Ideological Toilet Paper: The Neuroscience of Empty Rhetoric

Ideological toilet paper is the scripted, power-preserving language leaders use to clean up a mess they created, only to flush it away once the performance ends.

The executive stands before the cameras, shoulders heavy with remorse. “I take full responsibility,” he declares without a quiver in his hands or a waver in his voice. Shareholders already approved his $30 million bonus, just hours after laying off 10,000 workers. A politician apologizes in a heated press conference, after months of investigations and direct threats to journalists who dared look into the corrupt dealings of a national leader. The microphone registers, “I deeply regret my actions” while the prepared statement continues with platitudes about needing to take time off to attend to personal matters. These phrases linger in the air like cheap air freshener, a cover for the rot beneath. This is ideological toilet paper in action: hollow statements that absorb public outrage only to be flushed away, leaving no residue on those in power. Neuroscience reveals why this ritual persists.

In brains shielded from consequences, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which integrates social and reward signals, lies dormant. It is the region that ought to fire signals when actions harm others, but it fails to do so, especially when the powerful believe their actions are justified. Meanwhile, layoff-triggered stock surges flood the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) with dopamine, a biochemical reward for exploitation.

Centuries before brain scans, Seneca understood that we must all “be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.” When leaders are insulated from the consequences of their decisions and view people as mere figures in a spreadsheet rather than humans, their brains exhibit reduced activation in the insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the brain’s empathy network. Moreover, mirror-neuron activity is significantly reduced in individuals primed with power. These neurons help internalize and simulate others’ emotions. This is the neural correlate of moral hazard: when negative consequences are externalized, the brain can rewire itself to equate exploitation with pleasure.

For an overview of key brain areas, please check out A Tour Through the Brain.

The problems with power

True contrition and accountability are exceedingly rare. When people say they are sorry they often mean nothing more than “I am sorry my acts were uncovered,” not “I am sorry for the harm I caused.” Likewise, a political, religious, or business leader’s proclamation of taking full responsibility for their decisions, misconduct, or even crimes often comes without any immediate consequences or acts to address such iatrogenic problems.

Ideological toilet paper is particularly abrasive in positions of power for two reasons. First, by the very nature of power itself: all decisions and acts of those in power can and usually do affect many people, while the powerful are insulated from negative externalities by the very system that supports their power or by means of their wealth that often comes with power. Second, power attracts people with limited empathy or, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues, it warps regular individuals into mouthpieces who merely follow the establishment’s script.

Case studies

Politics: rules for thee, not for me

Whenever politicians inflict austerity on people, politicians care little for the actual consequences, as they are shielded from them. Austerity may sometimes be needed, but the idea that politicians and the economists, who supply them with opinions and cherry-picked data, know definitively what their actions will cause is risible.

For instance, life in Argentina has for most people become dire: almost three quarters are one misfortune away from poverty. Yet more austerity is required, because there is apparently no money, except for overseas travel and arms. Javier Milei’s focus is entirely on macroeconomics and optics, not on improving the lived reality for most Argentinians.

In Donald Trump’s first term as president, he visited his own properties 547 times, which amounts to roughly one-third of the entire term. Six months into his second term, he already made 99 visits, all paid for by the taxpayer. His Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) claims to have saved $190 billion, yet it cost $135 billion and may lead to a loss of tax revenue à $500 billion or more. There were no consequences for either Elon Musk who ran the Doge or the convicted felon in the White House for such egregious behaviour.

Business: bonuses for layoffs and deaths

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has laid off 24,700 people in the last five years. Ultimately, as chief executive he is responsible for overhiring, yet he has faced no repercussions. In fact, the share price has gone up roughly 200% in that time, and so has his net worth. It is clear his responsibility lies with shareholders, not employees.

