I had many reasons to want to read Iain McGilchrist’s 2009 book The Master and His Emissary. Its an ambitious big-picture book, by a smart knowledgeable polymath. I love that sort of book. I’ve been meaning to learn more about brain structure, and this book talks a lot about that.
That's the point - there's isn't much different between left and right in modern politics - both are left-hemisphere dominant views. There is an alternative right-hemisphere dominant view that exists, but doesn't get much attention, because it isn't concerned with owning the means of production. You might call this view 'anarchism'.
McGilchrist identifies the left hemisphere with the 'ego', which, in psychological terms is a false image of 'who we are'. Most people in industrial/capitalist society experience giving up material possessions as death, because their ego ie their concept of themselves - is tied up with owning 'stuff'. That's why they cling on to it, even though, logically, they know that the world is coming apart.
Great book. Interesting to read that the corpus callosum is not just the information highway between the two halves of the brain, but a way of keeping the two worlds separate (through its inhibitory properties). This quote of yours above: "more and more work would come to the overtake by the meta-process of documenting or justifying what one was doing or supposed to be doing." applies precisely to my experience as a public school teacher, and the overly specific and categorized evaluation of my work precipitated my retirement a year earlier than I had planned.
My only problem with the book was in his discussion of modern art, which I happen to like. Surrealism, in particular, relies on the richness of the right brain, a fact he overlooks. But, in the main, his analysis, speculative as it is at times, was thoughtful and thrilling to read.
Any chance I can coax an answer to "Do you have other big-picture, polymath books you can recommend more strongly?" in exchange for my Audible review of Elephant? (Says it should post in 1 or 2 days)
Like Travis says, individuals don't "want" to make big life changes on principle, but probably only as a (hidden) reaction to penalties for deviating, ie an 'internalized adequacy'.
Of course this has all the problems of paternalism - how do we elicit their "true" preferences?
To be fair, he isn't claiming to account for political differences today. He's describing how we are different from our distant ancestors, and from what he wants us to be.
I don't think the societal rifts we see today have much of a link in over-prioritization of either brain hemisphere, since both common political sides contain heavy amounts of either hemisphere's attributes. For example: The Political Left has more of a disdain for traditional structures (Which allegedly offends the Right-Brain) while valuing connections and the emotions of others (Which the Right Brain is in charge of); Conversely, the Political Right values the traditional structures (Which the Right-Brain is in charge of) while devaluing the emotions of others (Which offends the Right-Brain).
But no one believes that having a 10x smaller brain won't have any implications, even if they haven't found them yet. And the left v right split is the biggest structural feature of our brains, so it surely must reflect an important structural and functional choice.
There's a reason that neuroscientists have stopped talking about left/right differences, and that's because (a) their effects are completely blown out of proportion and (b) differences between individual brains are bigger than any left/right difference.
For anyone who wants to believe that tiny structural differences can cause entire cultural flaws: you need to check out the work of Dr John Lorber. He examined people with extraordinarly tiny brains (down to 10% of their original size), and they barely showed any different behavior than normal-brained-people.
If individuals don't want to make big life changes in principle, why should civilizations do that? If its better for each person not to change, maybe it is also better for all of us together not to change.
"But how many of us choose to move to simpler more static worlds because of this, when they have a choice?"
"Yes instability may cut happiness, but again, how many of us would choose to move to a stabler world, and give up the many benefits of growth?"
It's possible for it to be the case both that people would be happier in a simpler, more static, more stable world, and also that they wouldn't choose to move away from a more complex, more dynamic, less stable world that they are born into. A large part of what influences our decision making is explicit and implicit calculations of what our peers (in the world we grew up in) will think of us; and even aside from that point, a person may prefer to not make big life changes on principle even if they are not aware that this is the preference they're acting on and use other rationalizations for why they wouldn't switch to the other world.
That's the point - there's isn't much different between left and right in modern politics - both are left-hemisphere dominant views. There is an alternative right-hemisphere dominant view that exists, but doesn't get much attention, because it isn't concerned with owning the means of production. You might call this view 'anarchism'.
McGilchrist identifies the left hemisphere with the 'ego', which, in psychological terms is a false image of 'who we are'. Most people in industrial/capitalist society experience giving up material possessions as death, because their ego ie their concept of themselves - is tied up with owning 'stuff'. That's why they cling on to it, even though, logically, they know that the world is coming apart.
Great book. Interesting to read that the corpus callosum is not just the information highway between the two halves of the brain, but a way of keeping the two worlds separate (through its inhibitory properties). This quote of yours above: "more and more work would come to the overtake by the meta-process of documenting or justifying what one was doing or supposed to be doing." applies precisely to my experience as a public school teacher, and the overly specific and categorized evaluation of my work precipitated my retirement a year earlier than I had planned.
My only problem with the book was in his discussion of modern art, which I happen to like. Surrealism, in particular, relies on the richness of the right brain, a fact he overlooks. But, in the main, his analysis, speculative as it is at times, was thoughtful and thrilling to read.
Any chance I can coax an answer to "Do you have other big-picture, polymath books you can recommend more strongly?" in exchange for my Audible review of Elephant? (Says it should post in 1 or 2 days)
Robin, do you even Inadequate Equilibria?
Like Travis says, individuals don't "want" to make big life changes on principle, but probably only as a (hidden) reaction to penalties for deviating, ie an 'internalized adequacy'.
Of course this has all the problems of paternalism - how do we elicit their "true" preferences?
To be fair, he isn't claiming to account for political differences today. He's describing how we are different from our distant ancestors, and from what he wants us to be.
I don't think the societal rifts we see today have much of a link in over-prioritization of either brain hemisphere, since both common political sides contain heavy amounts of either hemisphere's attributes. For example: The Political Left has more of a disdain for traditional structures (Which allegedly offends the Right-Brain) while valuing connections and the emotions of others (Which the Right Brain is in charge of); Conversely, the Political Right values the traditional structures (Which the Right-Brain is in charge of) while devaluing the emotions of others (Which offends the Right-Brain).
But no one believes that having a 10x smaller brain won't have any implications, even if they haven't found them yet. And the left v right split is the biggest structural feature of our brains, so it surely must reflect an important structural and functional choice.
There's a reason that neuroscientists have stopped talking about left/right differences, and that's because (a) their effects are completely blown out of proportion and (b) differences between individual brains are bigger than any left/right difference.
For anyone who wants to believe that tiny structural differences can cause entire cultural flaws: you need to check out the work of Dr John Lorber. He examined people with extraordinarly tiny brains (down to 10% of their original size), and they barely showed any different behavior than normal-brained-people.
If individuals don't want to make big life changes in principle, why should civilizations do that? If its better for each person not to change, maybe it is also better for all of us together not to change.
"But how many of us choose to move to simpler more static worlds because of this, when they have a choice?"
"Yes instability may cut happiness, but again, how many of us would choose to move to a stabler world, and give up the many benefits of growth?"
It's possible for it to be the case both that people would be happier in a simpler, more static, more stable world, and also that they wouldn't choose to move away from a more complex, more dynamic, less stable world that they are born into. A large part of what influences our decision making is explicit and implicit calculations of what our peers (in the world we grew up in) will think of us; and even aside from that point, a person may prefer to not make big life changes on principle even if they are not aware that this is the preference they're acting on and use other rationalizations for why they wouldn't switch to the other world.
Thank you for the interesting overview. This book has been on my radar since Roberts dedicated a more fawning episode of Econtalk to it.
I don't recall you doing a list of favorite/formative books back when Cowen was inspiring lots of top ten lists.
Do you have other big-picture, polymath books you can recommend more strongly?