Transcript:
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/52969347Speaker 0 (0s): Well, here we go. We are back TrueLife podcast on Thursday, Thursday to Thursday, Thursday night. Do you remember what we were talking about? Let me refresh your memory, my friends, but before I refresh your memory, let me refresh how awesome you are. You wake up, tell yourself your awesome. Give there's a little Pat on the back, you wake up in. The first thing that you thought about was something beautiful. Did you look out your window and see a rainbow?
Oh my gosh. Look up this rainbow. It is so pretty, so many blues and purples. How about a, a little dollop, a little, a little kid walk in their dog. That's always a cool one. Right? Would be a butterfly on your shoulder. Maybe a nice whoosh, a nice calm, wind blowing over the plant's in your backyard. That's the whisper of the earth embracing you.
Something like that. Right I'm not sure that last part flowed together. Like I wanted it to Well now, I guess I can refresh your memory. We we're doing a spotlight on mr. Marshall McLuhan and I left off, you know, where I left you. I left off at East meets West and the hemispheres, not just on our planet, but in our brain, right at the left hemisphere on the right hemisphere, we have the orient meets the Oxidental.
You know what that makes me think of, you know, the town and country symbol, or at least that's what we call it in Hawaii or The I think more accurately its the yin and the yang, you know, it's a circle with a black Paisley in a white Paisley with the white Paisley has a little black.in it. And the black Paisley has a little white.in it. Think about that symbol for a minute. It's a really powerful symbol. One cannot exist without the other in it seems they are always flowing together and that pattern of the yin and the yang be it male and female or left brain, right brain.
It seems to be a pattern of behavior as well as a symbol of what's happening. Think about our political parties in the U S aren't. They always like morphing into the other one. Like the Republican's are becoming the Democrats, Democrats are become when the Republicans of a concern become when the Democrats is just so symbolic of this circle of life, then the cycle of life in the more that I think about the symbol, the more that I realize how powerful that actually is, is really a mesmorizing to think about it.
And I think it fits nicely here with this East meets West and the hemispheres. I just can't. It just seems so strange to me. The way our brain is constructed is also the way the world is constructed or is it because our brain is constructed one way. That's how we see the world. That's probably more accurate in a previous podcast. I talked about the similarities between supply chains and neural networks.
Speaker 1 (3m 56s): I just
Speaker 0 (3m 58s): It's one of those things that really gets me. I, I, I don't think we can really create anything in the outer world. That's not already is something that's been hardwired into us, but I'm kinda getting out into the muddy waters. Let's bring it full circle back to the brain and some of the Marshall McLuhan's ideas about processing information in the brain. So the brain on the outside as a, in a way in a grossly anatomical way, the brain appears to be what it seems Walnut like and symmetrical covered all over with convoluted fishers designed to give more tissue area.
But underneath within that three pounds of whitish mush is a seeding electrochemical masse, which has the power to function asymmetrically. Normally of course we do not know it. If we decide to go for a jog, the left hemisphere through the Corpus callosum sends a signal to the right hemisphere to move both hips, synchronously synchronously. Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (5m 11s): Say that route as well.
Speaker 0 (5m 15s): We Right a capacity largely controlled by the left posterior lobe, the right hemisphere guides, the curly cues of the West Palmer method, millions of neural interfaces keep us coordinated. Although if we might take a slight detour, have thought the fact that neurons never actually connect or touch should be of immense interest to neuro physiologists.
When an electrical impulse reaches the tip of a neuron's tail or axon, it discharge is a chemical called in your own transmitter. Let me pause there for
Speaker 2 (5m 58s): A minute. If you remember yesterday, we talked about how the brain is not connected, but it interfaces. And if you remember my little diatribe, the world is not connected, but it interfaces. It's a very big distinction there. Everyone wants to talk about how everything is connected. It's the wrong word. Everything interfaces is this chemical message diffuses across the gap called the synapse to receptors located in the next cell triggering yet another electrical charge that courses through another axon until the message reaches millions of other neurons, the brain, it would appear as a mosaic that resinates in its discrete parts.
