The saddest part of the Depp-Heard saga is watching them spend years of precious time — read “life” — on exposing each other’s demons and poking at each other’s wounds instead of starting their overdue healing, a natural process that requires time and avoidance of trauma. And now they are seeking solace through financial damages.
If Depp and Heard lived in the 18th century, economist Jeremy Bentham would have considered them the perfect embodiment of Homo economicus, a concept he invented to mathematically model humans as economic beings driven by brains that constantly run a “hedonistic calculus”1 to maximize their economic (quantitative) utility and personal pleasure.
Bentham’s moralist critics have argued that the concept of Homo economicus is theoretical and flawed because biological humans cherish values other than individual economic utility and pleasure. But in my book (Masks, Crutches, and Daggers: The Science of our Self-delusional, Addictive Homo economicus Brain), I make a case that we are indeed thinking and acting more and more like Homo economicus. How else could many of us, including Depp and Heard, justify habitually making decisions that further toll our already traumatized -- unhealed – bodies, minds and societies in exchange for some marginal financial utility or personal pleasure in life?2
I have been on a 20-year quest to discover the roots of our metamorphosis to a cerebral species prone to self-delusional, perseverative, addictive behavior. Many of us seem to be ruled by an economic brain which is not kept in check by a metabolic body as in other species. In my book, I demonstrate how the prevalence of disorders like diabetes, depression and dementia is proof that the neurochemical feedback loops that connect our brain to our body and our ecosystem are often broken, i.e., self-reinforcing, instead of self-correcting as in natural feedback loops. Without proper corrective input to our brain by our body and its ecosystem, disease and disorder ensue.
But the problem is the adaptive advantage of a quantitatively-calibrated brain over a metabolically- driven one in modern times. I have studied the parallel history of human civilizations and human brains to show how the adaptive Homo economicus brain calibrates the reward and risk in any activity with the individual’s "net economic productivity and gain during the activity." In other words, it behooves Homo economicus to delay or outsource any activity that imposes a net negative “opportunity cost” on their time. What matters little is the impact of the activity on the body and soul — or unconscious if you will, as Jung calls it. This type of utilitarian (hedonistic) calculus, first introduced by Bentham, explains why it is easier for Homo economicus to achieve financial and career success than to engage in time-consuming processes that require patience such as healing, loving and learning (listening and reading), all essential for balancing our minds and bodies.
As a materials scientist, familiar with formulating materials and processes, I believe humans, as a biopsychosocial system — to borrow the term popularized by psychiatrist George Engel — are inherently handicapped in reaching a “steady state,” a term used by chemical engineers to describe well- functioning systems which have achieved dynamic equilibria and balance across all their elements. Without a steady state at the coffee roaster, your coffee would have a different particle size and roast intensity in each new batch you purchased from the store, hence variable brewing, percolation time and taste! Humans’ dispositions and moods are a lot less predictable than the coffee they drink.
As I explain in the book, we seem to have lost steady states at all systemic levels: Superorganism (global), colony (social), organism (individual) and organ (body parts) levels. Our pursuit of unfettered growth, "The sky is the limit" thinking of Homo economicus, has constructed a world of winners, losers and barely anyone in between. But without a steady state, we all lose, Depp and Heard included. Our transition to Homo economicus seems to be happening en masse, more like Ionesco’s Rhinoceros than Kafka’s Metamorphosis (both books also briefly discussed in my book).
Note: I submitted this blog to several journals which are extensively covering the sensationalized theatrics of the Depp-Heard saga but none decided to publish it.
In Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)