Absolutely brillant! Both the way you comment on McGilchrist and Mcgilchrist himself! The quotations at the end indeed are a description of our Corona-World, it is almost uncanny how precise this description turns out to be. Deep thanks, dear Monika, a fascinating piece to read and to think about!
Geoff, thanks for your comments and the titles, none of which I've read (yet). Taylor's memoir sounds really fascinating and I might read it before I tackle The Matter with Things, another more recent McGilchrist tome. This is a topic that I should have tackled sooner...both my brains are feeling their age these days...
Strangely, I lost or lent out two (cheaply acquired) paperback copies of this book before surrendering and buying it full price retail at Banyen Books. Have only read extracts since then, so thanks for engaging my interest again, Monika. Particularly by brilliantly connecting current COVID-related madness to Gilchrist’s last chapters on his (pre-2020) prediction of left hemisphere dominance skewing the near future (now here) in dystopic ways.
For a deeper dive into this topic, I would recommend Julian Jaynes’ oddball 1978 classic, ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.’ But first and foremost, Jill Bolte Taylor’s memoir, My Stroke of Insight, written about the scary yet rewarding exprience of having her left hemisphere go offline - and getting a Master class on interconnection after the Emissary was booted out of the way. A memoir that exactly supports the perceptual points made by Gilchrist.
Kudos for finishing Gilchrist’s book before I did. And summarizing it so brilliantly!
Powerful and necessary piece, Monika. Have more to add a bit later, but for now I just have to say only a writer at the top of their game could so cleverly compress The Master and the Emissary this way: “His thesis about the danger of left-brain dominance can be summed up in one of the numerous clinical outcomes he cites about patients whose right brains have been damaged. If you suffer from right brain damage, you can’t see the door because you are fixated on the handle. We, our society, is just like those patients. We need help to stop fixating on handles so we can get through the actual door, into the next room, the next reality. The arrogant Emissary can only see handles, not doors.” Bravo!
Absolutely brillant! Both the way you comment on McGilchrist and Mcgilchrist himself! The quotations at the end indeed are a description of our Corona-World, it is almost uncanny how precise this description turns out to be. Deep thanks, dear Monika, a fascinating piece to read and to think about!
Geoff, thanks for your comments and the titles, none of which I've read (yet). Taylor's memoir sounds really fascinating and I might read it before I tackle The Matter with Things, another more recent McGilchrist tome. This is a topic that I should have tackled sooner...both my brains are feeling their age these days...
Strangely, I lost or lent out two (cheaply acquired) paperback copies of this book before surrendering and buying it full price retail at Banyen Books. Have only read extracts since then, so thanks for engaging my interest again, Monika. Particularly by brilliantly connecting current COVID-related madness to Gilchrist’s last chapters on his (pre-2020) prediction of left hemisphere dominance skewing the near future (now here) in dystopic ways.
For a deeper dive into this topic, I would recommend Julian Jaynes’ oddball 1978 classic, ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.’ But first and foremost, Jill Bolte Taylor’s memoir, My Stroke of Insight, written about the scary yet rewarding exprience of having her left hemisphere go offline - and getting a Master class on interconnection after the Emissary was booted out of the way. A memoir that exactly supports the perceptual points made by Gilchrist.
Kudos for finishing Gilchrist’s book before I did. And summarizing it so brilliantly!
Powerful and necessary piece, Monika. Have more to add a bit later, but for now I just have to say only a writer at the top of their game could so cleverly compress The Master and the Emissary this way: “His thesis about the danger of left-brain dominance can be summed up in one of the numerous clinical outcomes he cites about patients whose right brains have been damaged. If you suffer from right brain damage, you can’t see the door because you are fixated on the handle. We, our society, is just like those patients. We need help to stop fixating on handles so we can get through the actual door, into the next room, the next reality. The arrogant Emissary can only see handles, not doors.” Bravo!