That's the left side of the upper brain has a very specialist role. It is largely concerned with linguistic matters. The ability to order to quantify to label the right side of the neocortex is best in spatial tasks. The sense of the multi-dimensional the field of vision in each eyes divided between the left and right brain Josephine Sims tells us that the left hemisphere prefers units of neural information, which can be said to be similar and focal.
Whereas the right brain area favors on integrated units have data the back or a posterior lobes of the upper brain, which deal with specific touch sensations and spatial information interact vigorously with the frontal lobes, which tend to abstractly play with the constraints of time and the ability to plan the world have now linked to the world of the future.
And when I'm sorry, and then there is the lower brain, the various levels of earlier tissue, which covered and evolved over millions of years, the spinal cord and the brainstem that attend to such basics as heartbeat and respiration, the art complex reptilian, CDE of aggression, ritual, Tara territory, social hierarchy, the limbic system cradle of our emotions.
Paul McClain says that the upper brain lives in an uneasy peace with the lower end midbrain. And what we may actually be talking about are three separately, interfacing cognitive systems. However, fascinating such a theory may be. We should focus the relationship between the cortical hemispheres, which in our view is the projection of consciousness, consciousness being the some interaction between oneself and the outside world.
The hemispheres manifest their very nature by the way, in which they perceive and analyze the environment. Carl Sagan says this ability is the unique Mark of the primate, the area's of Berocca and Veronica in the left cortical hemisphere centralize our capacities for speech hearing and writing and thus mediate our expression of comprehension in language. The left hemisphere is the seat of hierarchies and categories of the linear, the mathematical and the sequential.
The ordering sense of the left brain is quantitative. The diachronic reading, writing, naming within a perception of significant order. We are not surprised there are for when neuroscientists to place the guidance of complex sensory motor skills like typing or adjusting a micrometer in that part of the cortex, the left hemisphere has mastery over the right side of the body.
The right hemisphere dominates the left side, Joseph Bogan in his Seminole treatise. The other side of the brain. Isn't quite sure what the right brain does, but he thinks it could very well be the birthplace of creativity. Certainly it is the field of the qualitative, the synchronic, the spatial tactile, the musical and the acoustic. It has been called the mute part of the brain because its language abilities are minimal, but there is considerable evidence that the right side analyzes by configuration and by a metaphor, it does not Think in sequence, but rather in terms of seizing the relationship between unlike parts of the environment, the right brain perceives the essence of an object through shape and feel rather than naming classification, the right and left brain hemisphere is actually pursue two different thinking and analytic processes.
That is to different ways of processing information. This state of affairs was described brilliantly by Robert J Trotter, riding on an investigation of the patterns of behavior among the innuendo or Eskimo people of Baffin Island in Northeastern Canada, headed by anthropologists Soleman Katz of the university museum have the university of Pennsylvania. The investigation dealt specifically with one of the most fascinating and fastest growing areas of brain research, cerebral assymetry, or hemispheric dominance.
He called attention to the fact that those living in the Arctic wastes have a well-documented ability to find their way out of difficult wilderness situations as well, ESS and navigate over vast areas of unmarked territory of snow and ice. The land itself appears to have given them a special visual, spatial ability related to an intricately developed right hemisphere, but have more important in their lifestyle and art objects.
There seems to be a well-defined cooperation between the right and left brain. Would you just take in a little moment, hear, how would you rate your thinking? Do you think you are more analytical or are you more right brained more on the intuitive side, more on the creative side, about the people in your family.
If you were to just take a moment, do you think you could identify people who are more left-brained and more right brained after you've done that? How about your immediate circle of friends? How about the culture you're in? Are you able to identify that? It's a good question.
