Left Right: Hemsipheres, Symbols, and Madness
Okay, I haven't blogged here for a while and there's a lot to cover. First, I have a new "Tond" novel and a short story coming out soon, the latter in an anthology. More on that later. Second, I'm going to propose a (new?) political theory; and of course, post about a book. Third, I'll see how all of those things relate to each other. Lets get started.
The Political Theory: Interpretations of Symbols
So here’s my idea.
Liberal (“libtard”) and Conservative (“conservatard”) are not only political; they represent entirely different ways of thinking and even perceiving the world. That they are different ways of thinking is maybe not news, but that they are different ways of perceiving the world may be. I don’t know the origin of these different ways of thinking. It doesn’t seem to be from different forms of education: I’ve seen roughly 50/50 splits in classes where I teach, where everybody supposedly has been educated in the same way. It seems to stem from earliest childhood, or even be inborn (like the difference between "visual" and "auditory" learners): there is a similar split in my own family and I, at least, think in one of these ways and cannot remember a time when my mind entertained the other one. But fortunately it’s not set in stone; with a little effort each can learn to, if not appreciate, at least understand the other.
Here’s the difference, and bear with me if this seems like an oversimplification.
The liberal lives in a world of signs and symbols, where everything connects to everything else and represents something else. Metaphors are the true way of looking at the world. The conservative, in contrast, lives in a world without signs and symbols, where one thing is one thing only, and things are disconnected. Metaphors are nothing more than lies. No wonder each thinks the other is uneducated, deceived, pathological, or downright evil.
Here are some examples of what I mean. 1.) I first noticed this years ago, when the movie E.T. came out. I immediately “realized” that the eponymous character was a Christ symbol (showing that I have the “liberal” frame of mind, by my definition above): he came down from “up there”, formed a small group of followers, delivered a message of love, was ostracized by the people in general, died to fulfil his message, came back to life, and went back “up there”. (Similar characters might include Frodo Baggins and Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl, though Frodo begins humbly rather than being from “up there”; this could be another part of the symbol.) So I was aghast to see, the very next day, some (not all) Christian ministers denouncing the film as satanic; it was attempting to replace Christ with an (inhuman!) fictional character and, at the same time, replace heaven with outer space. E.T.’s telepathy and ability to levitate things were seen as demonic (to me they were, possibly, “miracles” that justified my interpretation of the symbol). So here had been two entirely different “realizations” of the meaning of the film.
2.) Immediately after 9/11, some were saying said that “America deserved this.” (I don’t remember who “they” were specifically, but they were well-known people in the news.) To me (again, with my “liberal” way of thinking), this was nothing more than making connections: no one literally deserved being attacked, but the US had committed some crimes against other countries in the past and this was the result. I didn’t think much more about the statement, and concentrated on how horrible the attack itself was. Years later, political conservatives started proclaiming that “Liberals hate America!” and used this statement as proof. Again, two completely different interpretations.
3.) During the Trump presidency, Time Magazine ran a cover showing Donald Trump and an unnamed little girl facing off, each obviously showing contempt for the other. I, and most of my friends, thought that this was a metaphor for the round-up of “illegal” immigrant children (and the idea that anyone could be “illegal” was repulsive anyway). But I kept seeing on Facebook that plenty of people thought the cover was a hateful attack on the presidency, and a lie since there had been no actual argument publicized between Trump and a little girl.
4.) One more example, though this one’s not political in any way. I once heard someone complain that classical music was stupid because all the violins in the orchestra all played the same thing. I commented that one of something sounds different than many of something, and used the example that one person hitting pots and pans would sound different from twenty people hitting pots and pans (I wanted to make an example that wasn’t necessarily musical). The complainer gave me a condescending smirk and proclaimed that he wasn’t stupid enough to listen to people hitting pots and pans. At the time I merely thought he was rather dull, but years later when I brought this up in a music class, about half of the students said that the complainer’s attitude was the result of me using such a silly analogy. Again, I (and apparently about half of the students in the class) saw it as a metaphor, while the other half had thought that I was actually talking about people hitting pots and pans. (Apologies here to John Cage percussion pieces.)
So what of it? This really has no conclusion except that we need to learn how each other think. I don’t want any part of a political movement that labels people illegal, thinks it’s okay to overthrow a democratically elected government if you don’t agree with its policies, or sees a face mask to protect from a deadly disease as oppression of the masses; but these are not really what conservatism is about. These kinds of aberrations have occurred before. Conservatism, I think, is about continuing traditions and (more to my point here) seeing the individual, unconnectedness, of people and things. Liberalism is about changing what needs to be changed, and (again, more to my point here) seeing the collective, connectedness of people and things. (In actuality, everything in the world is probably both individual and connected, literal and symbolic.) If each learns how the other mentally represents the world, then we will be able to live more peacefully together.
