Carl Sagan-"On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum. "
Interesting. I'd usually considered paramoral systems such as critical theory to be 'feelz over realz', i.e. a triumph of emotionalism over rationality. Linguistic analysis of texts written over the last several decades tends to support this, as the rise of critical theory has been accompanied by a decline in rationalistic language and a growth in emotional language.
However, perhaps what we're seeing is a sort of compensatory displacement. Schizoid pseudophilosophies are produced in LH-dominant minds and become widely circulated in an LH-dominant population. The ideology is then enforced via emotionality masquerading as rationality - on the one hand, the emotions must be expressed somewhere; on the other, the LH is loathe to admit it can be emotionally driven, and tends to a high-contrast, simplistic emotionality (manic enthusiasm for its ideas, rage when its goals are thwarted).
Implicit in this piece is a connection to Desmet's mass formation. Schizoids producing paralogical ideologies that propose universal solutions; a hystericized, emotionally driven populace primed to latch fanatically on to these ideas; and in the midst of it all, the dark triad characteropaths opportunistically leveraging the ideologies and hysteria to extend and consolidate their control of the social order.
Sounds right to me, esp. the last paragraph. The "feelz" people seem to be the those who adopt the ideology, not necessarily the people who create it.
There have been a couple places in Matter with Things where McG states his opinion that postmodernism is just as LH has hyper-rationalism, but he didn't go into detail if my memory is correct. (Maybe it was the "deconstruction" that breaks things down into their parts.) He doesn't get into critical theory, but all I know is that when I read bits of Marcuse my eyes go crossed.
Certainly deconstructionism is very obviously LH. Postmodernism in general - the whole 'truth doesn't exist' crowd - has never struck me as especially rational, but rather the opposite. Then again that could be a symptom of the LH grabbing hold of a decontextualized principle (in this case, mortals have a necessarily subjective grasp of reality) and elevating it beyond its realm of applicability.
Certainly their writing style is very LH: broken, overly complicated prose that stimulates scholarly argumentation but never quite coheres into a perceptible whole.
A wonderful summary Harrison. Like you, I too am seeing more schizoid/left-hemisphere attributes in many of the political/philosophical movers and shakers over the past few hundred years. I hope we are seeing things as they truly are and are not just captured by an absolutely elegant theory of mind! But I think both McGilchrist and Lobaczewski are onto something fundamental here. Let's hope this thesis becomes mainstream and people become aware of the inner working of madmen shaping our futures.
Indeed, we have to be cautious that McGilchrist's concepts are not embraced as a universal solution. As I'm sure he'd be the first to point out, that's left hemisphere thinking!
Being “on the spectrum,” at least my experience of it, does feel like I’m missing something significant with respect to understanding the motivation of others. I think most of the traits considered autistic might be “workarounds” due to damage, but I’m just speculating.
"Political ponerology operates on a similar principle, but with a focus on personality disorders. One of its arguments is that the distinctive cognitive and emotional features of various personality disorders—in other words, their typical “worldviews”—influence what types of politics their holders are attracted to, and what place they might find within such a system."
---------------------------------------------
I think that two basic realities are ignored in this assessment -
1) By attempting to reduce the diagnostics of social and political allegiances/preferences ('disorders') into rigid, rules-based psychological criteria that are superimposed onto theorized groups', you basically ignore that fact that the past/current theorists are in almost every case attracted to this field of Psychology because they themselves have severe, irreconcilable psychological issues.
This is demonstrated by the recent phenomenon in which the admission of formally credentialed 'Mental Health' counselors / Psych professionals - on a massive scale - has led not to a more sound understanding of how mental health affects society or the individual, but instead to the admission of masses of child abusers into credentialed mental health circles, advocating the most vile forms of mental and physical abuse against the most defenseless within our society - children.
If anyone in the general population caused a child to take drugs that prevented puberty onset or to undergo surgeries to amputate sex organs, they would face lifetime in prison, quite deservedly, but when this activity is undertaken under the cover of man-made theories behind the shield of a supposed credential from an accredited school, teaching what are half-baked theories, it is really only the most determined and unbowed who are capable of seeing this for what it is, and being unafraid to assert this as the case. The majority of the population - the non-schizoid, as the author would appear to approvingly label - go along to get along, and tolerate insanity as a transactional bargain.
This labeling of those who do not go along with unjust or immoral systems as deviant / heretical has a long pedigree, and the modern Psych credentialing system that the author relies upon in his diatribe has a crucial role to play in attributing a veneer of science to the assertion that those who oppose a march into insanity are themselves anti-social, and classifiable and certifiable under the 'new kingdom' of approved truths.