Speaker 3 (13m 42s): Back to
Speaker 2 (13m 44s): Mr. Marshall McLuhan among the nun. Carver's all of whom were right-handed the left hand cradles the work, moves it into the new positions and fields it's progress while the right hand, precisely carves the detail's and holds the various carving tools. Even when a tool could be placed down the left hand, carried out the repositioning of the stone in space.
Also there was a striking preponderance of holding the stone in the left visual field. These observations suggest hemispheric symmetry, or at least a high degree of cooperation between the hemispheres cats finds an almost perfect relationship between the right hand, doing the detailed, analytical kinds of activities and the left hand, doing all the spatial and touch activities.
I bet you, you didn't think about that, huh? I know didn't. So if the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, that would make sense for the majority of people that are right handed that your right hand is doing the detailed carving or the detailed work while your left hand controlled by the right side of the brain is doing the work of placing the object on what your working on in the right spatial, setting it up in the right position.
It's a fascinating way to understand how the brain is working by looking at the examples of complicated maneuvers with your hands back to the back to the interview interview, interview interview. Similarly what the bath and Island investigators discovered among the Inuit people was a language reflecting, a high degree of spatial, right? Hemisphere orientation, linguistic studies rated as being the most synthetic integrative of languages.
American English is at the other end of the same scale and is rated as the most analytic. And you at sculptures, lithographs and tapestries are without a parent linear or three dimensional analytic orientation. The culture is autodial tactile to a high degree hints. If you are an innuendo, you are mental faculties have a sensory preference towards the right hemisphere and a world of sensuous touch an echoing ritual form, the right leads, the left.
If you are from the West and particularly a Well urbanized person, your mind will tend to favor the left and interplay with a somewhat subservient. All right, with that in view, one can read Trotter's charted diagram of the left and right brain, because the strongest feature of the left hemisphere on the West is linearity in sequence reality they're are good reasons for a calling it, the visual, a quantitative site of the brain it's most conspicuous role seems to be that have a labeling of label.
How often do labels get us in trouble? It's such an easy way to judge someone by giving them a label that guys on this, that guy was a Republican that guy as a Democrat. Oh, that guy is a dummy. That guy thinks this bat. Guy's a truck driver. If that guy's an educator, if that guy's an epidemic, you know, it's its these labels that get us in trouble, even though sometimes it's those labels that save us right away, that guys that has a criminal stay away just goes to show, you know, and I think Marshall McLuhan is going to make the point here.
A little bit of both hemisphere's when not working together are incomplete, but I'm getting ahead of myself on a ruin, the ending for Everybody don't want to be that guy. See what I did there and put a little label on myself because of the strongest features of the left hemisphere on the West is linearity and sequentially. There are good reasons for calling it the visual quantitative side of the brain its most conspicuous role seems to be that have labeling because the dominant features have the right hemisphere are the simultaneous wholistic and synthetic.
There are good reasons for a dark identifying it as the acoustic qualitative side, palpable imagery, not bound by time. Visual space as elucidated and Euclidean. Geometry has the basic characteristics of linear, linear reality, connectedness, homogeneous, and status. These characteristics are not found in any of the other senses.
On the other hand, acoustic space has the basic character have a sphere who is focused or a center is simultaneously everywhere. And whose margin is nowhere. An accident to the left hemisphere might limit speech or produce a phasia, but damage exclusively to the right hemisphere does not usually disrupt linguistic abilities, but can lower performance and spatial tasks, simple musical abilities, recognition of familiar objects and faces and bodily self awareness.
This is another way of saying that visual and acoustic space are always present in any human situation. Even if Western civilization has through the agency of the alphabet tamped down our awareness at the acoustic, the ladder is the invisible counter environment that forms the background against which the civilization of the written word is seen. Christian Vaughn. This is a tough one.
Christian Yvonne Ehrenfeld fells the originator
Speaker 0 (20m 49s): Of gestalt. This structuralism clearly showed that configurations exist only because of our tendency to see figure against ground, to prefer geometrically perfect forms against irregular shapes, Trotter in the other hemisphere essay select a third world or non-literate society for observation and illustration points.