Sundar Pichai of Alphabet got $225 million in 2022, upon which he laid off 10,000 employees. Over at Microsoft, another 10,000 were kicked out as Satya Nadella got a 10% boost in compensation. At Salesforce, Marc Benioff got $2.35 million in a cash bonus. He did keep his word when he froze layoffs for 90 days back in 2020, but he did end up throwing 12,140 on the streets since. It is clear these executives all parrot the same bullshit rather than think for themselves, because they do not have to: they are rewarded for their actions and insulated from the consequences.

And then there is Dennis Muilenburg from Boeing. He was fired after two Boeing 737 Max crashes killed 346 people, both caused by the company prioritizing profits over safety. He did walk away with more than $62 million after offering an apology on television, not dissimilar to televised bows in Japan.

Japan: seppuku and televised bows

Japan’s complex relationship with ritual suicide (seppuku) and performative accountability offers another case study of ideological toilet paper, in which symbolic gestures of responsibility often displace material consequences.

Framed as an honourable act to restore dignity after failure or disgrace, seppuku was historically performed by samurai to cleanse their shame. In reality it meant they admitted responsibility for the mess they created yet ultimately did not see failure as the means to learn but as the end, so they did not have to stick around to mop up their own mess. Ritual suicide is not atonement, it is theatre, in which people internalize systemic failures as personal debt, flushing themselves, so to speak, to protect abstract entities.

The symbolism of that culture is still alive today. Executives at the Shikoku Bank signed a blood oath vowing to commit ritual suicide if found guilty of embezzlement, not necessarily if they actually were, but not yet judged to be in a court of law.

And executives at Toshiba bowed deeply in a press conference to atone for their $1.3 billion fraud. They resigned but never faced criminal charges.

As these case studies show, ritualized responsibility lets power structures evade reform by sacrificing individuals, sometimes themselves, as in the case of Japan, but mostly others who are not in power.

Skin in the game

Power’s grand illusion is that consequences can be outsourced. Neuroscience confirms that unshared suffering atrophies empathy circuits and causes brains to seek exploitation. When you never smell the hospital waiting room or meet a family your layoffs have bankrupted, the brain defaults to spreadsheets. No OFC alarm bells. No ACC ache. Just NAcc fireworks as the stock soars.

The ideological toilet paper will therefore keep unrolling, which is why we must make leaders touch the stain. Not in photo ops, but in their privilege. Politicians won’t care about proposed healthcare cuts until they have to wait many hours to see a doctor. Executives won’t care about layoffs either until it triggers the foreclosure of their beloved beach house.

In Singapore, ministers’ salaries are pegged to the national median wage. As a result, the country is among the globe’s least corrupt nations. If the median wage is not good enough, they have a reason to improve the economy for everyone rather than the rich.

Make leaders use the same products and services as the rest of us, and they will have an incentive to care. Public transport is awful? Ensure politicians use it rather than chauffeured limousines. Is public healthcare a mess? Make politicians rely on it. Basic infrastructure is unavailable in faraway areas? Force leaders to move between regions regularly, so they do not see people from other areas as mere statistics and they actually go out and listen to people rather than talk to them for support in the next election.

Of course, their busy schedules and security concerns must be taken into account. Such reasoning once again highlights the powerful’s lack of empathy as ordinary people are busy too; some even live in unsafe neighbourhoods, while others juggle multiple jobs just to make ends meet.

Still, fair enough. Let’s demand consequence symmetry instead: any negative decision that affects the masses requires proportional loss of privilege among leadership. If politicians drop healthcare coverage for half the population, they must lose half of their own health insurance coverage, as it is paid for by taxpayers. In the case of mass layoffs, executives must have their total compensation reduced in relation to the share of employees made redundant. In addition, these companies ought to be under a moratorium on stock buybacks for a predetermined amount of time.

Still, that is wishful thinking. Perhaps we ought to demand neural verification of remorse and calibrate fines to the depth of their insincerity.

How many more insincere apologies will we flush before we insist on real consequences? Swap the ideological toilet paper for real accountability, or the roll never ends.