The Book: Interpretations by the Hemispheres
The Master and His Emissary
by Iain McGilchrist
Not so much a book of psychology as a treatise on the relationship of brain science to philosophy and art, this magnum opus makes a claim about the differing nature of the brain's hemispheres and then backs it up with fascinating clinical examples (some subtle, some barely believable!) and writings from various time periods. The conclusion is not the expected "logic vs. emotions" of pop psychology, but something more elusive. The right hemisphere is apparently the "master" and perceives the world from a holistic, top-down approach; the left is its "servant" but breaks down what it receives from the right into small fragments and then builds them back up in a nick-picky bottom-up procedure. The author then shows examples of the same type of laterality elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and outlines cases of what happens to humans when one of the hemispheres is damaged (resulting in the other taking over). Fascinating stuff. The second half of the book falters, in my opinion, when the author speculates that the two hemispheres have been alternately in ascendency throughout history and are the causes of various artistic and philosophical movements. I have no doubt that ideas relating to one or the other can be "in vogue" during certain times, and the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. However, Mcgilchrist's theory has a certain anthropomorphism of the hemispheres themselves, almost as if each (collectively the right or left hemispheres of all the human brains of the world) has a conscious agenda of its own, unrelated to the "owner" of each particular brain. It's a fascinating idea, but he doesn't give any explanation as how such a collective plan could come to be or what could sustain it. The author also has a not-so-hidden agenda of his own: denouncing "modernism" as a left-brain takeover, leading to a shocking fragmentation of the world along with all its attendant problems of pollution, climate change, totalitarian regimes and/or runaway capitalism. He compares the "modernist" view of the world to that of autism or schizophrenia. But that’s not what we experience. Concerning the arts: it’s true that Picasso, Stravinsky, James Joyce, and even Elvis were shocking in their time, but so were Romanticism, Impressionism, and early Jazz; and now they (as well as their later 20th-century artistic descendants such as Rothko, John Cage, and Miles Davis) are merely part of our received culture. Some are quite beautiful in retrospect. The shock has moved on to newer forms of expression (whether avant-garde like drone and spectralist music or mainstream, such as graffiti art, rap music and hip-hop poetry). Concerning the political and environmental problems: these are probably the result of humans not knowing the long-term results of having created an entire artificial system and not foreseeing the results of doing so. It’s not one of our collective brain hemispheres running amok, but our entire species going mad. Anyway, I give this book five stars (out of five) because, though I disagree with some of its conclusions, I couldn’t put it down. It’s an endless tome, to be sure, but the writing is clear and lucid and the examples are fascinating. Each long chapter is divided into smaller sections for easy reading and digesting. I had fun with it.
Brief Commentary
According to my hypothesis above, the brain hemispheres are "backwards" compared to political leanings. The nitpicky bottom-up construction of the world sounds a lot like it lacks metaphors and sees everything literally, while the wholistic construction seems to see the connectedness, and lacks the ability to zero in on the individual. However, "left" and "right" designations of political factions, obviously, have nothing to do with brain hemispheres.
Continuing the Self-Promo
If I combine parts of the above ideas of dueling hemispheres, dueling political factions, collective madness, and symbols in literature, I can speak about the MadStones Tetralogy (my new series of novels about the world of Tond.) Ours is an age of unhinged conspiracy theories, crazy politics, and symbols gone berserk and/or treated literally. That is what I’ve tried to portray (or satirize) in “Grendul Rising”, the first book of my new series. Grendul Ras-Séro is a villain who has found a way to implant conspiracy theories in people’s minds (thus the presence of conspiracy theories is itself a conspiracy). This is of course political satire — though satire implies humor and I think the novel itself is more adventure/horror than something comical (or maybe a comedy of a dark, absurdist bent). It’s not the end of the story, though, and subsequent books in the Tetralogy will focus on a sense of wonder rather than the dread and paranoia of this one. For those who can’t wait for this turnaround to unfold, there’s another tale about Grendul out there: “The Fourth Source” will be available here on June 21st. No spoilers, but Grendul Ras-Séro is a more ambiguous villain than the totally evil monster in the first “Tond” series, and there’s a reason that his first name resembles that of an antagonist in Beowulf but his last name sounds vaguely like a certain Shakespearean magician.
