I have been puzzled ever since I was introduced to McGilchrist’s divided-brain-model as to what determined which hemisphere would dominate at any moment. That is a different question than asking which one was dominant over a long time. The second relates to the overall character of individual behaviors, as well as the general character of institutional behaviors, from the smallest, like families to the largest, that of societies as a whole. My own work echoes McGilchrist’s finding that modern, industrial societies act as if they have a collective left-brain that has dominates the cognitive domain. My path, however, to this… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Error of Explication
The idea of a Gestalt is central to this book: by which I mean the form of a whole that cannot be reduced to parts without the loss of something essential to its nature. The experience of understanding involves a shift from what seems initially chaotic or formless, to a coherent stable form or picture, a Gestalt – or from an existing Gestalt to a new and better one, that seems richer than the one it replaces. (Iain McGilchrist: The Matter with Things) One of the key differences between the two brain hemispheres, according to Iain McGilchrist is the… Read More
Continue ReadingCleaning Up Messes
Neologisms, like polycrises, often appear to clarify what has been confusing and intractable, but are also often unnecessary and continue to obfuscate, not clarify. Certainly the world is facing the multiple crises, but the proper response is not to convene ever more scientists to produce ever more scientific truths or ever more engineers or economists to produce ever more fixes. All these crises have profound impacts on human beings and involve solutions that inexorably have ethical consequences. A couple of planners, Rittel and Webber, in a now classic paper, called these kind of problems, wicked problems, to distinguish them from… Read More
Continue ReadingPolycrises and Pragmatism
This post adds to the last few entries. Recently, I had a short comment rejected by the GTN network on the grounds that it did not contribute to their general discussion of how to use the resources of the many communities involved to initiate action. Their call included this sentence, “The time has come for embarking on a new phase that shifts emphasis from the realm of ideas to the realm of action.” My argument was primarily that their call to action was premature because they had not properly identified the targets that they should be aiming at, nor have… Read More
Continue ReadingGetting the Job Done
The big problems the Planet is facing can be traced back to a root cause: domination. Climate change and other “environmental” concerns arise from human activities that dominate the natural world. We impose our will through actions resulting in changes that upset the natural order. Social concerns also arise from the same cause whenever humans are compelled by other humans to act in undignified ways, that is, to act according to someone else’s intentions. Domination, per se, is not necessarily a bad thing. Dominating the natural system did not create significant problems for many millennia because it was sufficiently resilient… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Importance of Truth
If you are driving to a particular place, but following the wrong map, you won’t get there, except by chance. If your cognitive map does not match reality—the terrain of the world in which your actions inhere—outcomes won’t match intentions. Unintentional consequences, like inequality or global warming may appear. Stated otherwise, reality always wins the game of life, sooner or later. This truth governs collective as well as individual life. This should be obvious, but is being ignored in political life today. Democracy and truth are inextricably woven together. The will of the majority is meaningless unless that will fits… Read More
Continue ReadingFraming a Flourishing Future
This post is a version of a message I posted on the SCORAI list serve recently, but also make good sense as a standalone message. SCORAI is a global coalition of academics and others drawn together by the idea of “sustainable consumption” and related subjects. I was responding to a post focused on World Transformation Movements that began with this sentence: “The Transnational Institute, Oscar Reyes’ Change Finance Not the Climate, suggests that in order to get the needed change we need to change what Lakoff calls, the frame.” My response follows. The first sentence in Tom’s message is absolutely… Read More
Continue ReadingMcGilchrist, Meaning, the Divided Brain, and History-making
I came to realize an important error in my writing, that of the sloppy way I have been using the important word, “Meaning.” I have generally used it to apply to the whole of situations that are being attended to primarily by the left brain hemisphere. Meaning can also be applied to individual words in the sense that we know the meaning of an isolated word, such as desk, or run, or over, or fast, or slowly. The conventional use of semantics refers to the essential meaning of individual or groups of words. Merriam Webster dictionary defines semantics as: “the… Read More
Continue ReadingFinding Something Good in Covid-19
Everyday more bad news. Deaths around the world have reached into the hundreds of thousands. Economies have shut down, leaving millions unemployed. I was born in the middle of the Great Depression, and certainly never expected to see anything like that again. But here it is. One might ask of anything good can come out of this crisis. The best answer to that question that I read about is some return to normalcy. But when and how close to the old status quo is a big unknown. Fewer people are asking a related question, “Why should we return to the… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s Time to Rethink Our Two-party System
Although the two-party system may seem like a permanent, built-in feature of our political economy, there is nothing in the Constitution that comes close to mandating it. The extreme politicization of the Covid-19 pandemic and virtually every other consequential issue is evidence that its time has come and gone. Without paying heed to a fundamental tenet of America governance—of the people, by the people, for the people—our great nation is on the road to perishing. Lincoln was surely thinking about all the people. All too real in this pandemic where the deaths due to the virus have already exceeded 20,000… Read More
Continue Reading