The Fall of Oxytocin the so-called 'love hormone'

After reading stuff that eulogises oxytocin as the creator of empathy and interpersonal love and so the chemical equivalent of 'all you need is love'. The simplistic equation of something that chemically promotes good feelings towards others with moral behaviour was always due to hit the buffers of human realities. And so ... ta da ...

Oxytocin, 'love hormone,' promotes group lying, according to researchers -- ScienceDaily: oxytocin caused participants to lie more to benefit their groups, and to do so more quickly and without expectation of reciprocal dishonesty from their group.

Now, I have to admit I was disposed to see this coming and had even thought it would probably be at this level: something that promotes group solidarity does not necessarily promote inter-group solidarity and could even help solidify a group in rivalry or enmity to another. In other words the 'dark' side is to create the possibility of an out-group which could be an enemy. And so, it would seem, it is.


The disposition to see this coming comes from an appreciation of one way to think about 'total depravity' which can be understood to be saying that there is no dimension of human being that is untouchable by sin -or that there is no human faculty that is automatically free from sin: if there's a way to do wrong; someone somewhere will find it. This is not, of course, the same as saying that everyone is fully 'evil'.



So even the 'love hormone' is capable of being corrupted and become a tool for wrongdoing. Human solidarity is good, but vulnerable to misdirection. A clear understanding of corporisations, the 'Powers', reminds us of that.