And another “Tond” teaser: check back on this blog in the near future for news of Silkod of the Drenn.
Addendum, October 27, 2022
I postulated the hypothesisthat the politically left lives in a world of signs and symbols, and the politically right lives in a world without signs and symbols. It appears that something I overlooked has shot my theory full of holes.
Scrolling through Facebook recently, I found the following:
There’s a bigger picture most people aren’t understanding about this whole kneeling thing!! The goal of globalists is the dismantling of our American heritage, and thereby the destruction of our identity as a nation. Removing historical statues is the beginning. Removing the flag and the anthem is next. Ultimately the goal is to remove the constitution. If we keep giving in and continue to accept the dismantling of our culture and the removal of our heritage, then we become what the globalists want… A 3rd-world country prime for socialist control. This tactic isn’t new. It has been their game plan for a long time. There are many writings explaining this movement. We are seeing it unfold before our eyes. It’s deeper than what you see on the surface.
No matter how tired you are of listening to the back and forth about the flag and our anthem, you mustn’t grow weary! Don’t allow yourself to get to the point where you say “Just stop playing the anthem at sporting events so we can get back to football.” Just letting crap go is why we’re here in the first place.
Make this go viral!!!
Ordinarily I try not to pay much attention to such conspiracy theories (they irk me, and they’ve been around longer than most of us, including me, want to admit) but this one caught my attention because it’s about signs and symbols like I mentioned; in this case, the American flag and national anthem. Specifically, it's about the over-importance of such signs and symbols and the over-interpretation of their meaning (both are similar to what is known Biblically as the sin of idolatry). According to the my hypothesis, this partiular conspiracy theory shouldn’t exit because it’s obviously coming from the political right, which, I postulated, is a world without signs and symbols. Anything like this should come from the political left where signs and symbols proliferate. However, there don’t seem to be many of these suppositions from the left at all. (Of course, I could flip this one around: “Anti-Globalists are plotting to remove the meanings from our American heritage by forcing us to worship the anthem, flag, and constitution without understanding their significance; the final goal is an illiterate 3rd world police state prime for autocratic fascist control.”) …But if nobody buys into it, it’s not really a conspiracy theory. It’s just a supermarket tabloid headline. It really should say something about aliens.
So I’ll leave it there. Somehow my hypothesis seems “intuitively” correct, but the presence of conspiracy theories (particularly this one) could indicate otherwise. I’ll leave it to the reader; comments are welcome.
The Political Theory: Interpretations of Symbols
So here’s my idea.
Liberal (“libtard”) and Conservative (“conservatard”) are not only political; they represent entirely different ways of thinking and even perceiving the world. That they are different ways of thinking is maybe not news, but that they are different ways of perceiving the world may be. I don’t know the origin of these different ways of thinking. It doesn’t seem to be from different forms of education: I’ve seen roughly 50/50 splits in classes where I teach, where everybody supposedly has been educated in the same way. It seems to stem from earliest childhood, or even be inborn (like the difference between "visual" and "auditory" learners): there is a similar split in my own family and I, at least, think in one of these ways and cannot remember a time when my mind entertained the other one. But fortunately it’s not set in stone; with a little effort each can learn to, if not appreciate, at least understand the other.
Here’s the difference, and bear with me if this seems like an oversimplification.
The liberal lives in a world of signs and symbols, where everything connects to everything else and represents something else. Metaphors are the true way of looking at the world. The conservative, in contrast, lives in a world without signs and symbols, where one thing is one thing only, and things are disconnected. Metaphors are nothing more than lies. No wonder each thinks the other is uneducated, deceived, pathological, or downright evil.
Here are some examples of what I mean. 1.) I first noticed this years ago, when the movie E.T. came out. I immediately “realized” that the eponymous character was a Christ symbol (showing that I have the “liberal” frame of mind, by my definition above): he came down from “up there”, formed a small group of followers, delivered a message of love, was ostracized by the people in general, died to fulfil his message, came back to life, and went back “up there”. (Similar characters might include Frodo Baggins and Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl, though Frodo begins humbly rather than being from “up there”; this could be another part of the symbol.) So I was aghast to see, the very next day, some (not all) Christian ministers denouncing the film as satanic; it was attempting to replace Christ with an (inhuman!) fictional character and, at the same time, replace heaven with outer space. E.T.’s telepathy and ability to levitate things were seen as demonic (to me they were, possibly, “miracles” that justified my interpretation of the symbol). So here had been two entirely different “realizations” of the meaning of the film.