Also to the fact that society's, that have not developed the use of the phonetic alphabet tend to adopt the same third world posture. The third world is mainly oral slash or even when it cultivates some non phonetic form of writing such as a Sanskrit. On the other hand, first world countries tend to be visual left hemisphere, even when most of their population is declining into a semi-literate state, such as the case today, when the visual culture of industrial societies has been greatly influenced in an acoustic direction by the environment of electronic technologies.
Okay. That was the background of you guys ready were about to kind of dig it a little bit deeper into the theory of our declining cognitive ability brought in by the electronic technology, the dominance of the left or right hemisphere in terms of controlling the principle problem solving of the brain at any one time is largely dependent on environmental factors. So that in the West, the linear reality of the left hemisphere is supported.
For example, by a complex service environment of Rose and transportation, the logical or rational list of activities in legal administration, the dominance of the right hemisphere on the other hand, depends upon and environment have a simultaneous resonating character AE point that we shall develope in some detail later on when discussing the Oriental view of space, such dominance is normal in oral societies.
Keeping in mind that the oral is closely related to the tactile, particularly among preliterate today are universal environment of simultaneous electronic flow of constantly interchanging information. FABERs the sensory preference have the right hemisphere. The First world is aligning itself. However, gradually with the third world, Western man depends on his capacity
Speaker 2 (23m 46s): For conceptualizing proportional space to confirm measurable fact, the innuendo as indeed do all peoples have the Oriental disposition find truth is given not by seeing is believing, but through the oral tradition, mysticism intuition, all cognition. In other words, not simply by observation and measurement of physical phenomenon too, then the ocularly visible apparition is not nearly so common.
As the auditory one here would be a better title than sear for their Holy men. Our friends in the Eastern hemisphere have the capacity for instant readjustment to all psychic and social conditions, which is related to seeing life as a multisensory equilibrium with no ordering priorities. The ground of experience is constantly tuned. All ground, no figures.
The acoustic mode Westerners are hung up on a fixed point of view were ground is fragmented engendering, a desire for a hierarchy. All figures know ground robot ism is the ability to be equally empathetic in many areas at once. Angularism is being chained to a fixed point of view without ground Plato's early struggles were centered on destroying the Oriental bias of Greek tribalism.
He emphasized left-brain cognition over Right or Angularism Plato saw the intrusion of the mimetic and resonate characters from the mental theatre of the right hemisphere as a kind of psychic poison or threat to the left hemisphere Academy with its goal of an individualized Polis. You threw yourselves into a situation of Achilles. You identified with his grief or his anger.
You yourself became achilles'. And so did the reciter to whom you listened 30 years later, you could automatically quote what Achilles had said or what the poet had said about him. Such enormous powers of poetic memorization could be purchased only at the cost of total loss of objectivity Plato's target was indeed an educational procedure and a whole way of life. This kind of drama, this way of reliving experience in memory, instead of analyzing
Speaker 0 (26m 44s): And understanding it is for him.
Speaker 3 (26m 49s): The enemy,
Speaker 0 (26m 51s): The empathy of the right hemisphere is incompatible with the detachment of the left hemisphere. That is why the poetic state of mind is for Plato, the arch enemy. And it is easy to see why he considered this enemy. So formidable. He was entering the lists against centuries of habituation in a rhythmic memorized experience. He asks of men that instead they should examine as experience and rearrange it, that they should think about what they say instead of just saying it.
And they should separate themselves from it. Instead of identifying with it, they themselves should become the subject who stands apart from the object and reconsiders it and analyzes it and evaluates it instead of just
Speaker 3 (27m 48s): Imitating it.
Speaker 0 (27m 52s): The alphabet created a lineal in the visual environment of services and experiences, everything from architecture and highways to representational art, which contributed to the ascendancy of dominance of the left or lineal hemisphere. This conjecture is consistent with the findings of the Russian. Neurophysiologist a R Luria who found that the area of the brain, which controls linear sequencing and hence mathematics and scientific thinking is located in the prefrontal region of the left hemisphere.
