Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH

and DEREK WOLFE

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, October 12, 2015

A missed opportunity

H

umans
are
essentially

animals. About 2 million
years ago, the original

Homo
moved

about the Earth
in
search
of

food, water and
sex as well as
protection from
predators
and

environmen-
tal disasters in
order to survive.
One can picture
the
proverbial

“caveman” with
a wooden club,
making utterances in some inde-
cipherable language, roaming for
necessities and warring for survival.

Of course, Homo exhibited traits

outside of primal functioning, too
— making fire, doing cave art, wear-
ing “jewelry” and creating more
complex tools. These abilities distin-
guished humans as sociable learners
who used symbols to help explain
their relation to others and their
own existence.

But from this cognitive develop-

ment, where did love evolve? Did
the ability to love stem from our
neurological complexity or from
a selfish desire to survive through


sexual reproduction?

To provide a framework for this

question, we need to consider why we
have sex. This isn’t such a straight-
forward answer — many organisms
reproduce asexually. If we were to
asexually reproduce, we’d pass on
100 percent of our genes. As every
biology and anthropology student
and one Richard Dawkins knows,
propagating genes is an organism’s
No. 1 goal in life.

So why do we only pass on 50 per-

cent of our precious genetic materi-
al? Turns out, combining our genes
with others creates more variability
in the gene pool, thereby increasing
an organism’s chances for survival.
Much of this understanding rests on
the “Red Queen Effect,” stating that
sexually
reproducing
organisms

constantly adapt to evade co-evolv-
ing microbes, parasites and envi-
ronmental changes. This is why you
have to get the flu shot each year —
there’s always a new evolving strain
that we have yet to develop immuni-
ty to. Still, explaining why and how
we pass on genetic material doesn’t

explain the passion, intimacy and
longing we feel in romantic love.

What’s going on cognitively,

emotionally and physiologically to
induce love? Why do we reach the
most extreme version of care, devo-
tion and intimacy? And why does
our world shatter when we lose it?

To begin, I must admit that love

is complex; it initiates a swath of
chemical reactions in several places
of the brain. Nonetheless, there are
regions that are activated more than
others, particularly when it affects
one’s motivation, attachment and
holistic lifestyle.

According
to
anthropologist

Helen Fisher, during intense peri-
ods of romantic love, activity in
your ventral tegmental area and
caudate nucleus illuminate. This
part of your brain is associated with
routine tasks (like muscle memory)
but also one’s reward (or limbic)
system. When romanticism exists,
dopamine is triggered in this area,
sparking prolonged desires, focused
attention and exhilaration. But the
caudate nucleus is associated with
learning and memory, which means
that this dopamine reaction perme-
ates all aspects of life.

This idea is corroborated in David

Brooks’ book, “The Social Animal.”
In it, Brooks discusses psychologist
Arthur Aron’s idea of love, unlike
happiness or sadness, as a moti-
vational state, leading to euphoria
or misery. That is, depending on
whether you’ve just had a first kiss
or are mending a broken heart, your
performance in a wide range of
activities will be affected.

Additionally, that motivational

state can often become an obsession.
Psychologists like to call this feeling
“limerence,” or the state of being
involuntary infatuated with anoth-
er person, hoping for a reciprocal
response. Neurologically, this phe-
nomenon also rests in one’s reward
system. Cocaine is said to trigger the
same responses as love.

But why do we maintain love with

just one person? Fisher discusses
three chemicals — serotonin, dopa-
mine and norepinephrine — that
become associated with one person
in order to stir romantic passions. In
comparison with lust, one’s sexual
desire can be satiated from a broad-
er inclusion of people. In short, lov-
ing one person creates an emotional

pull unlike any other.

Furthermore, one personal con-

nection becomes more salient in
terms of attachment. An attach-
ment is driven by hormones like
oxytocin, which creates feelings
of peace, serenity and calmness.
After months of a relationship, two
people become enmeshed with
one another, thereby developing


deep attachments.

Dr. Fisher states that after you

“feel deep attachment to an indi-
vidual … you feel intense energy,
intense focus, intense motivation
and the willingness to risk it all to
win life’s greatest prize.”

Love induces addictive, with-

drawal and relapse qualities. In
other words, it’s a drug.

Of course, as many drugs do,

love maintains terrible lows that
often accompany its highs — like in
a breakup. It would be easy if you
could forget and remove the feelings
once held for the person you loved,
but you can’t erase your memories.
The limbic system doesn’t forget.
Instead, after being dumped, the
reward system for wanting, craving,
motivation and focus become more
active when you can’t get what you
want most.

Personally, as someone who’s

fallen in love, dumped someone
and been dumped, I’ve experienced
love’s euphoria and misery. And, like
many others, I’ve found myself in
each situation all at once.

