[John Ehrenfeld]

Here is a guess as to what led McGilchrist to his statement about feudalism. Simplifying greatly, feudalism was all about a structure of caring. The lords or nobles took care of there fiefs. There was no institution that served the common good, other than the lords and their roles were limited to defense, mostly. The concept of rights applied more or less only to the lords. Again oversimplifying, as the idea of rights grew large in the society, some institution would have been needed to define and protect those rights. The feudal structures failed to do that and were ultimately replaced by governments “representing” the people of a polity. A move in the right direction most would say, even Marx saw a form of feudalism as a step towards the complete socialist state. But, in McGilchrist’s terms, the connectedness that held feudal systems together (RH) was replaced by a more abstract set of relationships (LH). Obviously the history of social systems is much more complicated than this, but maybe this very simple story will help us to understand his comment.

[John Ehrenfeld]

Thanks for doing this. We need a better way of conversing that this clunky website. I will tune in.

[John Ehrenfeld]

Thanks, Craig, for sharing this lovely poem. I especially like the way bit closes back on itself.

[John Ehrenfeld]

I though I has added a link to the article. Here it is: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/well/live/awe-wonder-dacher-keltner.html

[John Ehrenfeld]

Here is the other essay.

1-Brockelman-With-New-Eyes.pdf 3 MB PDF - Click to view

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[John Ehrenfeld]

Mark,

I have focused on Berry’s essays, which are largely about the mess we are making on the Earth through development. He is so prolific that I hesitate to pick out anything, but The Art of the Commonplace ( a collection of some of his essays) is a good place to start. Here is one of his poems that resonates.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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I am also attaching a couple of other pieces I have used to raise consciousness of our connections to the spiritual world. The piece by Aldo Leopold is a classic. He was a professional forester who became an academic. This piece is a chapter from his Sand County Almanac. Also an inspiring read. Finally another essay about spirituality that also builds on our connectedness to nature/world. Enjoy. The website will only allow me to upload one file at a time (silly), so I will post the other essay in a second reply.

ps. I have been involved in “sustainability” for several decades, but am very critical about how we think about it and act to deal with the mess we have created on Earth.

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aldo-leopold-tlam.pdf 173 KB PDF - Click to view

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[John Ehrenfeld]

Thanks for posting this. Berry is a remarkable writer. I have taught several courses at my lifelong learning institution on his works. His essays illustrate the power of the connectedness created by the right hemisphere in action. The passage you cited could have been written by Heraclitus.

[John Ehrenfeld]

It’s not only attention, but the entire divided-brain-model that is very relevant to “politics.” My book,The Right Way to Flourish: Reconnecting with the Real World is devoted to exploring the links between the brain and the state of the world; but through the lens of Iain’s work. I have been blogging for quite a while, but added many posted during the last US election cycle linking politics and the brain. They are too long to copy and paste here, but you can see a couple of examples by pasting these links into your browser (I don’t know how to make them active links.).

https://www.johnehrenfeld.com/the-election-nobody-won/
https://www.johnehrenfeld.com/brainwashed-nation/
https://www.johnehrenfeld.com/lying-the-left-brain-and-the-president/

I have also been trying to get this stuff into the oped pages of US media, but no luck so far. They are not ready to deal with this topic. I hope that those who have signed on to this group will get active in spreading the word that the divided-brain-model is very, very important in understanding what is happening in our political worlds and offers a way around the stumbling blocks created by the current way we think about thinking.

[John Ehrenfeld]

I found I could avoid the impossibly slow response to typing a post by composing it first in a word processor and pasting in the entire message.

[John Ehrenfeld]

Thanks for your encouragement, but this site is a nightmare. It is painfully slow and cannot keep up even with my two-finger typing.

[John Ehrenfeld]

What a terrible shame that the poor design web site has led to one of the more active members to leave. We are paying for more than advance notice of Iain’s presentations. This post had to be entered one letter at a time because it was slow in responding.

[John Ehrenfeld]

The practical implications of TMAHE are huge. I view this work as a new paradigm on which to re-build societies to avoid falling into the abyss that McGilchrist writes about. It completely has re-oriented my work. My last book, The Right Way to Flourish: Reconnecting with the Real World, was completely rewritten when I became aware of his work. The work grounds the existential way I had been arguing that flourishing should become the primary target for individual and collective action. There is hardly an important domain in which the divided-brain-model fails to have major implications. It truly has the power to change the world to one in which flourishing is possible.

[John Ehrenfeld]

Again yes. It is the inner change that, ultimately, matters. That is my point, and I got it from Iain. Behaviors reflect the balance of the hemisphere so if you want to change behaviors, you have to change the way the brain works. And you have to change behaviors because they are what makes the world what it is. But changing behaviors needs to be done by external means, imposing practices that force the right brain to retake the position of master. This is to counter modern cultures that do just the opposite, as Iain writes in TMAHE. The structure of modernity favors the left hemisphere and will continue to do so until the societal (institutional) structure is transformed. Mindfulness exercises, for example, can help. So would a new emphasis on pragmatic inquiry and problem solving (right), instead of the dominance of theory-based frameworks (left). I attach a recent article I wrote that has a short part about this. External change is only a means, but without it, little or no inner change will take place. Just thinking about changing the hemispheric balance won’t work because the left is now in charge and will keep it that way.

amp2204_JE.pdf 332 KB PDF - Click to view

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[John Ehrenfeld]

Thanks

[John Ehrenfeld]

Thanks. Yes, it does seem faster in renewing and navigating, but trying to type a post is still a horror story. It just can’t keep up even with my slow two finger typing. Thanks for your help.