2) A shortcut across the dirt-track of this entire theory leads to an immediate realization that people who are attracted to positions that allot power over others, and who develop theories and justifications to support their own goals, tend to have commonalities with one another, that are not found in those who do not aspire to control or gain at the expense of others.
People who reliably seek to promote their own financial or career interests - at any cost - tend to be found at a much higher percentage in the ranks of the extremely wealthy and in the upper echelon of politics. However you want to classify these people, we know that those who will act ruthlessly to accrue personal gain and self-promotion will gravitate to politics at a much higher rate than a G. Washington personality type, who has little interest in his own personal gain, and feels a genuine duty to a limited term of true service.
I dispense with Kant and Nietzsche as being a final word, and instead view an X Y Axis of just / unjust and rational / irrational, which in the authors view seems to consign me to an ogre status unsuitable for the brave new world his theorists have laid the foundations for in which people with advanced degrees claim to no longer be capable of determining the sex of an individual.
Protip - Credential-izing idiots who spout back rote doctrine, results not in fact or truth,
but in a lot of Credentialized idiots running amok, hurting other people.
"1) By attempting to reduce the diagnostics of social and political allegiances/preferences ('disorders')..."
Nope. Unless you consider totalitarianism a "political allegiance/preference."
"...into rigid, rules-based psychological criteria that are superimposed onto theorized groups',..."
The criteria are there for anyone to see. Don't need a PhD for that, just basic common sense.
"...you basically ignore that fact that the past/current theorists are in almost every case attracted to this field of Psychology because they themselves have severe, irreconcilable psychological issues."
So you agree there are objective psychological criteria. Also, read the book. Lobaczewski acknowledges this very point.
"This is demonstrated by the recent phenomenon in which the admission of formally credentialed 'Mental Health' counselors / Psych professionals - on a massive scale - has led not to a more sound understanding of how mental health affects society or the individual, but instead to the admission of masses of child abusers into credentialed mental health circles, advocating the most vile forms of mental and physical abuse against the most defenseless within our society - children."
Totally agree. These days I'd take an intelligent layman over a professional counselor any day. (Though there are still some good ones.)
"The majority of the population - the non-schizoid, as the author would appear to approvingly label - go along to get along, and tolerate insanity as a transactional bargain."
And yet those "go along to get along" normies can actually have a healthy human relationship. Schizoid, not so much.
"This labeling of those who do not go along with unjust or immoral systems as deviant / heretical has a long pedigree,..."
Again, also dealt with in the book -- in fact, it's one of its main points. And guess what: it's most often people with serious personality disorders who do this.
"...and the modern Psych credentialing system that the author relies upon..."
That's a pretty big assumption there.
"...in his diatribe..."
First time I've heard PP called a diatribe.
"...has a crucial role to play in attributing a veneer of science to the assertion that those who oppose a march into insanity are themselves anti-social, and classifiable and certifiable under the 'new kingdom' of approved truths."
I don't think you get that PP actually provides a framework for "classifying, certifying" and diagnosing the "new kingdom of approved truths" as insane and antisocial. What exactly are you disagreeing with? Or are you just a contrarian?
"I dispense with Kant and Nietzsche as being a final word, and instead view an X Y Axis of just / unjust and rational / irrational, which in the authors view seems to consign me to an ogre status..."
Assuming you're hyperrational and lack a capacity for emotion, no need to take it personally. Systematizing has its place, and I respect that. Just please consider that "irrationality" isn't always as bad as you might assume it to be.
There's so much schizoid thinking in society. Here's a few big ones that still perplex me because they're so easy to point out....
First one- virology. Yeah, umm no- it was pretty much a sham and still is. (there's plenty to see how they just make up their own proof by playing with the methods)
But people believe in it, because they too are somewhat schizoid and thats a feedback loop.
Second- Quantum physics. Yeah- I wanted to believe so much- but again- the experiments were done without true consideration of the limits of instruments and machines etc...
Now this ties it together... why do people believe in these things? Why are schizoidal characteristics so high around big societies and religions? Leonard Shlain knew.... written history- the alphabet - allowed for fibs to be "proven". We really don't know what happened- as the victors write the history- and we're so lucky to see it happening in realtime now.
Carl Sagan-"On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum. "
Interesting. I'd usually considered paramoral systems such as critical theory to be 'feelz over realz', i.e. a triumph of emotionalism over rationality. Linguistic analysis of texts written over the last several decades tends to support this, as the rise of critical theory has been accompanied by a decline in rationalistic language and a growth in emotional language.
