Ian Mcgilchrist’s The Master and his Emissary Dissected pt 3 History & Culture скачать в хорошем качестве

Ian Mcgilchrist’s The Master and his Emissary Dissected pt 3 History & Culture

This is the third of the three films on the book, which I’ve called ‘History & Culture’, dealing with how Mcgilchrist seeks to apply his thesis of hemispheric difference to the unfolding of western history and culture. More specifically how their differences in function, values and the world they bring into being, can be traced through key moments of cultural transformation from the ancient world through to the present. Here, his claim goes beyond simply recognising that successive waves of western cultural innovation reflect the different values and priorities of the different hemispheres. Rather, he maintains that as we move through the ancient world, the renaissance, reformation, enlightenment, romanticism, modernity and post-modernity, we are witnessing a struggle for power between the hemispheres, each seeking to shape the world we bring into existence. This Mcgilchrist maintains is a contest that the left hemisphere is winning with potentially catastrophic consequences. Here I’ve sought to summarise this thesis in 5 sections. The first, ‘Thesis Explained’ sets out the foundations for his argument by looking at 4 questions. 1) Why the west. 2) Why the Brain 3) Why the Hemispheres 4) What made it possible (for the hemispheres to shape culture) The second, ‘The Ancient World – shows how both hemispheres, especially in classical Greece, worked in creative tension to produce extraordinary cultural achievement, in what might be seen as the golden age of hemispheric equilibrium. Here sculpture and drama animated the values of the right, while a wide range of organised bodies of knowledge, particularly platonic philosophy, reflected those of the left. The third, ‘Renaissance & Reformation - introduces the idea that the struggle for power between the hemispheres could no longer be contained or kept in balance, leading to a series of oscillations between cultures. Thus, the Renaissance reflecting the values and priorities of the right was followed by the counterculture of reformation reflecting those of the left. The fourth, ‘Enlightenment and Romanticism’ continues this theme of cultural oscillation setting out in the same way as the previous section, how and why these two cultural moments are direct manifestations of how each hemisphere not only receives but produces a different world. The final section ‘Industrial & Scientific Modernity or the Master betrayed’ is devoted to Mcgilchrist’s conclusion that after 2,500 years of struggle, the left Hampshire has finally gained supremacy over the right. This sets out how its its artificial and virtual world has now become incarnate reality and in so doing, has gone a long way to subordinate the lived world of nature and the world that is recognised and created by the right Hemisphere.