Sam Harris interviewed Iain McGilchrist on his Making Sense podcast this week. I'm even more of a fan of McG than before. I hadn't realised that he was quite so serious an academic! I thought he was verging on woo-woo. I think that his thesis is viewed as somewhat woo-woo though because it runs counter to the existing analytic monopoly in philosophy.
He is saying that we over-privilege the strengths, or the world-view, of the left hemisphere and fail to fully liberate or utilise the skills of the right.
So, the left is interested in what we can make use of, manipulate, grasp. It is very protective of the self, seeking power for the self and with a higher than accurate self image. It wants to categorise things. It wants the world to fit neatly in boxes. It likes abstractions but it is also prone to reify - these sound contradictory, but if you think about it, it's kind of that it likes to consider ideas as fixed, rather than fluctuating. It creates its algorithm or definition and then employs that rather than accepting the changeable, mutating, unpredictable nature of reality. It likes rules and logic. It is rather disembodied and unemotional.
The right in contrast takes in the bigger picture. It's keen on connections and emotional bonds. It is inclined to see the self as somewhat lesser than it is and to take a slightly less optimistic view of reality. It is interested in exploration rather than categorisation. It reads faces and is emotional. It understands social interactions.
Clearly a person needs both ways of being - but without the right, one is more machine than human. Without the left, one might be sadder and have more logistical problems, but at least one has a fucking soul.
McG feels that we are so heaviliy reliant on the left now that society suffers. To me, it feels like only the left is considered in philosophy. But how can ideas of 'what is best for people' be considered without taking into account what makes people people?
I am reminded of a woman who gave a lecture in the second module I did. Let's call her AG. She was making a point that it may be better for babies to be brought up by the mother who gave birth to them. I mentioned synchronised heartbeats and hearing the voice of the mother in the womb - which actually does help babies to feel that the strange new world outside of the mother's body has some familiarity - but she scoffed, disparaged, grimaced, oh no it was nothing about BODIES or FEELINGS. It was something abstract to do with rights or something. I was utterly shocked. Divorce bodies and feelings and you might as well play with a fucking doll's house.
Another woman, whom I shall call BW, a student, said she couldn't understand sport - how could people invest their lives in something that was of no social good? All people, she seemed to think, should be doctors or charity workers... something that helped people. My God, BW, if you lived in that world you would lose your greatest pleasure: your fucking unpleasant sanctimonious attitude.
Maybe I should have called this 'Mucky reflections'.
Comments