The mental process for writing a word entails still another specialization, the mental process for writing a word entails still another specialization, putting the letter's in the proper sequence to form the word Lashley discovered many years ago, that sequential analysis involved a zone of the brain different from that employed for spatial analysis.
In the course of our extensive studies, we have located the region responsible for sequential analysis in the anterior regions of the left hemisphere. Luria is resolved show that the expression linear thinking is not merely a figure of speech, but a mode of activity, which is peculiar to the anterior regions at the left hemisphere of the brain. His results also indicate that the use of the alphabet with its emphasis on linear sequence stimulates mastery of this area, of the brain
Speaker 2 (29m 42s): In cultural patterns. Let me just break it up. They're a little bit, I know what gets a quite a bit technical, but the point is the side of the brain. You use that your been depending where you're born, you know, they say you can't pick your parents and that you usually are a product. Your religious beliefs are a product of were, you were born the same thing as true of your culture.
The same thing is true of how you process information and it has profound effects for the way in which the culture you are born into moves forward. It also has profound effects for you as an individual, especially if you want to Excel in your culture, if you want to become influential in your culture, if you want to live a life worth living, it's imperative that you understand how you're a culture is processing information in a where you fit into that culture and understand the thoughts you think the thoughts you think may actually be only half of what you think.
Does that make sense? If you're honest with yourself and you can figure out an understand that the left side of your brain, the analytical side of your brain is not always congruent with the right side of your brain, the right hemisphere. Then you can understand that the thoughts you think are only half the story. And if you could truly wrap your mind around it, you'll be able to see the world more clearly, not only the world you live in more clearly, but you'll be what you will be much more capable of understanding what other people are trying to describe to you.
You'll be much more capable of understanding how someone actually feels. If when you listen to them, you can listen to their speeches. It is it a very analytical speech or is it more of a creative type of content? You know what I mean by that? Like, think about the guy at the professor in college that is always giving you these scientific, analytical terms versus the art teacher at college.
That's speaking in
Speaker 0 (32m 40s): This flowery rhetoric, both of whom, right, are speaking from different parts of the brain. They're processing information in different. It doesn't make either a one of them wrong. It just makes both of them are incomplete things. How about the way we describe our political parties? They are far left. There are far right. Maybe a better example is that this person is pressing all the information in the right way. This person is presenting all the information in the left.
It does get him back full circle to the yesterday's podcast about when you are going to speak to people, try and find some metaphors that can be used simultaneously with your analytical facts. Thus, you are talking to the whole brain back to the article. Lori is observations, provide an understanding of how the written alphabet with it's lineal structure. I was able to create the conditions conducive to the development of Western science technology and rationality.
The alphabet separated an isolated visual space from the many other kinds of sensory space involved in the sense of smell, touch kinesthesia and acoustics. AB strapped visual space is linear, homogeneous, connected and static. When however, neurophysiologists assign a vague spatial property to the right hemisphere, they are referring to the simultaneous and discontinuous properties have the odd aisle tactile and multiple other spaces have the sensory room sensorium.
The Euclidean space of analytic geometry is a concept of the left hemisphere of the brain. While the multidimensional spaces have the holistic sensorium are percepts of the right hemisphere of the brain where the phonetic alphabet comes into play. The visual faculty tends to separate from the other senses, making possible the perception of abstract. You c**t in a visual space, which represents an extreme dislocation or disassociation from the other senses.
The history of the rise of Euclidean geometry, especially in the time of ancient Alexandria offers a direct parallel with the rise of the phonetic alphabet, phonetic literacy, and a phonetic literacy interne is co-existent and coextensive with the rise of rational logic amenities is the first visual quantitative philosopher.
