Left Brain, Right Brain and Our Relationship with the Real World
This video, by renowned English psychiatrist and writer-philosopher Dr. Iain McGilchrist, explains how a growing imbalance between our left and right brains has led to a situation where, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere has taken precedence over the right in our modern civilization.
This, he argues, is how and why we have lost our way and created the disastrous relationship we have with ourselves, each other and the natural world, and that now threatens so many living creatures, including ourselves, with extinction.
It's a high engaging 12-minute video, in which Dr. McGilchrist lays out the basics of his remarkable book The Master and His Emissary and his shorter (and easy-to-read) essay The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning.
The "master" he refers to in the book title is the right side of the brain, while the left is its "emissary." And the "divided brain" is the situation that's grown up over the last few thousand years, where the emissary has essentially overthrown the master and taken control of the show.
The result – an imbalance in which the left brain dominates human activity – is the continuing disaster we have today, both in our internal world of anxiety, depression and lack of fulfillment, and the external world where we have turned nature into a kind of warehouse of resources that we mine, harvest and generally tear into in an increasingly futile quest for happiness and peace of mind.
The good doctor explains our divided brain in a way that makes a lot more sense than the overly simplistic pop-science idea that one side is intellect and the other intuition, or science vs. art, et.. Rather, he says, the left hemisphere, in ourselves and in many of our fellow animals, is what we use to manipulate the world around us. It is detail-oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things, and is inclined to self-interest. The right hemisphere, by which we perceive, interact with and understand the world, has greater breadth and flexibility. Most important, it is our primary connection to the world.
Both hemispheres are essential, but when the left becomes dominant, both in ourselves individually and in society as a whole, we begin to lose our relationship to the real world, the world of nature and our own nature. And the result is civilization as we have it today.
For anyone trying to figure out how and why we humans have made such a catastrophic mess of the world, the essay and the book provide valuable insight.
(Many thanks to Sam Berg for introducing me to Dr. McGilchrist's work!)
Wow! Love it! Very powerful!
Here's to using intuition with discernment.
It was certainly an interesting postulate . . . yet, as a female reader/viewer, what I noticed more than anything else was that there were no women in this video, except for occasional, tiny little figures in the background. All the thinkers quoted or referenced by McGilchrist are male. All the visual choices made by the directors/producers are male. If you came from another planet, you would never even know women existed. The video is -- quite literally -- a graphic illustration of how, in our society as in so many others, intellect itself, and especially subjectivity, are assumed to be, by default, male. To me, this is something that shouldn't be ignored, and I confess, I was disappointed. Viewed from that perspective, the video, which deals with such profound subject matter, is no better than a typical Hollywood movie produced for teenaged boys, with multiple male roles and only one female role. Until this changes, IMO, our behavior as humans won't change.
This was fascinating, thank you for posting it! I'm interested in reading the book, and wonder if Dr. McGilchrist offers any advice or exercises for bringing the two brain hemispheres into better balance.
Thank you for your wonderful blog - I'm more of a lurker, but as an ethical vegan I always appreciate your insights.
@laloofah I haven't read that far yet, but will certainly be posting more about it soon.
@michaelmountain @laloofah
I went to my local library yesterday and had them request it through the Interlibrary Loan program. I doubt I'll manage to read it all in the time allowed me before I'll have to return it, but I'll do the best I can - and look forward to your future posts about it!