Where We Meet (and the Possibility of Democracy)
On a train in Fife recently, I met a man who was deeply opposed to Scottish independence because he didn’t trust the SNP. And in another conversation in Shetland, I met a woman who assumed I must be a nationalist because I support Scottish independence. When we put each other or any aspect of life into boxes like this, we’re not really meeting – we’re caught up in our ideas of who we are and what is possible. In these times of incredible challenge, we might want to consider the possibility of stepping outside such strictures so we can really listen to each other.
When I worked in a youth club in a former mining village outside Edinburgh (around 20 years ago), I was stunned by what they called a meeting. The manager of the organisation stood in front and talked at the rest of us. Eventually I raised my hand and said, “I thought this was a meeting.” The equally stunned response from the boss was, “It is.” I replied, “but we’re not meeting each other – not sharing the challenges we’re facing, not discussing how we can adapt and learn, not inspiring and uplifting each other.” We were just listening to the person who considered themselves the centre of things.
As the psychiatrist, neuroscientist & philosopher Iain McGilchrist of Skye has pointed out, this is the nature of the left-hemisphere brain dominance which afflicts our culture. The left hemisphere wants to be important, wants to be right, and only sees life as a problem to be solved through rational analysis and the imposition of rules. Perhaps this is why so many people distrust political parties…for they, too, are often out of balance in this regard.
For a more balanced life with real possibilities for cooperative democracy and ecological wellbeing, McGilchrist tells us that the role of the left hemisphere is not to control but to support the right hemisphere. The latter takes a broad view of things, looks for connections rather than divisions, embraces the arts and spirituality, is open and curious.
So for those of us who aren’t party activists or independence campaigners who want to contribute in some way to a more democratic Scotland (and world), here’s a clue. We can be engaging creatively in physical movement and play, writing and other arts, spending time in nature and in connection with whatever spirituality means to us. We can help rebalance the aspects of consciousness in ourselves in order to help transform the way we relate to others. These changes spread through whatever systems we may be part of – family systems, work places, local communities – all of which are interconnected in more ways than we can possibly imagine.
I’m told that by questioning the nature of meetings in the youth club, many changes followed my departure. Because I was used to working in cooperative, democratic and participatory organisations and groups, my question helped others see that maybe that could be possible in the youth club as well. Probably we’re all planting seeds like this. And the more we nourish ourselves, the more those alternative, healthier systems can come into flower and go to seed themselves.
The great Sufi poet Rumi once wrote, “Beyond ideas of right and wrong (i.e., judgement), there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” The same teaching is hidden within Judeo-Christian teachings. In the garden of Eden, there is only peace and joy. Only when the fruit of the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ (i.e., judgement) is eaten, that peace and joy is replaced by shame and feelings of being excluded. When we are judging ourselves or each other, it seems to me, we cannot truly meet and there can be no real democracy.
All spiritual traditions point to a place within (a garden if you like), that is beyond judgement. A place of natural peace and joy. A place where love rules. This place can be felt physically in the heart.
As part of a Heart Of Living Yoga teacher training course, I once had the great blessing of spending time with a 97 year old Benedictine monk called Brother Herbert who had escaped the Nazis in his youth. “Brother Herbert, when you pray do you feel something around here?” I asked him while gesturing to my heart. “Of course,” he replied, “that’s how you do it!”
Meditation or prayer is not necessarily a reaching out to some distant authority, but rather connecting directly within to the natural wisdom of the heart which knows how to listen, how to meet, how to connect with others in a way that supports them in their own blossoming.
Probably we all want to live in a Scotland (and a world) where everyone can flourish, can truly be ourselves, can share our unique gifts. We can each start with nourishing ourselves and let that ripple out through the culture to the whole of the world.
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Vishwam is on the teaching team for Heart of the Matter, a six week online course exploring how we can work together in a heart-centred way to support the transformation of our world. The course is offered as part of the gift economy where everyone contributes according to their own budget. Proceeds go to support under-privileged children and their families in Sri Lanka, Brasil, India, the USA & UK. All Welcome!
Another fine, and inspiring, offering. Keep them coming!
Bless you, Ian. Thank you for your encouragement! So glad the writings are helpful for you.
You cannot simply ‘point out’ “the nature of the left-hemisphere brain dominance which afflicts our culture”. It really is not something anyone can see, and I’m extremely sceptical that this exists in any meaningful sense. I expressed some agreement but more doubts and disagreement with your selected McGilchrist interview in your previous article:
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2023/07/18/joyful-solidarity-in-a-drowning-world/
Others have apparently noted his reductionist critique of reductionism.
