The Master And HER Emissary

By Ajax the Great (Pete Jackson)

(Originally posted on the "Vive La Difference!" blog)

Neuroscience is one of those fields that, despite exponential growth in recent years and decades, is still largely in its infancy.  We have truly come a LONG ways since the bygone days of phrenology over a century ago, but even now, so much of what we thought we knew with at least reasonable certainty just a few years ago is now revealed to be not only inaccurate, but sometimes even 100% wrong.  And when it is ultimately watered down for the layperson as "pop neuroscience", such an observation applies a fortiori. 

Once in a while, however, a book or two comes along that really does make an impact, and largely in a correct way.  There are two such books, both written well over a decade ago, that still have yet to be successfully and conclusively refuted. They seem disparate at first, but they can actually be synthesized, as you will see by the end of this article.  

Starting with the most recent, The Master and His Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist (2009), we delve into the familiar idea of the left vs right hemispheres of the brain.  Only unlike the usual surface-level analysis in that we see in pop neuroscience, this one is a real deep dive into the truly resounding implications of these brain differences for society and civilization.  Ten years later, it was even made into a documentary, The Divided Brain (2019), by McGilchrist himself along with award-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Dylyn, et al.

To summarize:  the two hemispheres of the brain each see the world and process information in fundamentally different ways:  the left brain is more reductionistic in thinking, while the right is more holistic in thinking.  The left is more logical, analytical and detail-oriented, while the right is more creative, intuitive, and sees the bigger picture.  The left is more linear, while the right is more non-linear.  The left sees the map, while the right sees the territory.  And so on.  While both sides are of course quite valuable and necessary, the brain functions best overall when the right brain is in charge.  The left is a great servant, but a terrible master, hence the title of the book.  And Western culture has, for thousands of years, oscillated between favoring the overall relative dominance of each of the two hemispheres.  In recent centuries and decades, as in some other historical periods as well, we have become far too left-brain dominant, with very negative consequences, according to the author.  Not only does the left not really know what the right is doing, but at least half the time the left doesn't even know what the left is doing!  The left brain has thus essentially hijacked society, and that in turn leaves us "increasingly incapable of grappling with critical economic, environmental, and social issues, ones that shape our very future as a species", as the documentary would put it.  I am largely oversimplifying what he said, of course, but that is the basic gist of it overall.

One obvious reason for this excessive left-brain dominance could be due to poorly-designed education, of course.  But another could be that the left brain is faster in terms of processing speed than the right, and the pace of life is undoubtedly much, much faster nowadays than even the recent past.  Though the latter would be more of a chicken-or-the egg question.  And as we will see, there is more to it:

(And to all of the political conservatives and reactionaries who try in vain to shoehorn all of this into their silly left-wing vs right-wing political spectrum, like that one guy on The Daily Sceptic did recently, please get your own ideas.  This book, by a renowned Oxford scholar, truly thoroughly transcends such a naive interpretation of politics.)

The other book, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess:  The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain (1998), is a bit more amateurish and not quite as science-y, but answers another piece of the puzzle:  that of gender.  That is, it helps partially explain of how Matriarchy gave way to patriarchy thousands of years ago. Could it be that excessive left-brain dominance is at least partly a stand-in for male dominance, and vice-versa, in a vicious cycle?  That assumption may not really be all that farfetched.  Per Wikipedia in a nutshell:

Shlain began with the insight: "when a critical mass of people within a society acquire literacy, especially alphabet literacy, left hemispheric modes of thought are reinforced at the expense of right hemispheric ones, which manifests as a decline in the status of images, women's rights, and goddess worship." He then applied this paradigm to 35 pairs of concepts and historical periods.

(And that, ladies and gentlemen, also explains the esoteric reason for the uneasiness of certain famous ancient patriarchs about so-called "graven images" as well.  They may have scoffed at the golden calf, but they (at least metaphorically) worshiped the "golden phallus" all the same.)

Shlain also, more hopefully, believes that in the more recent trends towards images in today's media, our brains are actually trending towards becoming more balanced, with the right brain making a comeback (along with, not coincidentally, the rise of Women), in contrast to McGilchrist.  So which is it?  If one attempts to answer the question with one's right brain, one can come to the conclusion that both are true to some degree since we are in fact experiencing two diverging trends at the same time that have not completely cancelled each other out.  Only time will tell which one wins.

It is well-known that Women's brains are relatively more balanced between the left and right hemispheres, though at least somewhat favoring the right side, while men's brains tend to be more lateralized, tending to favor the left side.  Not every study agrees, of course, but the general weight of the evidence (whether seen through the left-brain perspective OR the right-brain perspective) favors that overall interpretation.  And of course, the late, great Ashley Montagu noted in his book, The Natural Superiority of Women (1953, and last updated in 1998), Women have a significantly larger corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects and allows the two halves of the brain to communicate with one another.  (No wonder men are so bad at multitasking, for example.)

That is, just like we saw which side of the brain needs to be in charge, so too do we now see which gender needs to be in charge as well, for more or less the same reasons.  

"As above, so below", in other words.

One sticking point I have with McGilchrist is that when he discusses the Renaissance, as a period (along with the Romantic period) where the left and right brains were supposedly in perfect balance (in contrast to both the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which he disdains as being too left-dominant), he completely elides and glosses over the Inquisiton and Burning Times (aka Women's Holocaust) during that time, which is a glaring omission that if noted would suggest that perhaps there wasn't such a perfect balance after all at that time.  But in light of what I just noted about gender differences of the brain, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why.  Sylvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (2004), would truly have a field day with that!  (Spoiler alert:  the "witches" and "heretics" targeted were in fact (mostly) Women revolutionaries who attempted to overthrow the patriarchy during the rough transition from the slow implosion of feudalism to the rise of patriarchy's ultimate favorite left-brainchild, capitalism.)

So now, we see how it all ties together.  It should really be called, "The Master and HER Emissary". And it is probably about as close as one can get to a "theory of everything".

And truly, a brain divided against itself cannot stand.

(Mic drop)

UPDATE:  See here for a good, quick animation about McGilchrist's book and documentary.  Also note how, contrary to one of the biggest pop-culture neuromyths out there, true reason actually requires both hemispheres, and emotion is also present in both as well.  Food for thought.