tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post1448136021067246677..comments2023-04-28T06:49:37.389-05:00Comments on Right Mind Matters: Born That WayRight Mind Mattershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-47641617196190020942015-05-17T12:42:14.626-05:002015-05-17T12:42:14.626-05:00Thanks so much, Tom! I have read this book with it...Thanks so much, Tom! I have read this book with its interesting mix of Blake's poetry and Jill Bolte Taylor's experience after her left-hemispheric stroke. I do think Tweedy goes a bit too far with with left/right dichotomy, but he sheds a lot of light on Blake's thought processes. Thanks again!Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-56958536291445845322015-05-16T21:40:23.107-05:002015-05-16T21:40:23.107-05:00Hi Carole,
I just stumbled on your site, and tho...Hi Carole, <br /><br />I just stumbled on your site, and thought you might find the following book of interest!<br />The God of the Left Hemisphere: Blake, Bolte Taylor and the Myth of Creation by Roderick Tweedy<br /><br />Here is an excerpt:<br /><i>The left hemisphere is competitive… the will to power…is the agenda of the left hemisphere. It arose not to communicate with the world but to manipulate it. This inability to communicate or co-operate poses great difficulties for any project of reintegration or union. Its tendency would be to feed off the right hemisphere, to simply use and gain power over it too. Left hemisphere superiority is based, not on a leap forward by the left hemisphere, but on a ‘deliberate’ handicapping of the right. There is perhaps as much chance of persuading the head of a multinational to stop pursuing an agenda of self-interest and ruthless manipulation as there is of persuading the Urizenic program of the brain which controls him of “resubmitting” itself to the right hemisphere's values and awareness.<br />The story of the Western world being one of increasing left-hemispheric domination, we would not expect insight to be the key note. Instead we would expect a sort of insouciant optimism, the sleepwalker whistling a happy tune as he ambles towards the abyss.<br />The left, rational, brain, it might be safe to conclude, has no idea how serious the problem is, that is to say, how psychopathic it has become. Of course, it doesn't care that it doesn't care. “The idiot Reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination/And from laughter proceeds to murder by undervaluing calumny”, noted Blake in a comment that is only remarkable for the fact that it has taken two hundred years to understand.<br />The apparently “conscious” rational self, the driving program and personality of the left brain, turns out to be deeply unconscious, a pathological sleepwalker blithely poisoning its own environment whilst tenaciously clinging onto the delusion of its own rightness. This unfortunate mixture, of arrogance and ignorance, defines contemporary psychology. The left hemisphere not only cannot see that there is a problem, it cannot see that it is itself the problem. This stance was often evident in my own discussions with friends and colleagues whilst researching this book, many of whom would ask why I was so “hard” on the left hemisphere. So extensive is its hold on the human brain that even when its role is pointed out, a deep resistance prevents many people from considering whether it is their own left brains who are actually asking that question. </i>Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02725175206527681317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-67726102503720614212012-01-07T12:30:56.273-06:002012-01-07T12:30:56.273-06:00Hi Brendan,
I had typed out a long response and t...Hi Brendan,<br /><br />I had typed out a long response and then lost it all when I went to get this link for you:<br />http://www.madinamerica.com/author/mcornwall/<br /><br />The gist was: left-handed writing/eating but right-handed-guitar playing, batting is pretty common. It is a type of bilateral brain organization. I'm extremely left-lateralized in my own actions: hand, foot, seeing through the left. My right eye never worked very well. The gist of the book I read was that mixed language dominance is a predisposing factor to psychosis, but not extreme right-cerebral lateralization for language. I don't think batting and playing the guitar right-handed would pose any threat to your psyche.<br /><br />On the other hand, your early trauma could have triggered the compensatory response that empowers your endless waves of great poetry. I don't doubt that you are RH-dominant for language. And we're all the better for it!