Or as our Scottish NHS puts it:
“Each individual lobe is recognised to have particular key roles, however it is important to note that they do not function in isolation but as part of a wider system of neural networks.”
Judgement is required for comparing, understanding, deciding, planning, monitoring, challenging, questioning, correcting, and evaluating. Unless your dream is for all humans to live in a blissful persistent vegetative state (a judgement that what is best for everyone is a kind of mystical mass lobotomisation), I can’t see where you are going with this article.
Hello dear SleepingDog, thank you for your thoughtful comments.
Iain McGilchrist is a world-class expert who has reviewed tremendous amounts of research on the subject of brain hemisphere function. His work is not reductive, though I do present a very simplified version here. You might like to read the introduction to his book The Master and his Emmisary (free on kindle) to get a better sense. He also has shorter YouTube videos.
And thank you for pointing out the importance of judgement in the sense that you use it. This is different from being judgemental which is how I used the word.
You may be interested to know that mystical experience often leads to tremendous action in the world. Many great revolutionaries have been mystics – Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, bell hooks, Hildegard of Bingen, the Zapatistas, Ursula Le Guin, just for starters off the top of my head.
Thank you again for so kindly engaging with what is shared here. I am so very sorry it’s confusing. Certainly that will be due to my own limitations as a writer.
Warmest regards,
Vishwam
I have tried to track down Iain McGilchrist’s views on removing statues from churches (apparently he’s one of the God Squad, not sure which lobe governs superstition), but I haven’t had the inclination to sit through one of his two-hour podcast interviews with Jordan Peterson or John Cleese.
He may be using ‘Puritans’ as a dog whistle to attack people who want to remove statues of slavers and colonialists from places of study and worship:
https://channelmcgilchrist.com/how-puritanism-works/
At least, that is my reading of why he refused to give examples of what he was talking about in the video interview you posted. Presumably the New Puritans are largely atheists or another of his targets.
Of course, my comment may just be part of a nefarious plot by left hemispheres to… erm… whatever. Something to do with Western Civilization and its lobe-master saviours, I gathered before tuning out. The commentariat seem pretty certain McGilchrist is waging coy war on woke, anyway, while carefully not mentioning the word or its key themes (like anti-slavery, anti-colonialism, anti-racism and maybe anti-clericalism, I guess).
I don’t mind the Puritans, providing they mind their own business and don’t go all missionary on me and start making claims on my belief. It’s only when they start trying to sell me something that I reach for my little philosophical hammer.
Theirs in its purest form is an ambivalent behavioural response, expressed in theological language and governed by the rules of that language’s ‘game’, to various tensions and conflicts in an age of dislocations (the so-called ‘polycrisis’).
Puritanism recognises from the depths of its predestinarian despair that we can do little or nothing to repair those dislocations. It works instead to overcome the tensions and conflcts to which they give rise by explicitly demanding a self-consciousness that makes its practitioners mindful of their own behaviour in relation to the polycrisis. It’s a form of meditation, an ongoing examination and reformation of one’s own life.
Which mindfulness no bad thing; for an unexamined life is not worth living.
Though there are, of course, other ‘games’ in town. Puritanism is only one of the many different and incommensurable ‘language games’ or ‘forms of life’ that make up our contemporary culture. (Also sprach Wittgenstein, who was a bit of a Puritan himself.)
I’ve heard Iain refer to himself as a Taoist. His concern, we might say, is how trauma creates a narrow approach to life and institutionalises itself. This includes colonialism, patriarchy, etc.
May we all open to healing that trauma, for the good of all, including ourselves.
I have found this a very enlightening and positive article. I liked the perspective. I found it so much so I asked my husband John to read it . I thought he would find something to ponder in it. Thank you
Thank you, Marybel, for taking the time to share your appreciation. I’m glad you and your husband found it helpful to read.
I enjoyed Iain’s critique of reductive materialism and the case he made for the irreducibility of the subjective to the objective aspects of our worldings (the realms of the humanities and the sciences respectively) in his most recent book, The Matter of Things; very much in the totalitarian tradition of Spinoza, about which I’ve recently written, I ‘d say. And I’m looking forward to reading (if I’m spared!) his reflections on the humanities and the sciences and the creative tensions of their dialectic (‘meeting’) in a forthcoming book that, I believe, has been commissioned by the OUP.
230901, lovely to hear you’re finding McGilchrist’s work inspiring as well!
I didn’t find anything new in Iain’s book to be inspired about; I just enjoyed reading it.
