The Master And HER Emissary

Neuroscience is one of those fields that, despite exponential growth in recent years and decades, is still largely in its infancy.  We have truly come a LONG ways since the bygone days of phrenology over a century ago, but even now, so much of what we thought we knew with at least reasonable certainty just a few years ago is now revealed to be not only inaccurate, but sometimes even 100% wrong.  And when it is ultimately watered down for the layperson as "pop neuroscience", such an observation applies a fortiori. 

Once in a while, however, a book or two comes along that really does make an impact, and largely in a correct way.  There are two such books, both written well over a decade ago, that still have yet to be successfully and conclusively refuted. They seem disparate at first, but they can actually be synthesized, as you will see by the end of this article.  

Starting with the most recent, The Master and His Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist (2009), we delve into the familiar idea of the left vs right hemispheres of the brain.  Only unlike the usual surface-level analysis in that we see in pop neuroscience, this one is a real deep dive into the truly resounding implications of these brain differences for society and civilization.  Ten years later, it was even made into a documentary, The Divided Brain (2019), by McGilchrist himself along with award-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Dylyn, et al.

To summarize:  the two hemispheres of the brain each see the world and process information in fundamentally different ways:  the left brain is more reductionistic in thinking, while the right is more holistic in thinking.  The left is more logical, analytical and detail-oriented, while the right is more creative, intuitive, and sees the bigger picture.  The left is more linear, while the right is more non-linear.  The left sees the map, while the right sees the territory.  And so on.  While both sides are of course quite valuable and necessary, the brain functions best overall when the right brain is in charge.  The left is a great servant, but a terrible master, hence the title of the book.  And Western culture has, for thousands of years, oscillated between favoring the overall relative dominance of each of the two hemispheres.  In recent centuries and decades, as in some other historical periods as well, we have become far too left-brain dominant, with very negative consequences, according to the author.  Not only does the left not really know what the right is doing, but at least half the time the left doesn't even know what the left is doing!  The left brain has thus essentially hijacked society, and that in turn leaves us "increasingly incapable of grappling with critical economic, environmental, and social issues, ones that shape our very future as a species", as the documentary would put it.  I am largely oversimplifying what he said, of course, but that is the basic gist of it overall.

One obvious reason for this excessive left-brain dominance could be due to poorly-designed education, of course.  But another could be that the left brain is faster in terms of processing speed than the right, and the pace of life is undoubtedly much, much faster nowadays than even the recent past.  Though the latter would be more of a chicken-or-the egg question.  And as we will see, there is more to it:

(And to all of the political conservatives and reactionaries who try in vain to shoehorn all of this into their silly left-wing vs right-wing political spectrum, like that one guy on The Daily Sceptic did recently, please get your own ideas.  This book, by a renowned Oxford scholar, truly thoroughly transcends such a naive interpretation of politics.)

The other book, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess:  The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain (1998), is a bit more amateurish and not quite as science-y, but answers another piece of the puzzle:  that of gender.  That is, it helps partially explain of how Matriarchy gave way to patriarchy thousands of years ago. Could it be that excessive left-brain dominance is at least partly a stand-in for male dominance, and vice-versa, in a vicious cycle?  That assumption may not really be all that farfetched.  Per Wikipedia in a nutshell:

Shlain began with the insight: "when a critical mass of people within a society acquire literacy, especially alphabet literacy, left hemispheric modes of thought are reinforced at the expense of right hemispheric ones, which manifests as a decline in the status of images, women's rights, and goddess worship." He then applied this paradigm to 35 pairs of concepts and historical periods.

(And that, ladies and gentlemen, also explains the esoteric reason for the uneasiness of certain famous ancient patriarchs about so-called "graven images" as well.  They may have scoffed at the golden calf, but they (at least metaphorically) worshiped the "golden phallus" all the same.)

Shlain also, more hopefully, believes that in the more recent trends towards images in today's media, our brains are actually trending towards becoming more balanced, with the right brain making a comeback (along with, not coincidentally, the rise of Women), in contrast to McGilchrist.  So which is it?  If one attempts to answer the question with one's right brain, one can come to the conclusion that both are true to some degree since we are in fact experiencing two diverging trends at the same time that have not completely cancelled each other out.  Only time will tell which one wins.