2.) Immediately after 9/11, some were saying said that “America deserved this.” (I don’t remember who “they” were specifically, but they were well-known people in the news.) To me (again, with my “liberal” way of thinking), this was nothing more than making connections: no one literally deserved being attacked, but the US had committed some crimes against other countries in the past and this was the result. I didn’t think much more about the statement, and concentrated on how horrible the attack itself was. Years later, political conservatives started proclaiming that “Liberals hate America!” and used this statement as proof. Again, two completely different interpretations.
3.) During the Trump presidency, Time Magazine ran a cover showing Donald Trump and an unnamed little girl facing off, each obviously showing contempt for the other. I, and most of my friends, thought that this was a metaphor for the round-up of “illegal” immigrant children (and the idea that anyone could be “illegal” was repulsive anyway). But I kept seeing on Facebook that plenty of people thought the cover was a hateful attack on the presidency, and a lie since there had been no actual argument publicized between Trump and a little girl.
4.) One more example, though this one’s not political in any way. I once heard someone complain that classical music was stupid because all the violins in the orchestra all played the same thing. I commented that one of something sounds different than many of something, and used the example that one person hitting pots and pans would sound different from twenty people hitting pots and pans (I wanted to make an example that wasn’t necessarily musical). The complainer gave me a condescending smirk and proclaimed that he wasn’t stupid enough to listen to people hitting pots and pans. At the time I merely thought he was rather dull, but years later when I brought this up in a music class, about half of the students said that the complainer’s attitude was the result of me using such a silly analogy. Again, I (and apparently about half of the students in the class) saw it as a metaphor, while the other half had thought that I was actually talking about people hitting pots and pans. (Apologies here to John Cage percussion pieces.)
So what of it? This really has no conclusion except that we need to learn how each other think. I don’t want any part of a political movement that labels people illegal, thinks it’s okay to overthrow a democratically elected government if you don’t agree with its policies, or sees a face mask to protect from a deadly disease as oppression of the masses; but these are not really what conservatism is about. These kinds of aberrations have occurred before. Conservatism, I think, is about continuing traditions and (more to my point here) seeing the individual, unconnectedness, of people and things. Liberalism is about changing what needs to be changed, and (again, more to my point here) seeing the collective, connectedness of people and things. (In actuality, everything in the world is probably both individual and connected, literal and symbolic.) If each learns how the other mentally represents the world, then we will be able to live more peacefully together.
The Book: Interpretations by the Hemispheres
The Master and His Emissary
by Iain McGilchrist
Not so much a book of psychology as a treatise on the relationship of brain science to philosophy and art, this magnum opus makes a claim about the differing nature of the brain's hemispheres and then backs it up with fascinating clinical examples (some subtle, some barely believable!) and writings from various time periods. The conclusion is not the expected "logic vs. emotions" of pop psychology, but something more elusive. The right hemisphere is apparently the "master" and perceives the world from a holistic, top-down approach; the left is its "servant" but breaks down what it receives from the right into small fragments and then builds them back up in a nick-picky bottom-up procedure. The author then shows examples of the same type of laterality elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and outlines cases of what happens to humans when one of the hemispheres is damaged (resulting in the other taking over). Fascinating stuff. The second half of the book falters, in my opinion, when the author speculates that the two hemispheres have been alternately in ascendency throughout history and are the causes of various artistic and philosophical movements. I have no doubt that ideas relating to one or the other can be "in vogue" during certain times, and the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. However, Mcgilchrist's theory has a certain anthropomorphism of the hemispheres themselves, almost as if each (collectively the right or left hemispheres of all the human brains of the world) has a conscious agenda of its own, unrelated to the "owner" of each particular brain. It's a fascinating idea, but he doesn't give any explanation as how such a collective plan could come to be or what could sustain it. The author also has a not-so-hidden agenda of his own: denouncing "modernism" as a left-brain takeover, leading to a shocking fragmentation of the world along with all its attendant problems of pollution, climate change, totalitarian regimes and/or runaway capitalism. He compares the "modernist" view of the world to that of autism or schizophrenia. But that’s not what we experience. Concerning the arts: it’s true that Picasso, Stravinsky, James Joyce, and even Elvis were shocking in their time, but so were Romanticism, Impressionism, and early Jazz; and now they (as well as their later 20th-century artistic descendants such as Rothko, John Cage, and Miles Davis) are merely part of our received culture. Some are quite beautiful in retrospect. The shock has moved on to newer forms of expression (whether avant-garde like drone and spectralist music or mainstream, such as graffiti art, rap music and hip-hop poetry). Concerning the political and environmental problems: these are probably the result of humans not knowing the long-term results of having created an entire artificial system and not foreseeing the results of doing so. It’s not one of our collective brain hemispheres running amok, but our entire species going mad. Anyway, I give this book five stars (out of five) because, though I disagree with some of its conclusions, I couldn’t put it down. It’s an endless tome, to be sure, but the writing is clear and lucid and the examples are fascinating. Each long chapter is divided into smaller sections for easy reading and digesting. I had fun with it.
