There seems to be a persistent mental bug preventing us from building a sustainable civilization. So far I have been focusing on the cultural, technological and political aspects of how and why each and every technological civilization ended up in ruins, and why ours is no different. A recent revelation made me think, however, that behind all these issues there might be a major hardware failure… In our brains. Is there a way around that bug? Is it possible to prevent it from recurring?
Last week I ended my post calling for a psychological transition versus a material one. Little did I know back then, that I would be writing about the same topic from a psychiatric viewpoint one week later. Such is life though: you never know what comes next. Before we delve into how our brains hijack societies (and vice verse), first let’s review the civilizational predicament we are in on the software level; i.e.: what’s apparently going wrong in our societies time after time when it comes to cajoling a bunch of apes into pulling in one direction.
The problem description goes something like this: As the civilizations we build mature, they increasingly become more rigid; not only when it comes to how they do things, but more importantly: how they think. They gradually lose their ability to recognize — let alone solve — problems, and become increasingly sclerotic and calcified. Problems initially resolvable by an adept leadership grow larger and larger until they become intractable, and burgeoning bureaucracies make even the simplest of adjustments mission impossible.
While enacting new institutions are often done to solve rational problems (like the need to collect taxes in an organized way), they almost invariably end up becoming the most irrational things humans have ever created. Rules, exception to rules, then exception to exceptions are created, only to be followed by bodies tasked with managing all those exceptions and the creation of new rules… Until we get to the point of having a booklet sized mandatory guideline on how to properly write rules and how to document, collect approval on and file exceptions on not writing rules in accordance with the said rule book on rules. If this sounds Kafkaesque, something which can only happen in one of his famous novels or in a communist regime, I have to disappoint you: I’ve seen this very process unfolding even in large western multinational companies. As the writer Clay Shirky observed so wittingly:
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”
The results of this process was perhaps best described by anthropologist and historian Joseph Tainter in his seminal book the Collapse of Complex Societies. According to the summary of his work, this ever increasing complexity can be recognized by:
- numerous differentiated and specialized social and economic roles (bakers, shoemakers, jewelers, landlords etc.)
- the many mechanisms through which these roles are coordinated (hierarchies)
- the reliance on symbolic and abstract communication (writing, laws, accounting etc.)
- the existence of a class of information producers and analysts who are not involved in primary resource production (clerks, lawyers, engineers etc.)
The problem is, as discovered by many civilizations before us, that this burgeoning complexity comes at an exponential increase in costs. So much so, that beyond a certain point maintaining bureaucracy (or adding the next level) costs more than all the benefits to be reaped by society. The US healthcare system is a tolerably good example for this. An institution, which after having produced a remarkable increase in life expectancy in the 20th century, has managed to erode much of its achievements in the 21st — all at an ever increasing cost. If you think that this is largely due to an exponential increase in bureaucracy leading to an unprecedented cost increase (pricing out a good portion of society of its services), then you are not entirely mistaken.
If you add in the Shirky principle — stating that institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution — the picture becomes full. So while keeping the population unhealthy is good for business (by prescribing often addictive and in many cases ineffective drugs, the side effect of which also has to be treated), such developments are much less beneficial for the individual and society in general. Seeing things in such a wide context, it seems, is not one of the greatest strengths of a civilization past its heyday — especially not one of ours.
At this point many might suspect malign actors in the background: conspiring to shorten our lives and turning the population miserable debt peons. And while this might be true (wealthy and powerful individuals always conspired to make more money and grab more power) there is an even greater force at work. Something, recurring in each highly complex society, time after time, regardless if it’s 2024 BCE or 2024 AD.
But what is the common cause behind burgeoning bureaucracies, a sharp decline in scientific discoveries, and the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of once “democratic” and “liberal” societies? Why can’t we talk openly about these issues, let alone crack a good joke without having to be afraid of repercussions? The answer comes from — perhaps not surprisingly — our very configuration as a species equipped with a nervous system: the fact that we have a brain in two halves.
While we tend to think that we have a single, separate self making its own decisions, and societies are designed and built up by clever individuals, nothing could be further from the truth. Our brains apparently “doing all this thinking” are in fact comprised of two different entities: a left and a right hemisphere. Thanks to the seminal work of the psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist we now know that these two pay a rather different kind of attention to what’s going on around them, resulting in two kinds of phenomenological worlds within one “individual”. (And before you say, that this is just another “esoteric theory”, note the growing body of empirical evidence obtained from working with left and right hemisphere injured people. The story of how stroke patients react to the world around them is especially revealing.)