<br /><br />Thanks for the Irish reference. I think in that case, as you suggested, it's the isolation and the celibacy that triggers the psychosis. Which leads me back to the link above. <br /><br />I've been making new friends on Facebook who have passed through psychotic episodes and gone on to become writers and therapists helping others understand their voices. Really fascinating stuff. <br /><br />Also, in the Medium and the Matrix on my Web site there is information about how early trauma can make a child's brain resemble the brain of a schizophrenic and the story of Lacanian therapist Annie Rogers who fits the model.<br /><br />P.S. Typing on a computer is a great aid to working both hemispheres. I learned to use the mouse on the right and now I can't even do it with the left hand. It's the only thing I do with the right. Did you ever see My Dinner with André? There's a bit where the main character telling his story says you should periodically go around the house doing everything with your non-dominant hand to activate that hemisphere. I think it's sound advice.<br /> <br />Cheers and thanks for reading!!<br /><br />P.P.S. I'm co-administering a FB page for left-handers, if you're interested.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-73736244285905392452012-01-07T05:30:34.273-06:002012-01-07T05:30:34.273-06:00P.S. Here's a Wikipedia nugget to ponder: One ...P.S. Here's a Wikipedia nugget to ponder: One of the few items in common use that is actually advantageous for left-handers is the QWERTY keyboard. Over 3000 words in English can be typed with only the left hand on the QWERTY board as opposed to some 300 with the right hand, and overall, 56% of the keystrokes made when touch-typing on a QWERTY board are made with the left hand. - BBrendanhttp://blueoran.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-26720662507099809672012-01-07T05:18:12.302-06:002012-01-07T05:18:12.302-06:00Great post, Carole - No wonder the French word for...Great post, Carole - No wonder the French word for "left" is <em>sinister</em>, and the English word "right," for which right-handedness gets it handle, means "correct" or "proper." I'm a lefty of two right-handed parents who eats and writes with the left hand but plays guitar and bats right-handed, which I figure are the result of going with the dominant culture. Very common experience, but I wonder what neurological processes are effect when one goes against their inherent left-handed grain to perform tasks right-handed. Is trauma the only trigger, or could more mundane transformation also cause or contribute to translateralization? Perhaps as much to allow me the thought disorders of my later life? <br /><br />Side note, have you read Nancy Schepler-Hughes’ <em>Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland</em> (1977)? Her contention that high rates of schizophrenia in men in rural wester Ireland was anthropological in nature, the result of the increased isolation and unwanted celibacy of bachelor farming, often the "runt" of the family for whom other choices like working abroad were forbidden. (Somebody had to inherit the impoverished fields of the failing farm.) Anyway, she mentions a folk belief in Western Ireland that oddly works into your theme here, that the soul is a fish located somewhere under the left arm and is wholly untrustworthy, devious, er sinister even ... For some reason I thought of those schizophrenics of Western Ireland as under the spell of those fish, whose wet voices whispered so loudly in their ear of comfort beneath the wave. The dark tide of the unconscious and all, the thrall of the siren's call: singing voices in the poet's ear, too, though mediated through some literate interface that prevents one from literally believing those voices. Anyway, great post and always looking forward to more. - BrendanBrendanhttp://blueoran.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-83260075128927213802012-01-05T11:18:14.454-06:002012-01-05T11:18:14.454-06:00Thanks for your question, Von. Of course, adoptees...Thanks for your question, Von. Of course, adoptees would have the genetic makeup of their natural parents, and may have suffered from loss, abandonment and/or maltreatment. Those early traumas can be long lasting, but a new nurturing environment can only be a good thing. Studies do show that trauma can trigger a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia whether in the original or the adopted family. Take a look at the article, "The Medium and the Matrix," on my Web site, www.carolebrooksplatt.com, for more on this.Right Mind Mattershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04481123631051878850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4964184129541186956.post-29173668197533830302012-01-04T16:30:19.758-06:002012-01-04T16:30:19.758-06:00Any views on transantional adoptees who are brough...Any views on transantional adoptees who are brought in their early years from one culture and language to another and the effects that might produce?Vonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17421069895155350144noreply@blogger.com