaladas en los cinco continentes. ¿Cuáles son los “otros imperialismos” que compiten con este? Como latinoamericano preguntaría a los cultores de la teoría de la “pluralidad de imperialismos” que por favor me digan cuantas bases militares tienen rusos y chinos en América Latina y el Caribe. La respuesta es cero, contra ochenta de Estados Unidos y sus compinches de la OTAN.

Que me digan cuántos golpes de estado o procesos de desestabilización pusieron en marcha Moscú y Beijing en esta parte del mundo, contra los más de cien que tuvieron su origen en Washington. O que me digan quién arrebató la mitad de su territorio a México: ¿habrán sido los rusos, los chinos, Irán quizás? ¿Cuántos presidentes o prominentes líderes políticos y sociales de la izquierda fueron asesinados por órdenes de Rusia y China? Respuesta: ninguno. ¿Y Estados Unidos? La lista sería interminable. Mencionemos apenas algunos de los más conocidos: Augusto Cesar Sandino, Farabundo Martí, los jesuitas en El Salvador y también en ese país Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, Salvador Allende, Orlando Letelier, los generales constitucionalistas chilenos René Schneider y Carlos Prats González, el ex presidente boliviano Juan José Torres, Omar Torrijos, Jaime Roldós y los miles detenidos, desaparecidos y asesinados en el marco de la “Operación Cóndor.” Confieso que a medida que escribo y rememoro estos datos siento una creciente indignación ante los crímenes del imperialismo y, también, ante la incomprensión de algunos camaradas de la izquierda de las elocuentes lecciones de nuestra historia que los deberían inducir a ser mucho más rigurosos a la hora de hablar sobre el imperialismo. Con estos antecedentes a la mano la sola idea de una pluralidad de imperialismos no es otra cosa que un disparate, una frase hueca, un auténtico nonsense que ofusca la visión de lo que ocurre en el mundo real.

3. No entiendo la extraordinaria centralidad que Alba Rico le atribuye a Siria en los asuntos mundiales. Menos todavía que este sufrido país sea “la vía muerta de la revolución democrática que comenzó en 2011”, o que haya sido Damasco quien le devolvió “protagonismo a las dictaduras”, o la “fuente contaminante” de la desdemocratización. Francamente, no lo comprendo. Menos aún que se diga que Rusia e Irán, al igual que hiciera EEUU en América Latina o Vietnam, utilizaron “todos los medios a su alcance para sostener hasta el límite a un tirano asesino” como Bashar –al Assad. Rusia, y en mucho menor medida Irán, intervienen cuando la destrucción del país parecía inexorable ocasionada, precisamente, por Washington y sus aliados. Lo hacen cuando la tragedia humanitaria desencadenada por …. ¿la pasión norteamericana por la democracia y los derechos humanos o por sus imperativos geopolíticos? se ensañó contra ese pueblo para inventar una “guerra civil”, como hicieron en Libia, derrocar a Assad, aislar a Irán privándolo de su único aliado significativo y facilitar el asalto final contra la República Islámica. Para ello la Casa Blanca reclutó –con la inestimable ayuda del Reino Unido, Arabia Saudita e Israel- un ejército de mercenarios a los cuales la prensa occidental, alentada desde Washington por la por entonces Secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton, exaltó hasta convertirlos (como antes a la siniestra “contra” nicaragüense y después a los bandidos apostados en Bengasi, que culminarían su cruzada democratizadora linchando a Gadaffi y desmembrando a ese desdichado país) en virtuosos “combatientes por la libertad”.