The left hemisphere is full of things that are known already. Things that are fixed, certain, detached, decontextualized, abstract. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, is something completely different: it’s a web in which nothing is ever completely separate from anything else, nothing is ever completely certain or completely fixed. This is a world in which there’s a lot of subtlety, implicit meaning, something which the left hemisphere is completely unable to comprehend. The right hemisphere’s world is a living one, not an inanimate two dimensional map like that of the left.
In a healthy, balanced body and mind, the left hemisphere is only a tool: responsible for grabbing things and manipulating the world around us. And a superbly good one at that! Getting and preparing food, talking in a coherent and logical way, solving math problems using symbols are just a few of its many uses. Meanwhile the right hemisphere with its divergent attention keeps monitoring the world around it, finding new connections and constantly updating the map used by the left. It is responsible for finding the implicit meaning behind words, decoding and creating metaphors, but also detecting danger. Thus, in an ideal case at least, the right hemisphere is the Master, while the left is his Emissary.
And why the right on top, and not the left? Well, left to its own devices the left becomes a narcissistic manipulator. Since it’s incapable of compassion (the only emotional expression it excels at is anger), and thinks it is infallible, it doesn’t feel the need to incorporate other worldviews. It mistakenly believes that the map it holds is the world, and everything which falls outside that map, or God forbid contradicts it, is wrong. Being unable to decode hidden meaning and to understand context, the left also takes everything literally, and often becomes paranoid and suspicious of others. Is it any wonder then that our culture, dominated by left hemisphere thinkers, is incapable of admitting its failures and learning from them — let alone backtracking decisions? That we have become delusional, presuming that there is an infinite amount of resources to be found out there, and we could do just fine without the living world around us? Or that nuclear war is nothing to be afraid of, and the other side is just bluffing anyway? (It doesn’t have any legitimate interest to start with, so why bother?) Believe it or not, these dangerous beliefs all stem from the same loss of balance between the two modes of thinking.
During the rise of civilizations (compared to a non-civilized, egalitarian lifestyle) the need to organize, manage and manipulate the world increases dramatically. Irrigation canals must be dug. Dams, temples, houses built. Agricultural work planned, then thoroughly executed. All this work is the natural playing field of the left hemisphere, while the right remains occupied with creating art, religion, culture. Notice, how both are equally important for a young society to emerge and become successful.
With the expansion of civilizations, however, complexity also tends to rise, requiring more and more attention from the left hemisphere. Bureaucracies are created, where rigid thinking is not the exception, but the norm. Once this approach proves to be successful, and the expansion of the civilization and its institutions turns exponential, the process becomes self-reinforcing: favoring ever more left hemisphere thinking at the cost of doing less and less of what the right excels at.
In this sense the age of reason is an age of increasingly left hemisphere thinking, something which inevitably falls apart as it oversimplifies life, and over-complicates how we do things. And while we tend to think that most scientific revelations came through laborious work, this is nothing but left hemisphere propaganda: the greatest discoveries of mankind came through intuition — the domain of the right. Laborious work came only after the idea was born, to prove it was correct. So as soon as the right gets suppressed by adding more and more rigid rules and processes, administrators and managers, scientific progress slows down and turns into a decline.
During the process more and more narcissistic (left dominated) leaders raise to power, and the civilization starts to calcify around preset dogmas and ways of doing things. Leaders fell in love with their creation which they often compare to a fine machine, unaware of the fact that at this point they are no longer at the helm: the system takes over and executes the only thing it can do: grow… At least until resources last, or the cost of increasing complexity starts to massively outweigh its benefits, and collapse begins.
