Whole-brain is not a new idea
Massively reduced and revised from “More than brush strokes” (1999) by Diana Edwards — https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/items/14c2a298-ae4c-4f74-b4bf-b2a6827ce781
We all have an inherent ability to be creative. We were created; and in turn, are meant to create (Rollo May, 1976).
Jung (1964, 174) writes about the shadow side all human beings share. This is a part of ourselves we have learned to reject, hide or project outward onto other people. How did we learn this? We each learned this thru much practice given us by our parents, socialization, language and education.
We all have two ways of knowing:
- One where the knower is separate, apart and distinct from what is perceived. Our left-brain-hemisphere contributes this form of intelligence. And
- One where the perceiver and the perceived remain connection-united. Right-brain-hem, sometimes also gut brain, contributes this form of intelligence.
The right-hem process of uncovering new inner dimensions of ourselves through expressive, creative encounters; when successful, can be described as a series of ever-widening, deeply felt, experiences. The character of right-hem and gut brain experiential learning, is its immediacy, its enlivening feelings. Right-hem experiences are characteristically more impactful and influential on us than insights gained thru only reading, writing and left-hem study. These complement and bring to life dry separated, onlooker-style knowledge. Why not use both sets of intelligences as timely, useful and appropriate?
Whole-brained living is not a new idea, see also:
- Spinoza’s highest form of knowing: intuition,
- Bergson’s “creative consciousness,”
- Maslow’s “being cognition” (Fromm, 1960. 11 1) and
- Rudolf Steiner’s Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition.
Each of these describe awareness and learning which transcends knowledge gained from subject and object remaining separated and split.
What’s new is since 1995, is more people have the possibility of learning how to live this way. Evidence? Online, you can look up, “experiential knowledge” and “constructivism” — https://www.wgu.edu/blog/what-constructivism2005.html#close
In each of these approaches, as much as possible, perceiver and perceived remain united, connected, cooperating as teammates. After all, connecting with our inner resources, our intuitive nature through spontaneous creativity, is what’s missing right? In art history we already have abundant examples of what can be accomplished when both sides of our intelligence can work collaboratively: great artworks of every kind, in every medium, including dance and theater.
Let’s recall in the 1950s-1970s many a healthy child could compose a song, or a poem, or a dance, or a painting, or a game — spontaneously without previous planning. In watching healthy children at play; or, athletes performing, we see demonstrated how natural it is for right and left hemisphere intelligences to be working together.
What happened? When did K-12 eduction become so boring and lifeless? One word explains much of this: Patriarchy. For better and worse, for the last 5,000 years the vast majority of all Western K-college students were educated to control, reduce, limit and restrict the twofold nature of their own awareness. Intensifying the error, many were also taught the way to evolve higher, was to renounce, limit and control all our lower frequency internal parts (sublimation). This is only partial truth.
Those Cultural Creatives redeeming their own physical health and whole-brained potential, learn neither right-hem nor left hem can be repudiated nor eradicated. Eliminating one side of your intelligences is the mental-emotional pattern behind many, perhaps most strokes. The two hemispheres can only be integrated less or integrated more.
Knowledge gained thru left-hem reasoning activity is one type of knowing. It comes from analyzing (connecting and disconnecting) perceived bits of information into a more useful whole. The other half of our intelligence correlates with our feelings, our body and our intuition. This was why in the period 1950–1975 Eastern traditions, which never assumed body and mind were separate, were so popular and influential with Cultural Creatives (see Suzuki, 1960, 15).
Among all its positives, Patriarchy has the bad habit of identifying exclusively with left-hemisphere, mechanistic, mathematical percepts. Right-hem and gut-brain awareness and intelligence were ignored, denied, limited, neglected. Patriarchy-oriented K-12 education emphasized only left-hem reasoning alone, the calculating, controlling intellect.
In this mode, feelings, the body — along with Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition — -were considered secondary; or even, as waste. To left-hem, these are illusions dangerous to indulge in (because they are likely to awaken unresolved shame and hurt within).
My own generation was taught this way too, to seek out only objective knowledge. This is why in The Catcher in the Rye (1945-’46 first ed), Holden Caulfield ends up in a mental institution. He can’t accept adults can be so “phony” and dissociated from all their own feelings. [Similarly in the movie The Graduate (1967) on the topic of what kidn of meaningful career to pursue, the one word response, “Plastics.” was hilarious to audiences]. If all personal considerations start from objective outcomes measured as profitable or unprofitable; then, learning gained thru body, feeling or intuition must be considered unreliable, a waste of time.