Fue la propia Clinton quien luego reconoció que “nos equivocamos al elegir a nuestros amigos”. ¿Cuándo lo dijo? Cuando Estados Unidos ya no pudo proseguir –por completamente infundada- con su campaña de acusaciones sobre el programa nuclear iraní y la Casa Blanca tuvo que cambiar de táctica. Ellos sabían, como todo el mundo, que el único país que tiene armas nucleares en Oriente Medio es Israel, pero eso no es problema para Washington y sus peones europeos. Al cambiar de táctica, al caerse aquel pretexto para la ofensiva norteamericana, los delincuentes plantados en territorio sirio se autonomizaron de sus antiguos jefes y protectores y una parte de ellos dio nacimiento al Califato y a diversas variantes del yihadismo, se dedicaron a degollar y decapitar infieles, robar petróleo y, con el beneplácito de Washington, comenzar a venderlos a treinta dólares el barril, para debilitar -¡de pura casualidad nomás, no hay que ser mal pensados!- a tres enemigos de Washington: Rusia, Irán y Venezuela, grandes exportadores de ese precioso recurso. El más elemental análisis de la situación no puede sino concluir que Siria, por lo tanto, no es -¡jamás podría haber sido!- la causante de la “desdemocratización” del planeta sino un despedazado país destruido casi por completo por el imperialismo, y que gracias a la intervención de Rusia se puso temporario fin a una masacre promovida y consentida por la metrópolis imperialista y sus secuaces. Que la injerencia de Rusia haya estado motivada por intereses geopolíticos propios porque en Tartus, Siria, se encuentra la única base militar rusa existente fuera de su propio territorio, no quita que con su intervención militar se han salvado miles de vida mientras que las potencias occidentales –y los intelectuales sometidos a su hegemonía- se prodigaban en ejercicios meramente retóricos o en huecos discursos lamentando la tragedia pero sin ofrecer la más mínima alternativa. Una testigo presencial de esta tragedia en Alepo, la monja Guadalupe Rodrigo, lo manifestó con una rotundidad y sensatez que me encantaría hallar en los escritos de tantos analistas cuando dijo que “lo que está sucediendo en Siria está muy lejos de ser una guerra civil. Si hubiera que ponerle una etiqueta sería más bien una invasión.” [3]

4. Lo anterior no significa que Assad represente ni de lejos un ideal político para la izquierda. La insinuación de que quienes se oponen a la sangrienta política norteamericana en Siria son admiradores de un personaje como Assad o de un modelo político como el imperante en Siria es un insulto que carece por completo de fundamento. La afirmación de que “la democracia ha muerto. Los DDHH –apenas una buena idea– pertenecen al pasado. Assad, gran triunfador, es el modelo; y a la izquierda impotente y vencida le gusta ese modelo porque incluso en EEUU se ha impuesto, como ellos querían, un protodictador” es asombrosa, por lo injusta e injuriosa.

Lo menos que debería hacer Alba Rico al lanzar una acusación tan tremenda es tratar de fundamentarla, diciendo cuál teórico de la izquierda, o cuáles fuerzas de esa orientación han manifestado su “gusto” por el modelo sirio o su alborozo por la elección de Donald Trump. La izquierda, en sus distintas variantes, ha sido siempre la enemiga jurada del fascismo y el baluarte de los procesos de democratización en todo el mundo. ¿O cree nuestro autor que los capitalismos democráticos lo son porque la burguesía y la derecha se propusieron alguna vez en algún país construir un orden democrático? ¿Quién si no la izquierda fue la protagonista de las grandes luchas democráticas en todo el mundo? Por eso cuando le adjudica la “responsabilidad en este proceso de desdemocratización”, cosa que le parece innegable y reprobable, incurre en un gravísimo yerro y, además, lanza una ofensa gratuita a millones de gentes que en los cinco continentes y desde la izquierda se juegan la vida para construir un mundo mejor, un orden democrático donde imperen la libertad, la justicia y los derechos humanos. Agravio que, por otra parte, se construye a partir de un rotundo error de interpretación histórica, a saber: afirmar que “el fascismo clásico fue el resultado de y acompañó a un proceso de desdemocratización radical, exactamente igual que ahora.” La relación causal fue exactamente la inversa: el fascismo fue, según Clara Zetkin, un castigo porque el proletariado fracasó en su intento de realizar la revolución y, añadimos nosotros, una represalia por los desafíos planteados por la radicalización del impulso democrático en los años de la primera posguerra y, después, en el marco de la Gran Depresión. Su respuesta fue desdemocratizar al orden político instaurando la dictadura desembozada de la burguesía. Esta tesis fue defendida desde un principio por la Tercera Internacional y reafirmada en los escritos de -aparte de la ya mencionada Zetkin- León Trotsky, Karl Radek, Ignazio Silone, Antonio Gramsci y Palmiro Togliatti, entre otros.