It’s not a far fetched thing to say that civilizations lose their mind over time — at least the better half of it — ending up in a state of schizophrenia. ‘Use it or lose it’, as the saying goes… and if a culture gradually stops using half of its brain capacity, it should come as no surprise that it ends up being ruled by half-witted people. The problem is, that left hemisphere thinking — allowed to go rampant — is waging war on life itself. It destroys all what it cannot comprehend and replaces it with a mechanistic world view, where every cog has its role. In the process, however, it destroys the very foundation (culture, religion, myth) the society it governs was built on. It makes life miserable and not worth living. It exacerbates the illusion of separateness from Nature, from each other, from meaning, and therefore it becomes its own worst enemy. Since it cannot tolerate dissent, it suppresses critical voices (humor, art, or blogs like this) and churns out propaganda at an unprecedented scale. Don’t get me wrong: left hemisphere thinking is necessary in many cases, but only where its appropriate. If it’s applied to all aspects of life, however, from education to science or from literature to culture, it becomes a destructive force.
“Loss of creative power is a sign of breakdown. A creative minority degenerates into a dominant minority which attempts to retain by force a position which it has ceased to merit.” — Arnold Toynbee
Wisdom lies in maintaining a healthy balance between the two hemispheres, or in our case: restoring the right as the master, and the left as his emissary. This means viewing everything in a much wider context, appreciating nuance and interconnectedness. Restoring the concept of the sacred, or that which is set apart from the mundane. Reinstating the concept of holiness — especially when it comes to Nature. Saying no to things which you could otherwise do. Experiencing awe and beauty with an open mind. Remaining curious and inquisitive.
So how to build a better civilization? What are the pitfalls to be avoided, and what lessons should we learn? While I’m fully aware that there is no ‘we’ in this process, still I find it useful to list out at least some ideas how to move on:
- Avoid narcissistic leaders providing a simple answer to all of our predicaments, seek wise elders instead who talk in terms of context and meaning.
- While some administration is necessary, keep it to the bare minimum (a few scribes keeping books, not more). Avoid creating burgeoning bureaucracies at all costs.
- Use democratic in favor of autocratic technologies: if you end up building complex machinery (like three mast sailboats or a fossil fuel economy) just to ensure your survival, you are doing something wrong. Strive to keep it local, simple and low-tech, so you don’t depend on imports from far away lands, and don’t need complex hierarchies to build and maintain the required technologies.
- Create or take up a religion emphasizing humanity’s role as one of many species, and which depicts us as an integral part of the web of life, not its sole benefactor.
- Combat growth — it is the enemy #1: giving rise to complexity, eating up resources and eventually leading to collapse and misery. Strive for a steady state based on a flow of truly renewable resources and the carrying capacity of the area you inhabit.
- Ally with like-minded tribes, to prevent the rise of rapacious, growth oriented cultures before they grow too big, just like the immune system does when fighting cancerous cells.
- Promote self organization and volunteer work as opposed to central planning and high hierarchies telling everyone what to do (and later what to think).
- Prevent civilizational amnesia to reoccur: don’t let the mistakes made by this one to be forgotten. Quantum mechanics, or how to make jet engines and plastic can be left behind, the awareness of overshoot and the knowledge of ecological collapse all this technology use has led to cannot.
- Always have room for fun and humor. Let arts flourish and express a wide range of feelings and ideas. Practice appreciating awe and beauty, everyday.
- Meditate. Think deeply about the meaning of things and how they relate to one another. Remember: context is everything.
Will such a culture — should it once fully came to be — call itself a “civilization” is another matter. Be it as it may, cultures change one step at a time, and mental transformations on this magnitude do not happen overnight. Modernity with all its bad habits and mode of thinking is going out the window, anyway, so why not try something different this time?
Until next time,
B
Notes
This psychiatric approach seems to explain almost perfectly all the symptoms behind the decline of science I wrote about a few weeks back:
- science hitting diminishing returns (due to exploding bureaucracies driven by left hemisphere dominant folks and the suppression of creative thinking, with the sole purpose of securing more funds, and thereby turning science into a paper mill producing less and less breakthroughs at a higher and higher cost)
- the process of turning students into robots (by conditioning them from an early age to rely predominantly on their left hemisphere; memorizing knowledge and utilizing predefined methods for solving problems, as opposed to learning how to think critically and creatively)
- the use of machines (computers models and now AI, both products of a mechanistic world view) to boost “productivity” and make predictions — a classic example of mistaking the map for the territory
- our increasing inability to grasp the interconnections between scientific fields and to think of science as a whole (instead of atomizing it into smaller and smaller fields of study no one can really master or understand)
- and finally peak intelligence (lacking intuition, the left hemisphere alone is less intelligent than working in tandem with the right; as societies turn increasingly left dominated the less mentally capable they become)
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