If this wasn’t so sad it would be funny. Imagine human beings ignoring their own most-basic sensory channels, their five animal senses, trying to wipe out any trace of feelings and uniquely subjective percepts. Our five animal senses, feelings and uniquely subjective percepts provide the “text” for humans to “read in the book of Nature.” If humans avoid reading in the book of Nature, where will new percepts come from; which, left-hemisphere can then organize into useful knowledge and reasoning?
In the dysfunctional Patriarchy-oriented male, it is as though human awareness is cleaved into two parts, an external self; and, an internal self. Only the external self is safe and trustworthy. The internal self (playful, spontaneous, feeling, risking immediate and intuitive — cannot be trusted.
The above split, forces left-hem into the role of jailer and prison warden to right-hem and gut brain intelligences. To preserve-sustain this internal division, our left-hem self must play the role of a critical, realistic, purposeful, calculating and controlling part. How much fun is that?
Why does this split in dysfunctional, Patriarchy-oriented males persist? Because for profitable return-on-investment, all other considerations, all other options other than “command and control” must be eradicated, can’t be tolerated, must be labeled “irrational.”
Left-hemisphere knowledge and awareness works very well for managing external, environmental resources. Because we are often doing violence to Nature, the environment; and, to laborers, its an advantage to dissociate our feelings from the consequences of our work. We divide what we manage (extenal) — from what this does to us as managers, as people (internal).
Now you know why in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, therapy-counseling is one of the fastest growng career fields.
Dysfunctional, Patriarchy-oriented males are trained to use one half of their waking psyche to suppress the other half part of their waking psyche. A “house divided.” No wonder so many modern Western cultural assumptions seem contradictory and confused (no to mention a large fraction of all written legal prose). Males are asked to both be — and — not be. This split works well in all contexts where wealth is being extracted from Nature and from workers.
However dissociating from our subjective percepts, works not at all for listening to, understanding and managing our inner world, for managing children, for managing intimate partnerships, and Nature — for purposes other than exploitation.
This split-way-of-being separates me from the “not me,” separates males from their five senses and their ethical-moral Intuition. Right-hem knowing does not divide nor wish to conquer anyone nor anything. Only left-hemisphere can tolerate such a mad dichotomy.
Scapegoating ~ Many readers will recognize intolerance towards all other considerations, other than “command and control,” a belief all other considerations must be eradicated, must be labeled “irrational” is the classic set-up for scapegoating.
In dysfunctional Patriarchy-oriented Business School for young males (and females willing to think like males), students are excused from feeling guilty about the violence they are taught to commit to workers, Nature and to children.
The subtext of Patriarchy-oriented Business School for young males is, “keep your feelings separated from your work.” This the only way to have longevity in any work based on exploitation, the only way to have longevity in any work based on on win~lose thinking, profit-above-all thinking. Only those graduates who can separate their feelings from their work of exploitation can become valuable schizophrenics who are not bothered by behaving as toxic perpetrators.
To Learn More
Louis Menand in the New Yorker. “The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism: The free market used to be touted as the cure for all our problems; now it’s taken to be the cause of them” (2023) By Louis Menand — https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-neoliberalism — Search or scroll down to “Ronald Reagan” for a very clear explanation for how things changed to allow-promote and encourage mergers and destructive monopolies in the early 1980s.
Origins of cancel culture
The above way of thinking was not limited to college Business schools. By necessity, to various degrees, keeping subject and object separate seeped into virtually all college courses. Starting in the 1990s, this built-in internal conflict is a big reason college education declined; then, corrupted into mere “cancel culture” and “woke politics” especially after 2001.
In the Western world, among Western leaders, until 2028(?) it became all-important to keep oneself separate from what one looks at. This mandate truncated one-half of our waking awareness. In 2023, we wish more than ever to foster capacity in citizens to evaluate news media critically for oneself, to see what is present on all levels, not to see only what one is told to see, told to hear. It must then follow we need K-12 education methods which foster using both halves of our intelligence. An end must come to current mainstream K-college education, about switching OFF one-half of our natural aware intelligence. We must understand and honor subjective awareness, otherwise left-brain-only objectivity will create ever more destructive Frankenstein monsters.
Reference
More than brush strokes (1999) by DIANA EDWARDS A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Leaming, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Canada — https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/12785/1/NQ45669.pdf
