David Brooks wrote a very interesting oped piece the other day (Jan 28), commenting on the “sad, lonely, angry, and mean” state of the US society. It’s basically a plea for more humanities, especially art, in our lives. I don’t always agree with Brooks, but this piece is spot on. Additionally, he is following, very closely, the work of McGilchrist, although I doubt if he knows that. The article, in very different words and from a different platform, is pointing to the left-brain domination of our society, just as McGilchrist does. The problems he points to are the result of… Read More
Continue ReadingLetting the Rear-view Mirror Be Our Guide
Again, I apologize to my faithful followers for the silence on this blog for quite a while. No excuses really. I just haven’t felt I have much to say for a while. Some things have changed for me. My wife and I have moved into a senior living community after many decades in a big house. We have yet to finish unpacking, but are feeling very positive about the change. I hope to continue the blog on a more regular schedule once we are more settled. In any case, here are some thoughts i have been having lately. This post… Read More
Continue ReadingTime to Get Moving
I have been lately quoting Marx’s last “Thesis on Feuerbach” which reads: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Much as I admire Iain McGilchrist for his breakthrough work on the brain, I wish he would pay more attention (right-brain) to this timely aphorism. His first book, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, established the bi-hemispheric brain as the paradigm for the way we attend to the world and consequently act in it. It also pointed out, in excruciated detail, how… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Myth of the Self (3): The Right’s Kingdom—Wonder
Turning to the other side of the brain, the story is quite different. All the entries reflect the dominance of the right hemisphere and all are situation specific. The context of the setting is important, as any action is fitted to the immediate circumstances, unlike routines or habits, which are based on already established (in the left) patterns. The left hemisphere plays a part in most of these types of behaviors, offering up suggestions of responses it believes fit the situation, including options that may not. The right side can either accept or reject these inputs. The ability to say… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Myth of The Self (1)
I have just completed a course at the lifelong learning institution I belong to about three novels of displacement. Basically they are about how people respond after suddenly being transported from a world in which they have been acculturated to a completely different one. One was The Hunger Angel, by Herta Müller, a Nobel laureate in literature. It’s about an ethnic-German Romanian man who is removed to a Russian labor camp during WWII, and describes how he survives there during the 4-5 years he is interned. Another is Primo Levi’s, Survival in Auschwitz, an actual recounting of his experience. Other… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh
My wife and I had a conversation a few days ago about wisdom. It’s not an easy question. How can you tell whether or when someone is wise? Is it something about them that hangs in there? My response was very pragmatic. Wisdom shows up after the fact in the assessment of whatever action, often involving some guidance to another, was taken. Did it fit the circumstances, beyond anything routine? Routines are the opposite of wise acts they always fit, by definition of the word routine. Wisdom only shows up when the going gets tough and our routines fail us.… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Power of Mindfulness
The Buddhist sage, Thich Nhat Hanh, died this week. Arthur Brooks wrote a moving tribute to him in the Washington Post on January 23, 2022 focused on his contributions to bringing mindfulness to our largely sound asleep Western world. I have excerpted a number of paragraphs from Brooks’s article because they contain extroordinary clear connections to McGilchrist’s divided-brain-model. Mindfulness corresponds to moments when the right hemisphere is connecting us to the real world or, as Hanh writes, to the “present moment.” The opposite situation, where the left hemisphere is in command, is captured in the references to “exist[ing] outside the… Read More
Continue ReadingA Response to David Brooks
Here is yet another rejected oped piece, this one by the NYTimes. I wrote this in response to a David Brooks oped, headlined, “America Is Falling Apart at the Seams,” (click here to see it). He pointed to all the asocial events going on in the US, but could not identify any reason. That was the main thrust of his piece. My attempt to provide a good reason didn’t make it into the editorial pages. How can we, who think we have a solid clue to explain and repair our badly damaged social system, crack the wall that prevents the… Read More
Continue ReadingDrop the Irrelevant Adjectives
Who is Pete Buttigieg? He is the Secretary of Transportation. He is a gay man. His is married to Chasten Glezman. He is the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He is the only child of Jennifer Anne Montgomery and Joseph A. Buttigieg. He is a Christian. He is a Rhodes Scholar. He worked as a consultant at McKinsey. He drives some sort of automobile. He lives in a house with so many rooms. All this and more is in the Wikipedia article about him. So why whenever he is being covered in the news does the commentator begin with… Read More
Continue ReadingFraternal Twins (Part 6)
God Does Not Dwell in Religion’s Quarters. Ross Douthat’s column, “A Guide to Finding Faith” in the NYTimes today (8/15/2021) is basically a plea to find and hold onto faith in a transcendent God. I found the column difficult and very confusing to read and take in. And I believe that there is a very good reason for that. Douthat, like most others, mistakes faith in God for the experience of transcendence, which belongs in a different category and arises from a different side of the brain. In this post, I will argue that faith in God is a form… Read More
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