The Brain Hemispheres and the Politics of Polarization
At a recent political meeting one of us attended, a senior diplomat remarked that a problematic pattern infused international relations. Officials, he said, would convene at large multilateral events (like the recent climate change conference in Glasgow), and agree to certain steps that took in the views and interests of many, and, to some degree, a larger picture. But when attendees returned to their capitals, the agreements would slowly but surely fragment as each party reverted to its own narrow interests, forgetting the agreement, and the whole, in favour of a kind of local reductionism.
The diplomat claimed he had seen this over and over again, from the conflict in Libya to more global issues. This repeating pattern, he believed, threatened the value and efficacy of diplomacy.
Recent findings about how the left and right hemispheres of the human brain function may help us understand this dilemma as well as some of the issues related to temperament raised in our previous blog post.
Each of our hemispheres disposes a different kind of attention on to the world.
The left hemisphere is more focused, grasping, controlling and in need of certainty than the right. It is also more optimistic because its narrower vision of the world, necessary to grab, categorize and survive, makes it more naturally hopeful because it is considering fewer variables.
The right hemisphere is in greater flow with life, including inherent ambiguities and is therefore less in need of being in control. It is also less decisive and more careful because, critically, it sees more context, ie more variables at play. Anything new is likely to be more broadly and slowly evaluated by the right brain than the needier left, which demands a clearer, quicker and more black and white solution.
If we revert to the diplomatic example above, we can say that the agreements achieved at multilateral events are more reflective of the right brain, and the narrower and fragmented behaviour back home more indicative of left brain mode.
Similarly, any overactive political ideology, left or right, that is fixated and insistent on its view, whether fuelled by temperament or not, is more a product of the left brain, and is likely polarizing. The fears and controlling impulses which drive extreme agendas, whether wokeist cancel culture dictates or extreme right-wing cultural intolerance, are reflections of a dominant left brain. Indeed, we might regard all authoritarians, and ideological dogmatists regardless of their politics, more simply as partisans of the literal and straight-line thinking of the left hemisphere.
The two hemispheres, ideally, should work in unison. Critically, because the right brain perceives more broadly than the left hemisphere, this suggests that, as Dr. Iain McGilchrist has written in one of his landmark books, the right hemisphere is “master” in the sense of seeing the big picture, while the left is the “emissary” that delivers concrete and specific results within an ever-changing context seen by the right.
Can the metaphor of a properly functioning bicameral mind help diminish polarization and make politics and diplomacy more effective? In the case of the diplomatic failure above, it would mean a regular and conscious effort to revert to the multilateral format and commit to its agreements, even giving it primacy to the narrower contentions and interests back home. We are unused to this kind of approach.
It is the same with ideological differences in today’s United States, for example. Instead of seeing these as competing interests in a war that leaves no quarter, we can regard them as different angles on one issue that when viewed in context are simply less polarized. Difference and competition remain, but they are mitigated.
We are most human and effective when our two hemispheres work together, with all the components above in the mix: fear, risk, the desire for guarantees, living with uncertainty, optimism that the new can work, alongside caution to preserve what already does. The key is to give each its due and not fall in love with one aspect at the cost of all the others. And most importantly that we view all issues in context, which is very simply, in reality.
We will not survive with the degree of political polarization currently being practised in the world. Instead, if we permit left and right, Democrat and Republican, progressive and conservative to merge their outlooks, even at the cost of losing a holy grail, then we are working in greater congruence with the context of life, which encompasses all of these elements – and beyond.
RELATED STORIES