It is well-known that Women's brains are relatively more balanced between the left and right hemispheres, though at least somewhat favoring the right side, while men's brains tend to be more lateralized, tending to favor the left side.  Not every study agrees, of course, but the general weight of the evidence (whether seen through the left-brain perspective OR the right-brain perspective) favors that overall interpretation.  And of course, the late, great Ashley Montagu noted in his book, The Natural Superiority of Women (1953, and last updated in 1998), Women have a significantly larger corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects and allows the two halves of the brain to communicate with one another.  (No wonder men are so bad at multitasking, for example.)

That is, just like we saw which side of the brain needs to be in charge, so too do we now see which gender needs to be in charge as well, for more or less the same reasons.  

"As above, so below", in other words.

One sticking point I have with McGilchrist is that when he discusses the Renaissance, as a period (along with the Romantic period) where the left and right brains were supposedly in perfect balance (in contrast to both the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which he disdains as being too left-dominant), he completely elides and glosses over the Inquisiton and Burning Times (aka Women's Holocaust) during that time, which is a glaring omission that if noted would suggest that perhaps there wasn't such a perfect balance after all at that time.  But in light of what I just noted about gender differences of the brain, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why.  Sylvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (2004), would truly have a field day with that!  (Spoiler alert:  the "witches" and "heretics" targeted were in fact (mostly) Women revolutionaries who attempted to overthrow the patriarchy during the rough transition from the slow implosion of feudalism to the rise of patriarchy's ultimate favorite left-brainchild, capitalism.)

So now, we see how it all ties together.  It should really be called, "The Master and HER Emissary". And it is probably about as close as one can get to a "theory of everything".

And truly, a brain divided against itself cannot stand.

(Mic drop)

UPDATE:  See here for a good, quick animation about McGilchrist's book and documentary.  Also note how, contrary to one of the biggest pop-culture neuromyths out there, true reason actually requires both hemispheres, and emotion is also present in both as well.  Food for thought. 

See also here how the overall thesis ties in feminine vs masculine energy as well.

Mother Nature Knows Exactly What She Is Doing

In a previous article, I had noted that we have little if anything to fear from an aging and eventually shrinking population in the future, while the very real ecological problems of overpopulation and ecological overshoot greatly dwarf any social and economic problems of the former.  But I did not get fully into the mechanics of exactly WHY birth rates are falling and have been falling for quite a while now.

I would of course be remiss not to note that the plandemic and especially the jabs (I for one refuse to inaccurately call these novel and experimental gene therapy drugs by their preferred V-word) played a role, but the trend of falling birthrates began LONG before anyone ever even heard of the "novel coronavirus".  In fact, it goes back decades.

It's almost like Gaia is trying to tell us something.  So read on, and let's answer the "clue phone" ringing louder than ever....

There also physical factors dampening fertility such as endocrine disruptors and other pollutants, which clearly play a role, along with widespread use of both licit and illicit drugs as well, but most of the drop in birthrates is due to more people of both genders choosing (consciously or unconsciously) to have either fewer kids or no kids at all.

The obvious reason?  Women are generally no longer forced and coerced as they once were to be serial breeding slaves, at least not in the rich-world countries.  So unsurprisingly, they are now having fewer kids, and starting later in life than before.  No wonder the reactionaries want so desperately to revoke Women's hard-won reproductive rights.  In fact, Women all over the world are increasingly FED UP with patriarchy, especially in traditional societies that have recently modernized.  To cite an extreme example, the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate (TFR), South Korea, there is currently even a Lysistrata-like movement called the "4B movement" (a combination of reproductive strike, dating strike, marriage strike, and sex strike against men by primarily the younger generation of Women) that is apparently rapidly catching on over there.

And in parallel with that, a more subtle reason also emerges:  as men now have more "skin in the game" legally in regards to children that they sire, compared with just a few generations ago, men also are finding that having too many kids and/or too soon is more burden than benefit for them as well.  Furthermore, at least in the rich-world countries, children are generally no longer a source of cheap labor anymore.  So it really doesn't make economic sense anymore for men to have lots of kids like in the past either.

Meanwhile, under late-stage capitalism and late-stage patriarchy, the cost of raising children continues to skyrocket along with the extreme inequality and (often planned and artificial) scarcity of resources (especially housing) thanks to the oligarchy and their sycophantic lackeys in government.  That impacts both genders, of course.  Increased life expectancy, urbanization, technology, and an accelerating pace of life also contribute to reduced birthrates well.