5. Recapitulando: el imperialismo es un sistema que lo podemos representar con tres círculos concéntricos. En su núcleo fundamental hay un país, Estados Unidos, que es quien ejerce la función dirigente y dominante. Luego hay un segundo anillo formado por los estados vasallos del capitalismo desarrollado, con quienes Washington mantiene relaciones que en algunos temas puntuales pueden dar origen a tensiones y contradicciones pero que, ante una amenaza sistémica se agrupan rápidamente en torno a los dictados de la Casa Blanca y se convierten en dóciles peones de las más siniestras decisiones que pudieran emanar de Washington. Por ejemplo, después del 11-S, países europeos cuyos dirigentes están siempre prestos a pontificar sobre la importancia de los derechos humanos colaboraron en viabilizar los “vuelos secretos” de la CIA transportando presuntos terroristas hacia “lugares seguros” en donde torturarlos y desaparecerlos, fuera del alcance de la legislación estadounidense. [4] Para Zbigniew Brzezinski evitar “la confabulación de los vasallos”, es decir, de este segundo círculo, “y mantener su dependencia en cuestiones de seguridad” es uno de los tres principales objetivos del imperio. La OTAN es la expresión más nítida de la aplicación de este principio. El tercer círculo del sistema imperial está constituido por las naciones de la periferia o semi-periferia capitalista, es decir, ese vasto y tumultuoso “tercer mundo” formado por las naciones de Asia, África y América Latina y el Caribe, que es preciso, siempre según Brzezinski, mantener bajo control. [5]

Por consiguiente, cualquier proceso de debilitamiento del núcleo duro del imperialismo, Estados Unidos, o de su segundo círculo, los vasallos, es en principio auspicioso que tendrá, como contrapartida, la violenta reacción de Washington. Que ello finalmente madure en una dirección correcta y en algunos países dé nacimiento a un proceso democrático y emancipador ya es otra cuestión y dependerá, como todo, de la inteligencia y voluntad con que las fuerzas sociales y políticas del campo popular encaren la lucha de clases y se aprovechen de los cambiantes equilibrios geopolíticos internacionales. La emergencia de actores cada vez más poderosos en la estructura internacional -la irrupción de China, el retorno de Rusia, el lento pero irreversible ingreso de la India, la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghái (OCS) y los BRICS, para señalar apenas los más importantes- está dando lugar a un naciente multipolarismo que si bien no puede ser caracterizado como intrínsecamente anti-imperialista modifican, a favor de los pueblos, las condiciones objetivas bajo las cuales se libran las luchas por la democracia, la justicia y los derechos humanos en la periferia con independencia de los rasgos definitorios de los regímenes políticos imperantes en China, Rusia, la India o cualquier otro actor involucrado. Esa es la clave para entender la violenta reacción norteamericana ante ese nuevo orden emergente, que erige barreras intolerables a su pretensión de supremacía incontestada. La historia latinoamericana y caribeña de los últimos años no habría sido posible de haber persistido el unipolarismo que siguió a la implosión de la Unión Soviética. Puede no ser de agrado para nuestro autor, pero sí lo ha sido para todos los líderes y movimientos populares de América Latina y el Caribe, desde Fidel y Chávez hasta Lula y Kirchner que ha visto ampliar sus márgenes de maniobra en la complejidad de la nueva realidad internacional. No es lo ideal, como hubiera sido un insólito florecimiento del socialismo, la democracia, la justicia y los derechos humanos en el capitalismo desarrollado. Pero lo que hemos visto ha sido exactamente lo contrario. Y en el mundo que realmente existe será preciso que avancemos en nuestras luchas sin esperar el advenimiento de aquellos cambios en el primer mundo.

