Is Left Brain Thinking the Real Problem?
Why we need wisdom, perspective, and the big picture
As a society, we have some big challenges, and while I love woo-woo input on why this is happening and how to fix it, I am also a very practical person and seek out scientific perspectives as well. I was excited when my colleague sent me this interview with a highly credentialed academic, “Why Left Brain Thinking is Leading to Western Civilization's Collapse: Iain McGilchrist.”
This video below is an excerpt from the two-part interview, but includes the high points.
Are we experiencing mass schizophrenia, or is there another explanation?
Have we over prioritized the information the left brain can give us?
Is the left brain supposed to be the servant to the right brain?
Have we underestimated the importance, power, and perspective the right brain can offer with its ability to engage in non-dualistic thinking and embrace paradox?
“One way you can tell the left hemisphere is wrong is because it always knows it’s right,” says McGilchrist. He says we have a lot of people in positions of power who are dug into their way of thinking and are unable to see that they might be wrong, or that there might be ways that things need to change.
Exactly.
And this was a major truth bomb from McGilchrist:
We're in that phase where we've probably never had less wisdom than Western culture has ever had. There's so many things we don't think about or know about that people in the past would have done. We just pat ourselves on the back because we've got a more technical grasp on certain things that will help us make powerful tools.
But in terms of human wisdom - understanding what a human being is and what life is for - we really have hit rock bottom, and as a result you can see that people are extremely unhappy, anxious, suicidal. I mean the young have been left without anything to encourage them, except more technical information. This is awful. It’s a tragedy. And unless we are able to do something very soon, this civilization will collapse.
Things are getting worse as we remove books from libraries and school curricula, as we stop teaching the classics, and as we move away from liberal arts education, which teaches intellectual curiosity and compassionate inquiry.
For 30 years I have been in despair about art, music, and dance being underfunded and taken out of the school system. I feel they are critical for our development as humans. (They were what we immediately gravitated toward during the pandemic, in case you’ve forgotten.)
Much of what McGilchrist said made a lot of sense to me. I’d love to hear what you took away from this interview.
Yup! More poetry, art, community....