Brief Commentary
According to my hypothesis above, the brain hemispheres are "backwards" compared to political leanings. The nitpicky bottom-up construction of the world sounds a lot like it lacks metaphors and sees everything literally, while the wholistic construction seems to see the connectedness, and lacks the ability to zero in on the individual. However, "left" and "right" designations of political factions, obviously, have nothing to do with brain hemispheres.
Continuing the Self-Promo
If I combine parts of the above ideas of dueling hemispheres, dueling political factions, collective madness, and symbols in literature, I can speak about the MadStones Tetralogy (my new series of novels about the world of Tond.) Ours is an age of unhinged conspiracy theories, crazy politics, and symbols gone berserk and/or treated literally. That is what I’ve tried to portray (or satirize) in “Grendul Rising”, the first book of my new series. Grendul Ras-Séro is a villain who has found a way to implant conspiracy theories in people’s minds (thus the presence of conspiracy theories is itself a conspiracy). This is of course political satire — though satire implies humor and I think the novel itself is more adventure/horror than something comical (or maybe a comedy of a dark, absurdist bent). It’s not the end of the story, though, and subsequent books in the Tetralogy will focus on a sense of wonder rather than the dread and paranoia of this one. For those who can’t wait for this turnaround to unfold, there’s another tale about Grendul out there: “The Fourth Source” will be available here on June 21st. No spoilers, but Grendul Ras-Séro is a more ambiguous villain than the totally evil monster in the first “Tond” series, and there’s a reason that his first name resembles that of an antagonist in Beowulf but his last name sounds vaguely like a certain Shakespearean magician.
And another “Tond” teaser: check back on this blog in the near future for news of Silkod of the Drenn.
Addendum, October 27, 2022
I postulated the hypothesisthat the politically left lives in a world of signs and symbols, and the politically right lives in a world without signs and symbols. It appears that something I overlooked has shot my theory full of holes.
Scrolling through Facebook recently, I found the following:
There’s a bigger picture most people aren’t understanding about this whole kneeling thing!! The goal of globalists is the dismantling of our American heritage, and thereby the destruction of our identity as a nation. Removing historical statues is the beginning. Removing the flag and the anthem is next. Ultimately the goal is to remove the constitution. If we keep giving in and continue to accept the dismantling of our culture and the removal of our heritage, then we become what the globalists want… A 3rd-world country prime for socialist control. This tactic isn’t new. It has been their game plan for a long time. There are many writings explaining this movement. We are seeing it unfold before our eyes. It’s deeper than what you see on the surface.
No matter how tired you are of listening to the back and forth about the flag and our anthem, you mustn’t grow weary! Don’t allow yourself to get to the point where you say “Just stop playing the anthem at sporting events so we can get back to football.” Just letting crap go is why we’re here in the first place.
Make this go viral!!!
Ordinarily I try not to pay much attention to such conspiracy theories (they irk me, and they’ve been around longer than most of us, including me, want to admit) but this one caught my attention because it’s about signs and symbols like I mentioned; in this case, the American flag and national anthem. Specifically, it's about the over-importance of such signs and symbols and the over-interpretation of their meaning (both are similar to what is known Biblically as the sin of idolatry). According to the my hypothesis, this partiular conspiracy theory shouldn’t exit because it’s obviously coming from the political right, which, I postulated, is a world without signs and symbols. Anything like this should come from the political left where signs and symbols proliferate. However, there don’t seem to be many of these suppositions from the left at all. (Of course, I could flip this one around: “Anti-Globalists are plotting to remove the meanings from our American heritage by forcing us to worship the anthem, flag, and constitution without understanding their significance; the final goal is an illiterate 3rd world police state prime for autocratic fascist control.”) …But if nobody buys into it, it’s not really a conspiracy theory. It’s just a supermarket tabloid headline. It really should say something about aliens.
So I’ll leave it there. Somehow my hypothesis seems “intuitively” correct, but the presence of conspiracy theories (particularly this one) could indicate otherwise. I’ll leave it to the reader; comments are welcome.
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