6. Nuestro autor pone término a su nota extremando el pesimismo que impregna toda su argumentación. Declara, resignadamente, que “ya no hay alternativa sistémica, ni siquiera imaginaria.” No creo que en una amable conversación personal (como la que sostuve con él más de una vez en el pasado) pudiera decir algo semejante. Creo que tal vez la sorpresa al comprobar como muchos de sus amigos latinoamericanos interpretaban lo ocurrido en Ankara y la premura de la crítica lo llevó a escribir algo que podría ser visto como una reformulación, en términos filosóficamente aún más radicales, de la absurda tesis de Francis Fukuyama sobre el fin de la historia. Estoy seguro que Alba Rico no adhiere a esa tesis. Sin embargo es indudable que las dificultades con que tropieza la creación de una alternativa sistémica al capitalismo global son inmensas. Estados Unidos construyó el imperio más poderoso que jamás haya existido en la historia de la humanidad. Sus dispositivos de hegemonía y dominación son formidables; su capacidad de control y sometimiento también. Pero el inicio de su decadencia ya es inocultable. Lo reconocen los propios mandarines del imperio así como los estrategas del Pentágono y la CIA. Y, también es cierto, que hoy no se avizoran las formas concretas que podría asumir una alternativa sistémica. Pero sí sabemos, a ciencia cierta, que el capitalismo está llegando a su límite porque tal como lo asegurara el Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz en la Cumbre de la Tierra en Río, en 1992, su reproducción está destruyendo las condiciones medioambientales que hicieron posible la aparición de la vida humana en el planeta Tierra. El ecosocialismo ha aportado agudas reflexiones y muchos datos concretos sobre esta insoluble contradicción entre capitalismo y naturaleza. Y los pueblos están a la búsqueda de alternativas, tanto reales como imaginarias, sin esperar a que los intelectuales las inventemos. Las aportaciones de las etnias originarias de América Latina y el Caribe sobre el “buen vivir” son una prueba de ello. La idea de que “otro mundo es posible” ha ganado millones de adeptos en todo el mundo. La gravedad de la irresuelta crisis general del capitalismo, estallada hace ya más de ocho años, hizo posible que en Estados Unidos, en Europa, en el Sudeste asiático y en Canadá grandes manifestaciones populares adopten como consigna unificadora la crítica al capitalismo, algo inimaginable hasta hace unos pocos años cuando al capitalismo ni siquiera se lo nombraba. Bertolt Brecht dijo una vez que el capitalismo era un caballero que no deseaba ser llamado por su nombre. Su anonimato lo invisibilizaba y de ese modo ocultaba su carácter de régimen social de explotación. Ahora se lo nombra y se lo escribe y, en un desarrollo tan inesperado como promisorio, se lo leía en las pancartas de los jóvenes norteamericanos del Occupy Wall Street, y en las de los españoles del 15-M que no sólo denunciaban al capitalismo sino que hacían lo propio con la farsa democrática que éste había montado y que había perdido toda legitimidad.

En un mundo en el que, según las conocidas cifras divulgadas por Oxfam, el 1 por ciento más rico del planeta posee más riquezas que el 99 por ciento restante es inviable, no ya en el largo sino en el mediano plazo. La apelación que la derecha mundial hace al neofascismo global es un síntoma de su impotencia y demuestra la gravedad de la amenaza difusa, por ahora inorgánica, que plantea la protesta de los oprimidos y, por ende, de la izquierda. Es cierto que lo que se vislumbra no es lo que quisiéramos. En mi caso, me gustaría una reedición de la triunfal entrada del Movimiento 26 de Julio a La Habana en cada rincón del planeta. Eso no está en el horizonte, pero el lento pero progresivo desmoronamiento del orden imperial ofrece la oportunidad de intentar construir ese mundo mejor que todos anhelamos. Los formatos clásicos de la revolución son productos históricos. Esperar ahora el cañonazo del Aurora para dar la señal para el comienzo de la revolución bolchevique es un anacronismo, un canto a la melancolía. Pero aunque no se lo vea el viejo topo de la revolución sigue trabajando, con ahínco paralelo al desenvolvimiento de las insolubles contradicciones del sistema capitalista. Y la morfología de esa futura revolución es impredecible. Como lo fue la Comuna para Marx y Engels en 1871; como lo fueron los Soviets en 1917; como lo fue la guerrilla en Cuba en la segunda mitad de los cincuentas; o el vietcong en Vietnam en los años sesentas y setentas. Las revoluciones nunca copian, son siempre creaturas originales. El hecho de no poder divisar los perfiles precisos de la rebelión en ciernes no significa que esta no exista. Parafraseando a Gramsci concluimos diciendo que en coyunturas como las actuales el pesimismo de la inteligencia no debería ser el recurso que sofoque el optimismo de la voluntad sino un estímulo para perfeccionar nuestros métodos de análisis social, de tal suerte que nos permitan vislumbrar en los entresijos del viejo orden en crisis los actores emergentes y las semillas de la nueva sociedad.

