The Master and his Remote Control

A personalized review of McGilchrist's masterpiece

Before I even start, it is only fair to say that this brief review can never do justice to this book, Iain McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary. You should all read it. I wish I had read it before, as it confirmed an idea I had been trying to develop over the past ten years. The paradox I had observed is that even though a progressively large portion of people live in circumstances of increased material affluence and security, the sense of insecurity felt by many seems only to grow. I suggested that negativity bias - once a life-saving characteristic - may not be a useful trait in modern times. For its similarity to our tendency to keep hoarding calories even when no times of dearth and scarcity are to be expected, I referred to the phenomenon as 'mental obesity'. A related impression regarded people's expectation of control over more and more aspects of their lives. We could pair it with the afore-described insecurity intolerance, and term it non-control intolerance. In any event, the latter trait seems easier to explain, as the mechanization of our world has given us unbelievable power over our environment, which as a mental habit is easy to lead to a similar expectation regarding all aspects of our lives. I likened this phenomenon to our adoption of the remote control, and the wish to rule all parts of our lives with a similar effortless exertion and to equally transformative effects.

The past few years have added more stunned realizations to my repertoire. The statistical model, brought to us via the internet, is substituting reality, if not for me individually, then at least for numerous political decision makers. Formerly friendly, accessible, and 'tolerant' people have joined the social parlor game of mass formation. In this context, perhaps it is not surprising that one of the most effective herding games of the past two millennia - chase the Jew - has made a come-back. And no: the herding game is not about killing Jews - though it is evident that this inspires many who are otherwise deprived of purpose - it is about creating a crowd that is ready to replace their sense of individual agency for integration in a group that acts without a mind, and without responsibility. Events as from 7 October have not only been the final instalment of the series 'the mother of all moral litmus tests'. In that sense it was no surprise that it - once more - shook up the latest division of society along yet another neo-ideological demarcation line. Why 'neo-ideological'? Because if anything has become clear to me the past few years, it is that (political) philosophy and ideas do not explain how groups currently organize around societal issues. In any event, it has started to become apparent in what sense vaxer and anti-vaxxer actually are two sides to the same shekel. The name of the currency is agency and control. But let's return to The Master and his Emissary. Hopefully that will shed more light on my supposition.

The dearest pearl I have discovered in this important book is his explanation, based on paleontological evidence, of speech as an elaboration of our capacity to sing. Yes: song preceded speech. But before I create entirely the wrong impression, let me try to give a general idea of McGilchrist's hypothesis. As most of us are aware, we possess two cerebral hemispheres with distinct functions. Though popular perception has it that the most important functions are carried out by the left, his book is an attempt to prove that, despite the left's functions being vitally important, it is rather as the assistant (or the 'emissary') of the right hemisphere that its functions should properly be understood. McGlichrist presents neurological evidence (also from case histories) and in the second part of the book develops a theory of how the history of ideas reflects our preponderant reliance on the left hemisphere, rather than on the right, after processing the findings of the left.

Motorically, the left hemisphere operates the right part of our body (and vice versa). But both hemispheres also represent different types of awareness. Whereas the right regulates our general awareness, the left is dedicated to focus, to zooming in on aspects of reality, and determining analytical detail. The most expressive way he uses to describe the difference in function - in my opinion - is where he demonstrates that the left is our predator's brain, and our right the prey's. If we feed this back to the respective operating roles regarding our body, our right hand is the grasping, grabbing, and manipulating hand, while the left hand, the left ear, the left eye may be the more sensitive one to receive messages from outside. When it comes to intellectual functions, however, the story gets more interesting still.

Whereas the right hemisphere takes in reality as a whole, it needs its emissary when a more analytical task is required. The process of definition, of reducing reality into ever smaller and more narrowly described components, is the responsibility of the left. Through this process, the left comes up with a representation of reality. While it is the proper task of the right to integrate this information into a more comprehensive view of our surroundings, the left also seems to be the more hubristic side of our brain. And as it is unequipped to take in reality as a whole as well (which is the role of the right), a point can be reached where the assistant starts running the show. And though poor Mr. McGilchrist cannot be held accountable for my imperfect comprehension of his theory and the way I'm taking his ball and running with it, I agree with him - as he would with me - that what we are witnessing culturally manifests exactly our useful servant taking matters into his own right hand, ceasing to be open to a more comprehensive view of our world and our role therein.

A philosophical case history McGilchrist provides us with reminded me of Jonathan Haidt's singling out two other thinkers, Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham, as 'low empathizers' at the philosophical level, and linking this to the evidence of witnesses classifying them on an autistic scale affectively (see The Righteous Mind, or for my discussion thereof in the context of current mass formation here). McGilchrist tells us the story of René Descartes, the founder of modern rationalism, who apparently was so thoroughly engaged on the path of objectifying reality - of creating a 'perfect representation of reality' - that passersby were equally reduced to categorized characteristics. Categorized characteristics, rather than a complex comprehensive overview (including apparent contradictions), is essentially what is pushed on us as (life-saving!) policies these days, all under the guise of 'science'.

One aspect of this left-hemisphere takeover is easier to identify in the obsession of today's culture with numerical/statistical models, which are indeed worshipped to such a degree that they are taken as more important - more 'true', more 'real' - than reality itself. What is hidden behind this epistemological delusion of the left hemisphere, however, is a psychological one that involves its self-contained idea of agency. As it is this side that grabs, manipulates, and transforms, it projects the same idea of agency on its image of the world. The controlling part of our mind cannot but see the world - whether in its material aspects or in Descartes' passersby - as what is (to be) controlled. It is this aspect of agency and control as a projection of our analytical, reductive, and representational mind that drives the recurring dream of left-hemisphere-dependents - and the nightmare of everybody else - of social engineering. The link with mechanical industrialization is easier to identify (see, for example, Gurri's discussion of industrialization as a factor in the collective dream of total control in The Revolt of the Public or in my review here). McGilchrist's hypothesis adds essential understanding to any theory registering solely the epistemological aspects of this worldview, possibly expanded with the utilitarian approach of a numbers-based ethics that eyes material progress. The insight is that psychologically, or behaviorally, this orientation corresponds with the incapacity of our left hemisphere to relate to reality if not reduced to the type of units that it produces itself. The mathematical model is not only the left hemisphere's creation, it also is its natural habitat. And as it is able to manipulate its own representation of reality, it expects the world out there, and its own relationship to it, to play out correspondingly.  

Why do I think the left-hemisphere's obsession with agency and control is manifest in the latest neo- (or non-)ideological clashes? Because vaxers and anti-vaxxers are, indeed, two sides to the same shekel, the shekel of the imagined agency of our left hemisphere. Believing a spreadsheet with extrapolated data will grant you control over all sorts of natural phenomena, is simply the inverse expression of the same left-hemisphere representation of reality: someone must be brandishing his right hand to make it all happen. They are inhabiting the same side of their brain, where somebody has total control. There is no dog in the world of 'rona: all tails are wagging in the image of one side of our brain. But it's not the part of our brain that keeps us grounded, and anchored to reality.   

It would be impossible to summarize or even start to do justice to a magnificent study as The Master and his Emissary. Personally, I think the second part, where he dedicates himself to the history of ideas, is not as convincing as the first, more biologically oriented part. But for anyone feeling displaced and estranged in today's culture, and for those who have simply retained a healthy dose of curiosity, The Master and his Emissary is warmly recommended. I am sure you will note other aspects and draw different conclusions, but you will definitely feel enriched.