I engaged with reductive materialism in a previous life, when I led a book seminar on E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology: A New Synthesis; so my enjoyment in reprising the arguments was more nostalgic rather than inspiring. Iain also reached the same conclusions that I did back then, concerning the irreducibility of the subjective to the objective aspects (and vice versa) of ‘God’ or ‘Nature’ or ‘the Absolute’ or the ‘Being of beings’ or whatever you want to call it (I currently prefer ‘our worldings’), which is always satisfying.
Of course, the ongoing dialectical task is (as always) to overcome those conclusions through critique and to thereby grow one’s worlding.
I struggle to take seriously a course which asserts “When you realise Earth and Heart are spelt with the same letters. It all starts to make sense.”
Well, Live and Evil are spelt with the same letters, but what of that? Pattern over-recognition can in extreme forms be a symptom of severe mental illness like paranoid schizophrenia, as well as various forms or religious delusion and hallucination. Basically, psychosis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition_(psychology)#False_pattern_recognition
Plus, of course, that assertion is a bit Anglocentric. You can check the etymology but I think you’ll find the two words are unrelated.
I’ve followed these articles for a while, and there is either a trend towards losing touch with reality, or (and I hesitate to say this, but the evidence is building) signs of an agenda quite different from the lovey-dovey one portrayed (maybe not the author’s own, but in that case why not address my expressed concerns directly?). Surely you know what ideological space Jordan Peterson and John Cleese, the Spectator, Unherd and Anglicanism occupy? Where did you first encounter Iain McGilchrist, and what makes you think he is a ‘world class’ sage? As opposed to, say, a right-wing culture-war crank?
The demonisation of mental illness again: what Iain says is to be disregarded because he’s ‘mad’ (exhibits symptoms of psychosis).
Even if it were true that Iain is mentally ill, what’s the difference between saying that what someone says is to be disregarded just because they’re ill and that what someone says is to be disregarded just because they’re black, female, gay (or white, male, straight, for that matter); that what they say is to be disregarded just because they’re ‘other’?
Of course, you could counter this criticism of your behaviour by insisting that you’re not speaking literally when you say that Iain’s ‘mad’ but are speaking figuratively, in the same way that Iain’s speaking figuratively when he says things like ‘When you realise Earth and Heart are spelt with the same letters. It all starts to make sense.’
But, even so, to make mental illness a figure for sin or error (which commentators on Bella do a lot) is to stigmatise it.
Don’t worry, SleepingDog, the course doesn’t take itself that seriously, either.
Ss for Iain’s credentials, don’t takey word for it. I don’t actually know much about the right wing people and publications you mentioned – I personally don’t tend to give such things much attention myself.
Wishing you well,
Vishwam
@Vishwam Heckert, not taking oneself too seriously is likely a sign of maturity and wisdom, and few things could be as calculated as to throw off a sense of cultiness. On the other hand, awarding yourself fictitious titles would seem the opposite; I am not sure where ‘Dr’ Iain McGilchrist gets his doctorate entitlement from, and neither apparently are All Souls College, because when I asked, they merely referred me to his Wikipedia page, which does not claim that title, and indeed refers to his own website as a source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_McGilchrist
Whether this is merely clouded confusion, deception or delusions of grandeur, I couldn’t say, but it does not establish an atmosphere of trust. If a person embiggens their persona with unearned titles, what other falsehoods might they perpetuate? Still, a source and category for the McGilchrist doctorate outside of the McGilchrist hemispheres might still be forthcoming.
Iain McGilchrist is a medical doctor (psychiatry). He might have a PhD as well, I don’t know. If it’s reassuring for you, I did one myself (University of Edinburgh, 2005). But I’m feeling much better now!
You can find out more about Iain’s qualifications and publications from an independent organisation here.
https://galileocommission.org/iain-mcgilchrist/
A great piece by Visham Heckert which I can heartily endorse in terms of the work I have been doing in therapeutic healing and creative and personal development, and also in relation to Iain Gilchrist’s views around the affliction of left brained thinking. It is delightful to come across such enlightenment in the context of an independence supporting website.
The dominance of left brained thinking is well to the fore in being the problem central to most issues presented to me as a therapist. The neuroscience based psycho socio biological method of therapy I practise most often involves rebalancing the dominating left brain with the right brain whereby the right brain lifts to take a central position and the left brain adjusts to support and ground the right brains creativity in a new cycle of emergent insight, understanding, new thinking, and breaking creativity. Conflicts attaching to historic obsolescent patterns of limiting stuck oppositional thinking of right and wrong fall away making way for broader horizons of outlook, personal growth, confidence in being in the world, and of becoming in the dawning of a new day.