Atilio A.Borón

Notas:

[1] “ Alepo, Ankara, Berlín: geopolítica del desastre”, en Rebelión, 22 Diciembre 2016. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=220751

[2] “De Sarajevo a Ankara”, en Rebelión, 20 Diciembre 2016. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=220659

[3] “Una guerra planeada en un escritorio”, en http://www.mdzol.com/nota/710319-monja-argentina-en-alepo-siria-una-guerra-planeada-en-un-escritorio/

[4] Hemos examinado ese tema en Atilio A. Boron y Andrea Vlahusic, El lado oscuro del imperio. La violación de los derechos humanos por Estados Unidos (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg, 2009), pp. 57-61.

[5] Cf. su El gran tablero mundial. La supremacía estadounidense y sus imperativos geoestratégicos (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1998).

miércoles, 23 de noviembre de 2016

Trump understands what many miss: people don’t make decisions based on facts

How can we make facts matter? Research in psychology and political science offers a little hope.

Updated by Julia Belluz and Brian Resnick Nov 16, 2016, 11:10am EST

Donald Trump made an “unusual degree” of blatantly false and misleading statements for a presidential candidate. And he won. Since then, we’ve seen the continuation of the pattern: On November 10, a day after the election, he insisted, with no credible evidence, that election protesters were paid actors. On Sunday, he described elements of his first 100 days’ plan — the deportation of 3 million “illegal immigrant criminals” — that are, as Vox’s Dara Lind has reported, based on faulty statistics.

This track record doesn’t portend an era of truthfulness at the Trump White House. And many are questioning if facts are under genuine assault. NPR's senior VP of news, Michael Oreskes, recently reminded listeners, “Our first principle is that facts exist and that they matter.”

But Trump was actually just trading on something psychologists and political scientists have known for years: that people don’t necessarily make decisions based on facts. Instead, we are often guided by our emotions and deeply held biases. Humans are also very adept at ignoring facts so that we can continue to see the world in a way that conforms to our preconceived notions. And simply stating factual information that contradicts those deeply held beliefs is often not enough to combat the spread of misinformation.

If we want to try to fight the spread of misinformation, we first need to understand why we’re wired to be so gullible.

1) Partisan bias skews our perception of the world

When we’re part of a group, our brains like to see that group in a positive light. In lab experiments, when researchers randomly assign people to teams, almost immediately participants will start to like their teammates better than the other guys. It’s almost instinctual, unthinking. It’s thought that group identities quickly become part of our individual identities. That’s why when you see a hate group burn your flag, it feels like a personal insult. Similarly, when a fact is hostile to our group, we’re keen to avoid it.

Here’s an amazingly clear example of that. It’s partisan bias in one chart.

In just a week before and after the election, Democrats and Republicans flipped their opinions on the current situation of the economy. The economy didn’t change that drastically in a week. And studies constantly find this: People don’t answer questions about the economy based on scholarship and objective information. They answer in a manner that benefits their political team. And as you can clearly see above: Yes, liberals do this too.

2) We seek to confirm our preconceived conclusions and are dismissive of the facts that threaten our worldviews.

Our number one bias is to make ourselves feel good. It just feels bad to be wrong, to lose. So we avoid it at the cost of reckoning with the truth. Psychologists call this “confirmation bias” — we seek facts to support the ideas we already believe to be true. “Most Americans are not paying attention to data, and even people who should be tend to discount it when it doesn’t fit their expectations,” Ingrid Haas, a political psychologist at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, explains in an email.

When people do pay attention, they’re more and more likely to seek out news sources that conform to their worldview. (Cable news and Facebook have made this easier than ever.)

3) Emotions resonate more strongly than facts

Evidence continues to mount that political sensibilities are, in part, determined by biology. These inborn sensibilities create our "moral foundations." It's the idea that people have stable, gut-level morals that influence their worldview.

Politicians intuitively use moral foundations to excite like-minded voters. Conservative politicians know phrases like "Make America Great Again" get followers' hearts beating. They’re reacting strongly to the idea of protecting the country. To them, it’s a feel-good, positive thing. Don’t try to tell them otherwise.

