The Making Of The Western World: The Divided Brain / Iain McGilchrist
Psychiatrist, lecturer, and author Dr. Iain McGilchrist joins me for this episode. We discuss some of the themes and ideas presented in his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.
In the very beginning of this interview, Dr. McGilchrist presents a detailed picture of the "divided brain"—specifically, the evolutionary and adaptive perceptual functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. We then discuss how the balance, or imbalance, of these relatively different perceptual functions inherent in the functioning of each hemisphere of the brain informed the development and trajectory of human cultures and societies, up to the present. More specifically, we discuss how the Western worldview (the value systems that have been cultivated in predominantly Western societies), over the course of thousands of years, began to favor a more "left brain" form of organized thinking and cultural development, and how this predominantly "left brain" thinking has lead our civilization, now global in scope, towards the brink of wide-scale ecological devastation.
Iain McGilchrist is such an insightful individual, who through studying the evolutionary functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, has uncovered an essential piece of the puzzle as to how we have gotten ourselves into the precarious moment we all find ourselves in today. To quote from his bio: "He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains."*
Bio:
Dr. Ian McGilchrist is the author of multiple books, including Against Criticism, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning; Why Are We So Unhappy?, and Ways of Attending. He is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He now lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland, where he continues to write, and lectures worldwide.
Episode Notes:
Learn about Dr. McGilchrist’s work at his website
Purchase a copy of The Master and His Emissary from Bookshop
Learn more about the documentary film The Divided Brain, featuring Iain and his work
Iain was featured in the documentary film Tawai: A voice from the forest