However, perhaps what we're seeing is a sort of compensatory displacement. Schizoid pseudophilosophies are produced in LH-dominant minds and become widely circulated in an LH-dominant population. The ideology is then enforced via emotionality masquerading as rationality - on the one hand, the emotions must be expressed somewhere; on the other, the LH is loathe to admit it can be emotionally driven, and tends to a high-contrast, simplistic emotionality (manic enthusiasm for its ideas, rage when its goals are thwarted).
Implicit in this piece is a connection to Desmet's mass formation. Schizoids producing paralogical ideologies that propose universal solutions; a hystericized, emotionally driven populace primed to latch fanatically on to these ideas; and in the midst of it all, the dark triad characteropaths opportunistically leveraging the ideologies and hysteria to extend and consolidate their control of the social order.
Sounds right to me, esp. the last paragraph. The "feelz" people seem to be the those who adopt the ideology, not necessarily the people who create it.
There have been a couple places in Matter with Things where McG states his opinion that postmodernism is just as LH has hyper-rationalism, but he didn't go into detail if my memory is correct. (Maybe it was the "deconstruction" that breaks things down into their parts.) He doesn't get into critical theory, but all I know is that when I read bits of Marcuse my eyes go crossed.
Certainly deconstructionism is very obviously LH. Postmodernism in general - the whole 'truth doesn't exist' crowd - has never struck me as especially rational, but rather the opposite. Then again that could be a symptom of the LH grabbing hold of a decontextualized principle (in this case, mortals have a necessarily subjective grasp of reality) and elevating it beyond its realm of applicability.
Certainly their writing style is very LH: broken, overly complicated prose that stimulates scholarly argumentation but never quite coheres into a perceptible whole.
A wonderful summary Harrison. Like you, I too am seeing more schizoid/left-hemisphere attributes in many of the political/philosophical movers and shakers over the past few hundred years. I hope we are seeing things as they truly are and are not just captured by an absolutely elegant theory of mind! But I think both McGilchrist and Lobaczewski are onto something fundamental here. Let's hope this thesis becomes mainstream and people become aware of the inner working of madmen shaping our futures.
Indeed, we have to be cautious that McGilchrist's concepts are not embraced as a universal solution. As I'm sure he'd be the first to point out, that's left hemisphere thinking!
I'm sure he would - a complex system is this life we are in, not likely described by a single algorithm!
Thought this article might also be instructive:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tobyrogers/p/toward-a-toxicological-theory-of?r=gse79&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Being “on the spectrum,” at least my experience of it, does feel like I’m missing something significant with respect to understanding the motivation of others. I think most of the traits considered autistic might be “workarounds” due to damage, but I’m just speculating.
https://open.substack.com/pub/tobyrogers/p/the-great-regression?r=gse79&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Yep, could be. There's gotta be an explanation for the dramatic rise in autism spectrum over the last decades. Thanks for the links, dawnfrench!
"Political ponerology operates on a similar principle, but with a focus on personality disorders. One of its arguments is that the distinctive cognitive and emotional features of various personality disorders—in other words, their typical “worldviews”—influence what types of politics their holders are attracted to, and what place they might find within such a system."
---------------------------------------------
I think that two basic realities are ignored in this assessment -
1) By attempting to reduce the diagnostics of social and political allegiances/preferences ('disorders') into rigid, rules-based psychological criteria that are superimposed onto theorized groups', you basically ignore that fact that the past/current theorists are in almost every case attracted to this field of Psychology because they themselves have severe, irreconcilable psychological issues.
This is demonstrated by the recent phenomenon in which the admission of formally credentialed 'Mental Health' counselors / Psych professionals - on a massive scale - has led not to a more sound understanding of how mental health affects society or the individual, but instead to the admission of masses of child abusers into credentialed mental health circles, advocating the most vile forms of mental and physical abuse against the most defenseless within our society - children.
If anyone in the general population caused a child to take drugs that prevented puberty onset or to undergo surgeries to amputate sex organs, they would face lifetime in prison, quite deservedly, but when this activity is undertaken under the cover of man-made theories behind the shield of a supposed credential from an accredited school, teaching what are half-baked theories, it is really only the most determined and unbowed who are capable of seeing this for what it is, and being unafraid to assert this as the case. The majority of the population - the non-schizoid, as the author would appear to approvingly label - go along to get along, and tolerate insanity as a transactional bargain.
This labeling of those who do not go along with unjust or immoral systems as deviant / heretical has a long pedigree, and the modern Psych credentialing system that the author relies upon in his diatribe has a crucial role to play in attributing a veneer of science to the assertion that those who oppose a march into insanity are themselves anti-social, and classifiable and certifiable under the 'new kingdom' of approved truths.