Yet, for the emotional intensity

that is a first date, breakup or inti-
mate conversation, I believe we’re
made better by our capacity to love.
It’s deeply imbued with the pas-
sion that we personify as people,
animating every aspect of our lives,
whether we want it to or not. It also
provides an incredible opportu-
nity for learning. What better way
to learn more about yourself, your
partner or other people around you
than through deep vulnerability and
effusive intimacy?

Still, I can’t say for sure why love

has evolved in humans. Maybe it’s
helped us propagate our genes, deter
war, share resources or just break
the mundane routine. Regardless,
it’s arguably one of the most distin-
guishing qualities of our species.

— Sam Corey can be reached

at samcorey@umich.edu.

Why do we love?

SAM
COREY

We want to begin by thanking

University President Mark Schlis-
sel for taking faculty concerns
around transparency and fairness
seriously enough to commission a
review of executive pay on campus.

The University hired Sibson,

a private consulting company, to
carry out that review and its report
was released last week. The main
finding of the report is that the Uni-
versity’s top administrators receive
pay and other compensation that’s
at the very top among peer public
institutions and at the median of
top private universities.

This contrasts sharply (some-

thing the report does not point out)
with the salary and compensation
for faculty and staff, which mir-
rors those prevailing at our public
research university peers, such
as the University of California,
Berkeley; University of California,
Los Angeles; and the University of
Virginia. Moreover, unlike most
of our public-university peers, but
like most private universities, the
University does not disclose the
extent of the supplemental pay


employees receive.

We would like to provide some

historical context for this trend
toward a widening gulf between
compensation for the top layers of
the administration and ordinary fac-
ulty and staff. In April 2014, a group
of faculty published an open letter
questioning the runaway growth of
both base and supplemental execu-
tive pay (bonuses) at the University.

This letter documented not only the
discrepancy between executive pay
and the salaries of ordinary faculty
and staff, but also the disproportion-
ate growth in executive pay vis-à-vis
staff pay over the previous decade.

Between 2005 and 2013, base

executive pay (that is, without fac-
toring in bonuses) grew at almost
twice the rate of that of faculty and
staff. That disparity resulted in
base compensations for top execu-
tives that by 2013 were between 30
percent and 40 percent higher than
at top public research universities
such as UCLA, Berkeley, UVA, and
the University of Texas at Austin.

Meanwhile, faculty salaries at

the University were almost perfect-
ly aligned with those institutions.
Compounding the already high
level of administrative pay was (and
is) a culture of bonuses common
among the highest layers of the
administration. The letter focused
on four main categories of supple-
mental pay and found that those
categories had more than quadru-
pled between 2004 and 2013. These
bonuses were not reserved for top
executives, but they were granted
much more generously in some
offices than in others. The conclu-
sion of that letter was not to request
an increase in faculty compensa-
tion, but rather to call for greater
transparency and more sensible
management of the executive pay
scale in times of escalating tuition
costs and shrinking state support.

It is thus with great regret that

we have learned that Schlissel
had decided to accept Sibson’s
recommendation to preserve the
status quo. We acknowledge that
the University remains at the same
crossroads as many other top public
institutions, which are also facing
pressures toward the adoption of
corporate practices in the name
of competition. Nonetheless, we
hoped that our school would claim
its place as a leader in forming a new
future in public higher education.

In that spirit, we continue to ask

that the University to disclose the
full extent of executive pay as a ges-
ture of good faith. By the report’s
own reckoning, 50 percent of the
public universities with which Sib-
son Consulting compared the Uni-
veristy disclose both base pay and
bonuses. Another 15 percent dis-
close the total pay, not differentiat-
ing between base and supplemental
compensation. The University is
therefore with the remaining 35
percent of peer public institutions
that do neither and disclose only
the base pay.

We should be leading in the pro-

cess of the renewal of public higher
education. Increasing pay transpar-
ency is a small gesture, but small
gestures can send powerful signals.

John Carson, Associate Professor,

Department of History. Dario Gaggio,

P rofessor, Department of History.

Anthony Mora, Associate

Professor, Department of

American Culture and History.

I

t’s all but impossible to calculate the
finite value of an education. At my mid-
dle-class high school in Michigan, one

of the biggest pitches that
teachers and administra-
tors made to try and con-
vince more of my peers to
attend college relied purely
on economics.

“College
grads
make

more,” they said.

While that may typical-

ly be true, the fluctuating
economy and subsequent
job market doesn’t make
attending a four-year uni-
versity a sure bet. Laying
thousands of dollars on the table just to get a
job can even seem paradoxical. Borrow money
to pay for school, get a job, profit. Then pay the
money back.