Speaker 2 (35m 39s): And he succeeds the pre Socratics who were right hemisphere, acoustic, qualitative, philosopher's the phonetic alphabet obsolescence, the oral culture of Greece, as, as explained in preface to Plato by Eric Havelock, both Pre Socratics and Sophos. Then by the close of the fifth century before Christ, if the apology does indeed reproduce the idiom of that period were accepted by public opinion, as a representative of the intellectual list movement.
If they were called philosophizer, it was not for their doctrines as such, but for the kind of vocabulary and syntax, which they used and the unfamiliar psychic energies that they represented Sophos Pre Socratics, and Socrates had one fatal characteristic in common. They were trying to discover and to practice abstract thinking there as a whole lot of information, there's a lot to impact their, there was a lot of questions I kind of have getting into this part.
Let me backup just for a minute, kind of go over some parts that I find incredibly fascinating. The Euclidean space of analytic geometry is a concept of the left hemisphere of the brain. While the multidimensional spaces have the holistic sensorium are percepts of the right hemisphere of the brain. Okay. We're good there with the phonetic alphabet were the phonetic alphabet comes into play. The visual faculty tends to separate from the other senses, making possible the perception of abstract Euclidean visual space.
I've got a scar to read it again, to really break this down where the phonetic alphabet comes into play. The visual faculty tends to separate from the other sense is making possible the perception of abstract Euclidean space, which represents an extreme dislocation or disassociation from the census. So the phonetic alphabet helps the phonetic alphabet allows us to you and me.
It allows us to break apart the visual faculty from the other senses. And since the alphabet isolates the visual ability, the phonetic alphabet makes you c**t in a space possible. It helps us to dislocate or disassociate from the other senses. The phonetic alphabet is a way for
Speaker 0 (38m 36s): Us to isolate the visual geometry. It gives rise to the Euclidean, geometry that think about that as like, if you want to go to the gym and you just want to work on your bicep and you, what if you just did curls all day long every day, all day, you'd have these huge biceps, but you'll have like chicken legs and like your, your, you know, you met your chest. I would be a little bit, but in some ways I don't, I can understand the power of, of logic and I don't get me wrong.
I'm I'm so grateful that we've had these a tremendous thinkers that have been able to move us forward. And so many ways. However, I, I begin to Think is it possible that just overworking that one particular side No this phonetic alphabet, is it possible that our logic has become so such a huge muscle that it's problematic for the rest of us? Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm explaining that accurately.
It's fascinating to think about, I'll have to move it over a little bit more. The power of the phonetic alphabet to translate other languages into itself, to act as a poorest matrix of information flow is matched by its power to invade right hemisphere, oral cultures in the ordinary way. These tribal right hemisphere cultures are wholistic and the entire and resistant to penetration by other preliterate cultures.
But the specialist qualities of the left hemisphere, phonetic alphabet have a long offered. The only instrumental means of invading and taking over oral societies. One could make the case that the, those with the phonetic alphabet have in fact, conquered indigenous people throughout most of recorded history. Although there has been plenty of battles between tribes of indigenous people forever.
It seems that one could make the argument that the true weapon, that one of the war for conquering people was the phonetic alphabet propaganda cannot succeed, where people have no trace of Western culture. These words of Jacquez Elul in propaganda, draw attention to one of the crucial features of Western history. The Christian Church dedicated to propaganda and propagation adopted Greco,
Speaker 2 (41m 34s): Roman phonetic literacy from its earliest days, the perpetration of Greco, Roman literacy and civilization became inseparable from Christian missionary and educational activity. Paradoxically people are not only unable to receive, but are unable to retain doctrinal teaching without a minimal of phonetic or Western culture. Here is the observation of Elul on this matter.
In addition to a certain living standard, another condition must be met if man is to be successfully propagandized, he needs at least a minimum of culture. Propaganda cannot succeed where people have no trace of Western culture. We are not speaking here of intelligence. Some primitive tribes are surely intelligent, but have an intelligence foreign to our concepts and customs. A base is needed. For example, education, a man who cannot read we'll escape propaganda, as well as a man who is not interested in reading people use to think that learning to read evidenced human progress, they still celebrate the decline of illiteracy as a great victory.