It is also an opportunity cost for Women as well, in that now that Women are now allowed to have (gasp!) education, careers, and stuff like that, and thus attempting the high birthrates of the past would clearly interfere with and put a damper on that.  Time and energy are finite resources, after all.  Reactionaries of course, at least when they aren't too craven to say the quiet part out loud, would cynically argue that Women thus have "too many choices" now, and that forcibly taking opportunities away from Women (!) would be the only way to restore the high birthrates of the past.  Technically, they are not entirely incorrect. That, and/or restoring the very high poverty and death rates (both infant/child and maternal) of the distant past, would indeed be the only way to restore such high birthrates.  But I don't think any sane person really wants to do either, nor would it be even remotely ethical.

Nor are the high birthrates of the past really a good idea in an overpopulated world in ecological overshoot, obviously.  "Replacement rate," which ultimately results in a long-term stable population number that is neither growing nor shrinking, is a total fertility rate (TFR) of roughly 2.1 children born per Woman.  For example, a TFR of, say, 1.5-1.8 or so (where most of the world currently seems to be converging towards, even in many non-rich countries) for a few generations would lead to a gentle and gradual population decline of roughly 10% to 25% per generation once positive momentum ends and then negative momentum sets in.  (A TFR of 1.0, around where most of East Asia seems to be converging, would result in an even sooner and faster population drop of about 50% per generation, and so on.)  Then, as the world becomes less crowded, and thus the cost of living drops, Women will likely decide to have somewhat more kids and the TFR will eventually settle around replacement rate once again.

All of this dovetails nicely with the Gaia hypothesis per James Lovelock.  That is, Mother Nature knows exactly what she is doing when a grossly overpopulated species wreaks havoc on the Earth as we continually transgress planetary boundaries like there is no tomorrow.  In the case of modern humans, we have artificially (and temporarily!) pushed back many of the natural limits that once held our population in check, so now we are, not coincidentally, losing at least some of the previous desire and/or ability to procreate until we ultimately get back into balance with Nature, God willing.  So it is unsurprising that all of the overt pronatalism in the world, even literally paying Women to have kids, is NOT really working to raise birthrates more than at the very margins.  Even the very generous and progressive Nordic countries are still significantly below replacement rate, albeit still higher than most of their neighbors to the south (except for France, who is also almost as generous as the Nordics).

That's not to say that a generous progressive and pro-humanity agenda (such as Universal Basic Income, Medicare For All, paid family leave, flexible work-life balance, free or subsidized childcare, improved education, and stuff like that) would be useless, far from it.  I believe that it is simply the right thing to do for it's own sake regardless.  It's called ethics, and respecting the inherent dignity of the human person.  But, short of literally paying Mothers at least a quarter-million dollars per child* (the approximate low-ball cost of raising ONE child from birth until age 18, excluding higher education) up front, if one is somehow counting on such things merely to stop the population from aging or shrinking, they are most likely barking up the wrong tree.  The most it could do in that regard is slow down the rate of aging and decline, so as not to hit too large a "pothole" on the road to sustainability. 

(*NOTE:  If your jaw just dropped reading that figure, think of it like this:  Mothering is literally the most important job in the world, yet it is one that literally pays NEGATIVE "wages".  A quarter-million dollars is really just breaking even, basically.  Now you see why practically all pronatalist initiatives, monetary or otherwise, don't really move the needle.)

Regardless, we must leave room for Nature, lest Nature ultimately not leave room for us.  We ignore that basic maxim at our own peril, not to mention that of the entire planet.

And certainly, we must never, ever, force, coerce, or deceive anyone to have kids against their will, period.  That is a very backward, outmoded, illiberal, and all-around toxic thing to do to anyone, and does NOT respect the dignity of the human person.  Doing so treats humanity solely as a means to an end, not an end in itself.  That should go without saying, of course, but when carrots fail, there will be the temptation to use sticks, as some countries are already doing today.

In a nutshell, an aging and shrinking population is inevitable, baked into the cake for several generations now, and the only thing we can really do is adapt to it.  How we will "ride the slide" is ultimately the "make or break" point for our species during the current Anthropocene epoch.  And the Earth will ultimately thank us if we get it right (and we absolutely cannot afford to get it wrong, as that is not an option).

Let the planetary healing begin!