But universities shouldn’t be seen as manu-

facturers of employees. Students shouldn’t
look back after graduation and weigh the cost
of a college against the job prospects they were
able to line up by their first month as an alum.

Education benefits society as a whole. No

one’s chances of finding a job would improve if
everyone in America held a bachelor’s degree,
but the way our country would operate cul-
turally and politically would transform and
for the better.

For example, Pamela Brandwein, a politi-

cal science professor here at the University,
wrote a book on reinterpreting Reconstruc-
tion-era politics and history after the Civil
War. Some of her work has been especially
relevant this year.

After the Charleston church shooting in

June, the nation entered a discussion about
the Confederate flag. South Carolina law-
makers, and the nation, debated the flag’s
meaning; one side claiming it as a symbol of
Southern heritage, while others passionately
bemoaned against the state’s use of a flag that
stood for a nation founded upon acute racism
and slavery.

In a resoundingly American fashion, we

couldn’t even agree on what the ol’ stars and
bars represent. The Civil War has been over
for nearly one and a half centuries, but we
haven’t been able to reach a consensus on
what it was about.

I remember being taught (shout out public

school) that the Civil War was about slavery. I
also remember being taught that this was too
simple of a summation, that slavery was the
big issue, but really state’s rights were what
was on the line for the Confederacy.

And then I entered Brandwein’s class, and

I re-learned two things. First, yes the Civil
War was indeed fought over slavery, period.
The prevailing sentiment in the South was
that slavery was an institution of the utmost
importance because the unlimited source
of free labor was supposed to be the corner-
stone upon which a Southern utopia (for white
folks) was built.

Secondly, political forces have the power to

reshape history and affect our cultural under-
standing of it for decades and generations to
come. After the Civil War, the loudest and
most boisterous pro-slavery guys recognized
a sinking ship when they were standing on it
and began the line of rhetoric about states’

rights as the cause for the war. Unfortunately,
they were successful, and this incorrect inter-
pretation of history still exists around high
school classrooms and water coolers today.

Thanks, professor, for clearing that up.
Brandwein isn’t the first scholar, historian

or journalist to pin down the truth about slav-
ery and the Civil War. But in the public, we
still see its significance as something that’s up
for debate. To drive a point home, anyone who
believes the Civil War wasn’t a war about slav-
ery is wrong. But the truth, though made rela-
tively accessible to undergraduates here and at
other universities, isn’t as easy to come across
in the real world.

Society has entered full-force into the infor-

mation age, and everyone is surrounded by
accessible data. While there’s a lot of good that
comes from this, there are now more channels
than ever to launch a marketing campaign to
sway public opinion. The ability of self-inter-
ested actors to control what story gets told in
the newspapers and on TV has made it incred-
ibly difficult to find out what is really going on.

Pick an issue: Black Lives Matter, Occupy

Wall Street, Detroit’s bankruptcy — it doesn’t
matter. Each person and each news outlet
frames things differently. And there have
been countless cases where powerful people
have lied to the public with their own motives
in mind.

“I am not a crook,” said Richard Nixon.
Even with the brightest minds examining

an event, like with the Civil War example, lies
and political spin can slip past American com-
mon sense and become, for better or, more
often, worse, part of what we accept as fact.
We then carry on with an incorrect under-
standing of what is true and what happened.

Knowing this, the high volume of lies and

political pandering should cause anyone
from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore., to
think more critically about the information


they consume.

In an educated society, we would all have

the skills to at least do this. Making more
people college graduates benefits the greater
good. A college education exposes each person
to perspectives, ideas and concepts they oth-
erwise may not have stumbled upon. Students
absorb all of this information and take it with
them to parties, coffee shops and, eventually,
society in some form or another.

In a time where privilege is defined by

access to opportunity, being educated turns
over a blank page for new ideas and ways of
thinking. If more people had access to educa-
tion, it could aid in turning the echo cham-
ber of social media unoriginality, bias and
uninformed public opinion into something
more symphonic. And more importantly, it
undercuts the ability of politicians and billion-
aires to sell their own versions of history and
manipulate the masses into acting or believing
certain ways.

Above all else, receiving an education may

not get you a job, but it can provide some
direction amid all the chaos and half the pro-
duction of lemmings (the video game people,
not the animals). Because as the late, great
Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you
are going, you’ll wind up someplace else.”

— Tyler Scott can be reached

at tylscott@umich.edu.

The value of an education

TYLER
SCOTT

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala,

Aarica Marsh, Adam Morton, Victoria Noble, Anna Polumbo-Levy,

Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Stephanie Trierweiler,

Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

JOHN CARSON, DARIO GAGGIO, ANTHONY MORA | VIEWPOINT

E-mail in Chan at tokg@umiCh.Edu
IN CHAN LEE

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