They condemn countries with a large proportion of illiterates. They think that reading is a road to freedom. All this is debatable for the important thing is not to be able to read poor, but to understand what one reeds to reflect on. And judge What one reads outside of that. Reading has no meaning and even destroy certain automatic qualities of memory and observation, but to talk about critical faculties and discernment is to talk about something far above primary education and to consider a very small minority, the vast majority of people, perhaps 90%, no, how to read, but they do not exercise their intelligence beyond this.
They attribute authority and imminent value to the printed word or conversely rejected altogether. As these people do not possess enough knowledge to reflect and discern, they believe or disbelieve in Toto, what they read and as such people more overwhelmed, select the easiest, not the hardest reading matter. They are precisely on the level at which the printed word can seize and convince them without opposition.
They are perfectly adapted for propaganda, right?
Speaker 4 (44m 30s): Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44m 32s): Nelly, did you hear what I just read? Think about that.
Speaker 0 (44m 45s): If man is to be successfully propagandized, he needs at at least a minimum of culture. How about this whole culture war that we constantly have going on? It's not about intelligence. Some primitive tribes are surely intelligent, but have an intelligence foreign to our concepts and customs. A man who cannot read will escape propaganda.
Speaker 3 (45m 9s): How about that? It goes up.
Speaker 0 (45m 11s): It just goes to show you a lot about our education system, especially in a lot of the public schools, don't get me wrong. They are. So there are some phenomenal teacher's and if you are one of them, I love you. Thank you for what you do. If you're an uncle, a mom, a dad, an aunt, a grandma, and grandpa, you're a teacher in, if you get a few moments alone with your child or your grandchildren, and you're focusing on reading, make sure that when you are reading with your kids, are your grandkids, are your niece or nephew that you're asking them questions about why, why do they do that?
What happened there? Is that true? Right? Not only is it important for the kids to be able to read, but it's more important for them to be able to think critically about what they do. People used to think that that learning to read evidence, team and progress, they are still celebrate it. And they still celebrate the decline of illiteracy as a great victory. They condemn countries with a large portion of illiterates. They think that reading is a road to freedom.
All this is debatable for the important thing is not to be able to read, but to understand what one reads to reflect on. And judge What one reads outside of that. Reading has no meaning out side of being able to understand what you're reading. Reading has no meaning. So fascinating,
Speaker 3 (46m 56s): Right?
Speaker 0 (46m 57s): Phonetic illiteracy in Athens and grease was an intensely disruptive force as explained by Phillip Slater in the glory of Hara and by Karl popper in the open society and its enemies. Slater is concerned with the breakup of Greek family life and the rise of the new democratic and competitive individualism. There was a pronounced reaction against all the new qualities of mind and how spirit released by the impact of literacy popper
Speaker 2 (47m 30s): Asks. How can we explain the fact that outstanding Athenians, like the acidities stood on this side of reaction against these new developments? He notes that while many of the ambitious young Nobles became active, although not always reliable members of the democratic party, some of the most thoughtful and gifted resisted it's attraction, the open society was already in existence and had in practice begun to develop new values, new equalitarian standards of life.
The big tribal leaders of Athens tried hard to resist. What in effect was a violent transition from the wholistic acoustic right hemisphere institution's of their oral society too. The fragmented and scientific bases of the visual revolution evoked by the literal activation of the left hemisphere. Plato was by no means happy about the effects of literacy and the rise of aggressive commercial interests.
Although the patriotic movement was partly the expression of the longing to return to more stable forms of life, to religion, to decency law and order. It was itself morally rotten it's ancient faith was lost and was largely replaced by a hypocritical and even cynical exploitation of religious sentiments. Does that sound familiar to anybody nihilism as painted by Plato in the portraits of a ClickList?