Trump is especially good at tapping into fear, a particularly motivating emotion. Studies findwhen white people (any white people, even liberals) are reminded that minorities will eventually be the majority, their views tilt conservative. A recent experiment showed that this reminder increased support for Trump. Which doesn’t mean all white people are racist: It means fear is an all-too-easy button to press. We fear, unthinkingly. It directs our actions. And it nudges us to believe the person who says they will vanquish our fears.

It doesn’t help that there’s more misinformation than ever before

Besides our fallible brains, there’s another big reason facts can be insignificant: The internet and social media make misinformation that reinforces our beliefs easier to access and more visible.

"We select the things to hang on a wall, sources to listen to,” said Michael Lynch, a University of Connecticut philosophy professor and author of The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data. “That means people can experience this sort of sense of the ground moving underneath them — like when liberals woke up and realized Brexit had happened."

This is particularly true for the politically engaged, particularly in this time of polarization. As Vox’s Tim Lee reported, researchers at Facebook found liberal-leaning Facebook users are more likely to see liberal articles in their newsfeeds, while those with conservative affiliations see more conservative articles.

"Partisanship and ideology haven’t just become more polarized but also better sorted," Dartmouth political science professor Brendan Nyhan pointed out. "So Democrats are more likely to be liberal and Republicans more likely to be conservative, and they tend to associate with people like them, which may prevent them from getting exposed to different kinds of information on the margin."

This state of affairs is fueled by the fact that the traditional gatekeepers of public information — big newspaper outlets, nightly news broadcasts — no longer wield as much influence.

"Politicians have responded accordingly" by reaching out to audiences directly through blogs and social media campaigns, Nyhan said. This can help fuel our biases, reinforce our beliefs, shut out opposing views — and perhaps make us more gullible.

And not only are the like-minded gathering together on social media but there’s also evidence to suggest that whole communities are becoming more ideologically unified in our hyperpartisan age. We’re further apart than ever before, both virtually and physically.

The research on how to make facts matter is scant, but hopeful

To be honest, we’re not entirely optimistic that facts will ever thrive in 21st-century America. Academics are pessimistic too.

“So long as we are all immersed in a constant stream of unbelievable outrages perpetrated by the other side, I don’t see how we can ever trust each other and work together again,” psychologist Jonathan Haidt recently told Vox’s Sean Illing. “We have to recognize that we’re in a crisis, and that the left-right divide is probably unbridgeable.”

The world we live in is simply structured to amplify our divides and, in doing so, make us more psychologically resistant to inconvenient facts.

For facts to matter more, we need environments that incentivize truth telling — ones that give us rewards for truth telling, and where lies are costly to us personally. That a man with as flimsy of a relationship to the truth as Trump can win a presidential election goes to show that fibbing is a winning strategy. If evolution theory can be instructive, it would tell us that the winning strategy will come to dominate the environment.

So how can we change the environment to harken the evolution of a world where facts matter? Researchers have found that it is possible to foster that kind of environment, at least in theory.

In one experiment, when researchers paid political partisans to be honest, they were more likely to answer questions about the country and the economy correctly. And for politicians to care about being called out on lies, there has to be a credible threat that it will hurt their reputation.

There’s also some work that suggests that if people affirm their individual identity over their group identity, they’ll feel more free and willing to go against the group and embrace facts that would otherwise seem hostile. But it’s hard not to believe that our group identities and differences are more salient and un-ignorable than ever.

Fact-checking websites can also help, particularly when the fact-checking comes with a consequence.

"In some cases, fact-checking can backfire, particularly with people who are resistant to the information in the first place," Nyhan’s research collaborator Jason Reifler said. But, he added, "some of our other research shows the public does benefit from fact-checking."

In another small study, Nyhan and Reifler found some evidence that down-ballot candidates who were sent letters reminding them "politicians who lie put their reputations and careers at risk, but only when those lies are exposed" were somewhat more truthful in their campaigns, as measured by newspaper fact-checks.

Facebook is starting to take some action on its fake news problem. Some 40 percent of Americans read their news on Facebook. It would be extremely meaningful if facts were incentivized there. But Facebook is just a start.

Facts need a champion more than ever.