This happens in the course of a theatre or drama of the hands addressing the issue or challenge in which by default the movement of the right hand is controlled by the rational left brain, and the left hand by the right creative irrational brain, in an exploration of the issue or challenge and in its resolution in emergent new insight, understanding, positive thinking and an ecological breakthrough. Simultaneously a smile will generally break out across the face and the whole body falls into a relaxed posture. Hope is in the air.
What is notable and observable in the drama of the hands is the softening of a dominant, busy, over stressing intellectual fearful left hemisphere brain, and a changing relationship to the right brain through direct engagement with the senses as is most often experienced by the person engaged in the drama of the hands.
Life is experienced in the day to day primarily through the senses, and then only secondly by the intellect in sorting out correctly, or incorrectly in the case of an over busy overstressed dominant left brain, in response or reaction respectively, to the sensory experiences encountered.
The process is considerably enhanced where the person becomes involved or increases their participation in creativity of any kind, in activity, meditation, and experience and presencing in nature.
Einstein believed that irrational (right brained) creative thinking was necessary for scientific advancement. He drew out an equation to illustrate his thinking in this regard.
Iain Gilchrist’s comment re left hemisphere brain dominance afflicting our culture is certainly apt in terms of the we’re right- you’re wrong stuck calibre and tedium of thinking and propaganda constantly regurgitated by most of the media and by political parties and governments including those in Scotland. This needs to be swept aside and replaced by ecologically balanced creative right brained inspired and left brained grounded direction to inspire and attract new necessary support and traction to achieve independence.
The current evidence seems to suggest that the left and right sides of the brain control different functions in the body, but provides no compelling reason to suppose that either side of the brain can determine personality and behaviour.
The latest iteration of the idea that a person is either ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’, which in turn determines how they think and behave, emerged from the work of the biologist, Roger Sperry, in the 1960s.
Wondering why some people are more analytical, logical, fact-oriented, numerical, and prone to think in words than others who are in contrast more creative, free-thinking, intuitive, and prone to thinking visually, Sperry conjectured that everyone has one half of their brain, which is more dominant and determines their personality, thoughts, and behaviour. According to this hypothesis, left-brained people are more analytical and right-brained people are more creative. Some feminists took up this idea and subsequently suggested that the difference between left- and right-brained people is gendered.
Due to the different functions of the two brain hemispheres, the idea that people (and cultures) can be left-brained and right-brained is tempting. However, literature reviews reveal that subsequent research to test Sperry’s hypothesis suggests that the left brain vs. right brain theory doesn’t fit the facts. While specific parts of the brain do dominate the processing of different mental tasks, there is typically (i.e. except in cases of brain injury, whereby physical damage to the nerve fibres disrupts communication between the two hemispheres) no overall dominant side.
Of course, scientific research is never conclusive, but the left brain vs. the right brain theory does seem to generate more and greater anomalies than do alternative hypotheses, which is a consideration that counts against it in the economy of scientific thinking.
Neurodivergence (the fact that different people are differently ‘minded’ – that is, are disposed to think and behave in different ways) is more justly explained nowadays by theories that dispense with the idea of abnormality and imbalance and disease that’s implicit in the ‘left brain’/’right brain’ dichotomy.
Thank you so much, Gavin, for your thoughtful comments and wealth of experience! If you’d like to chat more, please do feel free to get in touch. You can contact me through my website at https://flowingwithlife.org
A great complementary piece by yourself .
Glad to hear you enjoyed it, Ian.
Wishing you well,
Vishwam
I love the quote by Rumi. I will memorize it.
Regarding Iain McGilchrist, the popular documentary film The Divided Brain, (CBC) on the website of the same name, is a good introduction to Iain’s life and work. Also includes appearances by John Cleese and Rowan Williams.
@Vanessa Dylyn, Iain McGilchrist styles himself ‘Dr’ on his website, and it appears on some academic sites, but his Wikipedia page makes no mention of the title. I thought it might be a literary degree, but seemingly not. Do you know if he really has such a qualification, or perhaps ‘Doctor’ is an honorary title? It could be a bit confusing if one simply assumed he was a ‘doctor of neuroscience’ or whatever.
https://channelmcgilchrist.com
Check-out Iain’s profile on Oxford University’s website: https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/person/dr-iain-mcgilchrist
Oh thank you, Vanessa, for letting us know about the documentary. I hadn’t be heard about that one.
With gratitude,
Vishy
Thanks for this Vishwam!
It also led me to dig a wee bit deeper into past writings, and so on.
Off out to look for Disnaeland, (by D D Johnson), and the Dispossessed, (by Ursula Le Guin.)
Thanks!
Hi Alistair, I hope you enjoy those two great novels. Perhaps this might be up your street, too?
https://www.flowingwithlife.org/events/sacred-anarchy-reading-circle