And there is Marcus, I don't know if I said that Right Plato in the portraits of colossals and the theorists Mockus could be found anywhere among the young patriotic aristocrats who if given the opportunity became leaders of the democratic party, the same literacy, which destroyed the traditional institutions of Athens created an abstract rationalism inseparable from the new dominance of the left hemisphere.
But at this time in the same generation, to which, to the cities belonged, there were a Rose, a new faith and reason, freedom, and the brotherhood of all men, the new faith. And as I believe the only possible faith of an open society, Karl popper had no awareness of the role of literacy in the revolution from Greek tribalism to Greek individualism or in the individual
Speaker 0 (50m 29s): From the group sums up. We can say that the political and spiritual revolution, which had begun with the breakdown of Greek tribalism reached its climax in the fifth century with the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. It had developed into a violent class war at the same time into a war between the two leading cities of Greece. This individualism may be what made Greco, Roman institutions attractive to Christianity since Christian revelation stresses the private responsibility of all individuals and its doctrine of the resurrection.
The phonetic alphabet creates the only environmental services and institutions, which foster the dominance of the left hemisphere. Try and think about what is going on today. And I think you could also make the case of this increased tribalism brought about by social media and what his social media is. Social media is this hot medium that speaks directly to the right side of the brain.
I think we can draw an almost congruent parallel with what was said a moment ago. We can say that the political and spiritual revolution of today has begun with the breakdown.
Speaker 3 (52m 1s): Have you
Speaker 0 (52m 3s): American individualism?
Speaker 3 (52m 8s): Right.
Speaker 0 (52m 9s): All right. We are now part of this tribal society based upon the color you wear, whether it's blue or red or gender or sexual orientation, there's all these tribes instead of just being one group, right?
Speaker 3 (52m 35s): Have it,
Speaker 0 (52m 36s): Individual's in a country where a fractured among these manufactured abstract ideas of personalities, ways of life.
Speaker 3 (52m 56s): It's amazing to me
Speaker 0 (53m 1s): To think that the reason we are so divided might be the way we're processing information. If you look at like a tree hugging hippie versus a trailer park, redneck, they're pretty similar, right? They both want to give those, they built one give a little sideways. They both probably have not a whole lot of money.
They probably both think the system sucks for them, but yet there are diametrically opposed to one another. That's the far left in the far, right? That's two sides of the brain. You can see two sides of the brain. When you look at a hippy and a redneck, it's like looking at the analytical and the conceptual, and if they just had a Corpus callosum to connect them, maybe that's Joe Rogan, maybe he's the Corpus callosum of political, I dunno of political identity or I don't know, you know what I'm trying to say, right?
Like we are, we're so similar in what everybody thinks. It's just, we have a different way to solve. It would probably neither of those ways as accurate, hang out, get rid of the damn Democrats. Hey, look, here were these damn Republicans. It doesn't matter. They're both doing the same thing. Just gotta be a different way. I think. All right, let's get back here. This individualism may be what made Greco, Roman and institutions attractive Christianity, the dominance of the left hemisphere, analytic and quantitative.
And by dominant, we mean the ability of the left brain to lead the right brain in the context of Western culture entails these submission or a suppression have the right hemisphere. And so for example, our intelligence tests exist only for measuring left hemisphere achievement. And Take no cognizance of the existence of the qualitative right hemisphere to present electronic age in its in escapable confrontation with simultaneity presents the first serious threat to the 2,500 year dominance because of the left hemisphere.
Whoa, that is amazing, right. I going to leave at right there for today. And I hope that you listening to this are enjoying your day. I hope that you choose to use your words wisely when in conversation with other people. And if I can drive home a point, try as an experiment in your conversations, in all your relationships from here on out to be a little bit analytical and a little bit of metaphorical, try to work those together in a conversation and see if that will allow you to sail through life gracefully with the wind beneath your wings.
And I'm willing to bet if you do that and 99% of your communication, we'll be better. I love ya.
Speaker 5 (56m 43s): Have a good day. Tomorrow is Friday.