P.S.  I realized that I had glossed over and neglected to mention the factor of NARCISSISM.  Some would argue that a supposed increase in "cultural narcissism" is at least partially responsible for people choosing to have fewer kids or none at all.  If that is true, then that is actually a GOOD thing on balance.  Narcissists truly make some of the very worst parents as a rule (second only to psychopaths and sociopaths), and narcissists of course tend to beget more narcissists, via nature, nurture, or both.  And a culture causing fewer narcissists to procreate as much will cause them to ultimately go largely extinct within a few generations, which would be to everyone's ultimate benefit overall.  Once again, Mother Nature knows exactly what she is doing. 

(Mic drop)

Should Child Support Laws Be Eventually Phased Out?

First, I should note that I do NOT approve of actual deadbeat dads under the current system.  They are literally welchers of the worst kind, and I cannot stand welchers of any kind.  To any fellas reading this, I strongly advise you NOT to have any unprotected PIV intercourse at all unless you either 1) had a vasectomy, and/or 2) can afford to set aside the quarter-million dollars or so per child to raise such children with at least a halfway decent standard of living from birth to age 18 (or an even higher age in some states for child support obligations).  And that doesn't even include college or the possibility (nay, probability) of massive medical bills in the USA.  Sorry fellas, but the truth hurts.  Under the current imperfect system, if you want to play, you may very well have to PAY.  And if you don't pay, well, then you get to face the modern-day version of debt peonage or debtor's prison.  You can thank the patriarchy for backfiring on you per the law of karma.  Also don't forget to thank neoliberalism (including the hypocritical President Slick Willie in the 1990s, one of the biggest rakes and cads in modern history) as well for essentially gutting what passed for a social safety net, and thus for "hunting you down and making you pay" in return.

In other words, fellas, discipline yourself to say, "no glove, no love" as a matter of course, lest you play a risky game of Russian Roulette both physically and financially. 

That said, as we make the rocky and often nonlinear transition towards a Matriarchal society, a very vexing question will inevitably come up.  What to do about child support laws?  Should the very concept be phased out?  Many men will reflexively say, "Hell Yeah!", while many Women would say, "Hell NO!", or at the very least, have an abundance of caution about the overall idea.  On social media, for example, I have even encountered some Women here and there who say they want to create a world where no one knows or cares who the father is, yet somehow still want to force men to pay for it all.  I guess they want a rule of "joint and several liability" or "deep pocket rule", of all of the potential fathers for all children, not unlike what Lenin briefly had in the USSR during their ill-fated first attempt at a "sexual revolution" in the late 1910s and early 1920s, that is, before Stalin did an about-face and abruptly reversed it after the orphanages became (paradoxically) packed to the brim with unwanted children.  Yes, that was before modern birth control and paternity testing, of course, but it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how that sort of policy probably would NOT end very well at all under late-stage capitalism today either.  That circle simply does NOT square at all.

Meanwhile, many right-wing reactionaries (including so-called "reactionary feminists"), believe that the more obligations people have in general, the better, because reasons.  Even if some tacitly believe that Women should have all the rights but men should have all of the obligations, or vice-versa.  That circle doesn't really square either.

Yet in actual Matriarchal societies, past and present, such as the Mosuo, we know that men generally have no real liability for their own (putative) children at all.  Why?  Not only due to the traditional lack of paternity certainty (at least before the advent of modern birth control and paternity testing), but also because the Women do NOT want themselves or their children be tethered to or dependent on the men, for obvious reasons, as that is a major conflict of interest.  Whoever pays the piper calls the tune, and with men's shekels come the shackles.  And men, as a rule, in every society patriarchal or Matriarchal or anything in between, have always been the lazier gender overall, and often seem to be congenitally allergic to responsibility.  Sure there are exceptions, but those exceptions really only prove the rule.  If Women are going to inevitably carry the bulk of the "mental load" regardless, to say nothing of the physical load too, they might as well be fully in charge as well. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, and heavy is the head that wears the crown.

In other words, it is understood that with power comes responsibility, and thus men would have both less power and less responsibility relative to Women under Matriarchy, particularly in regards to children.  That makes sense, as it's a trade-off.  Women would also be the richer gender as well, and children would ultimately be raised (more or less) collectively by the "village".  And to paraphrase the philosopher Iris Murdoch (in a different context), one cannot simply go on indefinitely living off of the interest of a capital that one has long since rejected, at least not for very long.

