Article Finally Published

ABSTRACT

Modern humans are failing to attain their existential potential, expressed as flourishing. Simultaneously, mega- problems like climate change have arisen as unintended consequences of normal societal behaviors. Both failings lie at the deepest root of modern culture, the way we think we think, and consequently choose our norms and design our cultural institutions. The paper explicates a transformative model of cognition, recently developed by Iain McGilchrist, that raises the possibility of flourishing. According to the model, each brain hemisphere attends to the world differently and, thus, produces two distinctive actors. When the right is master, actions reflect the immediate external world, that is, they care for it. When the left controls, actions reflect a virtual world of facts and theories that have been abstracted from experience and stored in the left hemisphere. Its actions are instrumental and threat the real world as a resource. The ills and failings of modernity spring from an excess of left-brain domination. Flourishing, as the desired state of human and natural affairs, requires rejuvenating the right side as master. Some practical approaches, for example, mindfulness exercises, are offered. Pragmatic inquiry, importantly, should become the primary method for dealing with such large, complex problems.

The paper builds on my previous work on flourishing, and my book, The Right Way to Flourish: Reconnecting with the Real World, but expands on the parts dealing with the divided-brain-model. I introduce a new taxonomy of behaviors tied to the way the two brain hemispheres interact and which side maintains the mastery. While written primarily for a management school audience, the paper is relevant to all institutions that contribute to flourishing. If you should read the paper, I would love to get your comments.