IAIN MCGILCHRIST: Our “wretchedness” is a left-brain issue

Dr Iain McGilchrist (neuroscientist, psychiatrist, polymath, author of The Master and His Emissary) devised a thesis that sets out how the two sides of our brains can affect the way we both interact and create the world. The left hemisphere is a narrow, extractive, problem-solving “machine” that divides and conquers things, fails to see our part in the world and to fathom beauty, awe and responsibility. Our civilisation, Iain says, has become ruled by a left-brain mentality, which is killing us and leaving us “wretched”; we need to put the right side back in charge!

Iain is an associate of Green Templeton College in Oxford and a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal Society of Arts. His 2009 book Master and his Emissary became a cult read and the recent follow-up, The Matter with Things took him 12 years to write (and is 600,000 words long!).

In this chat we cover why societies start out creative, happy and flourishing (right-brained!) but switch left and destructive as they expand; the secret to living a well and happy life and how to find meaning and beauty in a world we possibly can’t “fix” (in the left-brain sense of the word).

SHOW NOTES
Learn more about Iain's work via his website (channelmcgilchrist.com/home) and watch his videos here (channelmcgilchrist.com/free-videos).
Buy Master and his Emissary and The Matter with Things here (amzn.to/3TrqsnG).
Listen to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's Wild episode (podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/dr-jill-bolte-ta…).
Here’s the link to the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival (howthelightgetsin.org) that I’m speaking at this month.
Here’s the starting point (sarahwilson.substack.com/p/hope-and-relief) for joining my book serialisation project.

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