(Perhaps that is one somewhat esoteric reason why, contrary to popular opinion, even Feminists have long been divided on the issue of child support laws and reform.  Any Feminist Women who do support reform (despite it being a very hot-button, "third rail" issue), however, generally use equality-based arguments to openly make their case, though.)

And yet, abruptly ending all child support obligations right now (especially in the USA) would be nothing short of catastrophic, leaving millions of Women and children high and dry, while rakish men get to laugh all the way to the bank.  So that is clearly a no-go, hands down.  Especially in a world where Women's hard-won reproductive rights are currently on the chopping block as we speak.  

The fellas can't have it both ways, of course. If Women are to be treated as brood mares, then it logically follows that men would be....WORK HORSES.  And we must all say "NEIGH" to both of those "traditional" and dehumanizing gender roles.

Long story short, in the long run, I do support gradually phasing out the child support laws, for children born at some point in the future, but we must be very careful NOT put the cart before the horse.  Before we even begin to do so, we must do ALL of the following first, at a minimum:

• Fully codify and guarantee Women's reproductive rights in federal law.
• Birth control and abortion access must be readily available to all on demand.
• Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all, aka Social Security For All, with NO strings attached.  Goodbye poverty!
• At the very least, we must have some flavor of UBI for children, similar to what we very briefly had in the USA with the expanded child tax credit.  We could even call it "collective child support".
• Universal, single-payer Medicare For All.  Goodbye massive medical bills!
• Generous paid family leave for both genders.
• Free or subsidized high-quality childcare for all who want it.
• "Baby bonds" to make every baby a trust-fund baby and build generational wealth.
• Free college and/or trade school for all who want it.
• As long as other social welfare and safety net programs like TANF still exist, remove the perverse requirement for single Mothers to name the father in order to receive benefits (you can thank Slick Willie for that one). 
• And so on.  In other words, the genuine progressive wish list, funded collectively via progressive taxation, Georgist-style taxation, financial transaction taxes, Pigouvian taxes, vice taxes, and/or money creation.

After that, the first phase of the phaseout would be to allow men to get a so-called "paper abortion" early on before birth of the child, wherein they irrevocably sign away all parental rights and responsibilities.  Even before that, one can nibble around the edges a bit and start with ending all existing child support requirements at age 18 (albeit with a grandfather clause, of course) and not a day later, and also categorically exempt all vasectomized men from child support going forward as well.  Then, gradually phase it all out organically from there.  Eventually, it will simply become the norm to put "father unknown" on birth certificates by default.

(And repeal the Bradley Amendment too.)

"But men will behave even more like cads then!", some Women may object.  Well, I've got news for you:  men have been doing that since before Jehovah had Witnesses, lol.  That is, they have their own personal Jehovah between their legs, and their balls are the Witnesses, lol.  And it is only a fairly recently innovation that men ever had any real "skin in the game", legally speaking. One can, in fact, draw a straight line between men's newfound "skin in the game" on the one hand, and their more recent aversion to procreation, commitment-phobia, work-shyness, and overall penchant for Peter Pan-style perpetual adolescence on the other.  Men have always been stuck in perpetual adolescence, of course, and it simply went from subtle to overt, in other words.

Thus, the answer to the question is ultimately yes, but a VERY, VERY qualified yes.  In the long run, phasing out these rigid and increasingly outmoded 20th century policies is a truly necessary step (though by no means sufficient by itself!) on the way to finally extricating Women and children from the age-old quagmire of patriarchy for good, God willing. 

P.S.  Men are NOT the only ones who are forced to pay child support, by the way.  Women often have those very same laws weaponized against them as well, particularly when crooked Family Court judges perversely grant abusive men full custody of their kids.  And the forced payments directly from the alienated Mother to the abuser (!) thus add further insult to injury as it gives the abuser even more power over her and the kids.  Yes, that really still happens frequently even to this day, though the mainstream is deafeningly silent about it:  just Google "Motherless America" to learn more.

UPDATE:  The legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder later remined me that there is also yet another thing that can backfire just as hard on Women if not harder, and that is called PALIMONY.  It's basically like alimony but for those who had lived together without being officially married, typically if lived together for eight of more years per common law (but that varies by jurisdiction).  It is nuanced, to be sure, but that needs to phased out even sooner IMHO, with the aforementioned safeguards in place, of course.