2) A shortcut across the dirt-track of this entire theory leads to an immediate realization that people who are attracted to positions that allot power over others, and who develop theories and justifications to support their own goals, tend to have commonalities with one another, that are not found in those who do not aspire to control or gain at the expense of others.
People who reliably seek to promote their own financial or career interests - at any cost - tend to be found at a much higher percentage in the ranks of the extremely wealthy and in the upper echelon of politics. However you want to classify these people, we know that those who will act ruthlessly to accrue personal gain and self-promotion will gravitate to politics at a much higher rate than a G. Washington personality type, who has little interest in his own personal gain, and feels a genuine duty to a limited term of true service.
I dispense with Kant and Nietzsche as being a final word, and instead view an X Y Axis of just / unjust and rational / irrational, which in the authors view seems to consign me to an ogre status unsuitable for the brave new world his theorists have laid the foundations for in which people with advanced degrees claim to no longer be capable of determining the sex of an individual.
Protip - Credential-izing idiots who spout back rote doctrine, results not in fact or truth,
but in a lot of Credentialized idiots running amok, hurting other people.
"1) By attempting to reduce the diagnostics of social and political allegiances/preferences ('disorders')..."
Nope. Unless you consider totalitarianism a "political allegiance/preference."
"...into rigid, rules-based psychological criteria that are superimposed onto theorized groups',..."
The criteria are there for anyone to see. Don't need a PhD for that, just basic common sense.
"...you basically ignore that fact that the past/current theorists are in almost every case attracted to this field of Psychology because they themselves have severe, irreconcilable psychological issues."
So you agree there are objective psychological criteria. Also, read the book. Lobaczewski acknowledges this very point.
"This is demonstrated by the recent phenomenon in which the admission of formally credentialed 'Mental Health' counselors / Psych professionals - on a massive scale - has led not to a more sound understanding of how mental health affects society or the individual, but instead to the admission of masses of child abusers into credentialed mental health circles, advocating the most vile forms of mental and physical abuse against the most defenseless within our society - children."
Totally agree. These days I'd take an intelligent layman over a professional counselor any day. (Though there are still some good ones.)
"The majority of the population - the non-schizoid, as the author would appear to approvingly label - go along to get along, and tolerate insanity as a transactional bargain."
And yet those "go along to get along" normies can actually have a healthy human relationship. Schizoid, not so much.
"This labeling of those who do not go along with unjust or immoral systems as deviant / heretical has a long pedigree,..."
Again, also dealt with in the book -- in fact, it's one of its main points. And guess what: it's most often people with serious personality disorders who do this.
"...and the modern Psych credentialing system that the author relies upon..."
That's a pretty big assumption there.
"...in his diatribe..."
First time I've heard PP called a diatribe.
"...has a crucial role to play in attributing a veneer of science to the assertion that those who oppose a march into insanity are themselves anti-social, and classifiable and certifiable under the 'new kingdom' of approved truths."
I don't think you get that PP actually provides a framework for "classifying, certifying" and diagnosing the "new kingdom of approved truths" as insane and antisocial. What exactly are you disagreeing with? Or are you just a contrarian?
"I dispense with Kant and Nietzsche as being a final word, and instead view an X Y Axis of just / unjust and rational / irrational, which in the authors view seems to consign me to an ogre status..."
Assuming you're hyperrational and lack a capacity for emotion, no need to take it personally. Systematizing has its place, and I respect that. Just please consider that "irrationality" isn't always as bad as you might assume it to be.
There's so much schizoid thinking in society. Here's a few big ones that still perplex me because they're so easy to point out....
First one- virology. Yeah, umm no- it was pretty much a sham and still is. (there's plenty to see how they just make up their own proof by playing with the methods)
But people believe in it, because they too are somewhat schizoid and thats a feedback loop.
https://drsambailey.com/covid-19/why-nobody-can-find-a-virus/ ( a primer to that mystery of how come we still believe)
Second- Quantum physics. Yeah- I wanted to believe so much- but again- the experiments were done without true consideration of the limits of instruments and machines etc...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkdAkAC4ItcHNLDIK9ORydQl_Ik6GJ0bD (a good set of videos pointing out the deep issues)
Now this ties it together... why do people believe in these things? Why are schizoidal characteristics so high around big societies and religions? Leonard Shlain knew.... written history- the alphabet - allowed for fibs to be "proven". We really don't know what happened- as the victors write the history- and we're so lucky to see it happening in realtime now.
Alphabet vs The Goddess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QQuD62RxrU