[Charles Rykken]

My main concern is with the question of power that maintains structure. The weakness of democracy is the belief in one person, one vote. When I was a teenager I bought into the idea that if most of the people intelligent enough to wield the levers of communication in a competent manner would do so in the direction of the general welfare. However, I had the counter idea that intelligence was NOT the critical factor but instead greed and lust for power were the primary motivators. The press was supposed to be the source of information in the marketplace of ideas but I wasn’t so stupid as to actually believe that line. I knew in grade school that the governments of Europe at the time of Columbus had been basically gangster operations. The American Revolution was intended to put a stop to that dynamic. Initially, only white male property owners were given suffrage. The “founding fathers” understood that the right to vote should not be granted willy nilly. I believed as mentioned above that those who were way too simple minded to meaningfully participate in the marketplace of ideas would have opinions that were randomly(Ein Rand dumbly?) spread so that their sum at the voting booth would cancel out and the “signal” from the “wiser voices” would prevail. That view held sway in my mind for about one or two years while in high school (1965 to 1966). But my studies of the human condition continued and the gangster hypothesis took stronger hold and has been the dominant theme ever since. Greed and power lust has been a powerful undercurrent in human affairs for more than 5000 years. It is a lot like an addiction. In the 1980s The U. S. and the U. K. chose Reagan and Thatcher as their leaders and the greed is good meme rose to prominence once again with the imprimatur of the head of government. When I was in my senior year of high school(1966) I read Goethe’s idea that science should be based on the study of relationships. It was immediately obvious to me that he was correct. His analysis that the reductionist approach of objects and properties where infinite regression was rejected and the nihilism inherent in that view reigned supreme among the intellectuals too stupid to understand they were participating in the death of humanity. Goethe’s meme of a bargain with the devil(Mephistopheles in Faust) was entirely apt. Academics lined up to follow people like B. F. Skinner and the existentialists who embraced nihilism and now we have the social pestilence of postmodernism. But with Maggot Thatcher and Wrong old Raygun the dark side of humanity could surface shamelessly and old Christian wisdom about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10) was dismissed. Reagan declared during an interview when asked by Larry King “What is the purpose of life” Reagan answered without hesitation “The purpose of life is to get rich.” Larry King’s jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out and after a few seconds needed to regain composure replied something to the effect “Oh surely, Mr. President, you don’t really mean that” to which Reagan replied without any hesitation “yes I did”. Yes, God really is dead and the nihilists are well on their way to marching humanity to the fiery end in a global mass murder-suicide. For me, the question is first how to change that direction and install a system that is sustainable. High flying abstract rhetoric won’t cut it. Dr. McGilchrist or his assigned helpers who choose which questions are asked during his live Q&As have consistently passed over my questions about how the Zen Buddhists were ardent supporters of the Japanese militarist government prior to and during WWII. Here are two references that discuss this

https://www.globalbuddhism.org/article/download/1091/926

https://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/CriticalZen/Critical_Analysis_of_Brian_Victoria.html

Also the early history of Christianity exposes the same dynamic of left brain power hungry people vs the RH folks. This book is very short and hyper-excellent(imho) and I can’t recommend it too highly.

https://www.amazon.com/Gnostic-Gospels-Elaine-Pagels/dp/0679724532

This is one of the places where I part company with Dr. McGilchrist, he extols the Catholic Church, I see it as an abomination on Western Civilization. I see his simultaneous embrace of the Catholic Church and Zen Buddhism as highly suspicious. I do see the need for a structure of government where only those who are genuinely competent in the TMAE sense to make decisions in some area of governance are allowed to make those decisions. That could be described as feudal like and that is what I hope Dr. McGilchrist meant by his comment. The problem is how to get there and stay there(sustainability).