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“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier, simpler.” Friedrich Nietzsche.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Paradoxically, the title of this blog may be misleading. It gives the impression that all that matters in life are…ideas. But is this true? The quote by Nietzsche above suggests otherwise. And, as David Hume wrote: “Reason is, and ought, only to be the slave of the passions, and so never can pretend to any office other than to serve and obey them.” OK, so Hume probably meant our senses rather than emotions, but you get the drift. Ever since the Enlightenment a battle has raged between Reason and Emotion, even though the Enlightenment has often been mischaracterised as privileging Reason over Emotion. In fact, it could be argued that many thinkers of the time acknowledged our dependence on Emotion but simply thought it might be a good idea to introduce a bit more Reason into the proceedings, thus freeing us from the most egregious slavery to Authority and Superstition.

In some ways this bifurcation of Reason and Emotion is mirrored in Cartesian duality of Mind and Body and in the political world of Community versus Individuality. Unless you are a follower of the idiocy of Neoliberalism in which the only interaction between individuals is transactional, many people feel a real tension between their individuality and their community. Are we forever condemned to two seemingly irreconcilable spheres or can they, indeed should they, be reconciled? In his remarkable book The Master and his Emissary, Iain Gilchrist argues that this division can be traced back to the Left and Right hemispheres of the brain. According to him the Right hemisphere is, or should be, the Master because it sees the world as an interconnected whole, while the Left sees it in discreet unconnected parcels, which it dissects, unpacks and logically analyses. Put simply, the Right unites and the Left divides. These two should, according to Gilchrist, work together with the Right (Master) passing its broad impressions to the Left (Servant) which, after its analysis, passes back to the Right in a classic one-two. The problem is, says Gilchrist, that the Left believes that it is in control and has increasingly become the Master with disastrous results.

An example of the problem might be the way that the Left recognises and conceptualises ethics that emerge from our interconnected Right. For example, many evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists think that altruism is a natural part of our genetic make-up. And since our genes can’t pretend to do anything for gain, this cannot be the oxymoron which is often referred to as reciprocal altruism, but genuine altruism. The Right hemisphere might intuitively acknowledge this, but think of altruism as part of the whole rather messy world of morality and human behaviour which, of course, includes selfishness and egoism. The Left hemisphere, however, may take altruism and turn it into a defined concept. That can be useful if it is then passed back to the Right hemisphere in order to transcend both to create an Hegelian synthesis. But what happens if it stays in the Left hemisphere? Well, according to Gilchrist, it can destroy ‘not just spontaneity, but the quality that makes things live; the performance of music or dance, of courtship, love and sexual behaviour, humour, artistic creation and religious devotion’ which ‘become mechanical, lifeless, and may grind to a halt’. Even if you understand the mechanics of interconnectedness and intersubjectivity, it can whither on the branch if it remains simply an idea or concept in the Left hemisphere and not lived, dynamically, in the Right. But if this happens, if indeed one grinds to a halt when, say, the dry altruism of the Left hemisphere judders to a halt in the face of mind-numbing indifference, how does one reconnect with the holism of the Right, which should be able to fill the inky black void?

Dickie Bellringer.

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier, simpler.” Friedrich Nietzsche.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Paradoxically, the title of this blog may be misleading. It gives the impression that all that matters in life are…ideas. But is this true? The quote by Nietzsche above suggests otherwise. And, as David Hume wrote: “Reason is, and ought, only to be the slave of the passions, and so never can pretend to any office other than to serve and obey them.” OK, so Hume probably meant our senses rather than emotions, but you get the drift. Ever since the Enlightenment a battle has raged between Reason and Emotion, even though the Enlightenment has often been mischaracterised as privileging Reason over Emotion. In fact, it could be argued that many thinkers of the time acknowledged our dependence on Emotion but simply thought it might be a good idea to introduce a bit more Reason into the proceedings, thus freeing us from the most egregious slavery to Authority and Superstition.

In some ways this bifurcation of Reason and Emotion is mirrored in Cartesian duality of Mind and Body and in the political world of Community versus Individuality. Unless you are a follower of the idiocy of Neoliberalism in which the only interaction between individuals is transactional, many people feel a real tension between their individuality and their community. Are we forever condemned to two seemingly irreconcilable spheres or can they, indeed should they, be reconciled? In his remarkable book The Master and his Emissary, Iain Gilchrist argues that this division can be traced back to the Left and Right hemispheres of the brain. According to him the Right hemisphere is, or should be, the Master because it sees the world as an interconnected whole, while the Left sees it in discreet unconnected parcels, which it dissects, unpacks and logically analyses. Put simply, the Right unites and the Left divides. These two should, according to Gilchrist, work together with the Right (Master) passing its broad impressions to the Left (Servant) which, after its analysis, passes back to the Right in a classic one-two. The problem is, says Gilchrist, that the Left believes that it is in control and has increasingly become the Master with disastrous results.

An example of the problem might be the way that the Left recognises and conceptualises ethics that emerge from our interconnected Right. For example, many evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists think that altruism is a natural part of our genetic make-up. And since our genes can’t pretend to do anything for gain, this cannot be the oxymoron which is often referred to as reciprocal altruism, but genuine altruism. The Right hemisphere might intuitively acknowledge this, but think of altruism as part of the whole rather messy world of morality and human behaviour which, of course, includes selfishness and egoism. The Left hemisphere, however, may take altruism and turn it into a defined concept. That can be useful if it is then passed back to the Right hemisphere in order to transcend both to create an Hegelian synthesis. But what happens if it stays in the Left hemisphere? Well, according to Gilchrist, it can destroy ‘not just spontaneity, but the quality that makes things live; the performance of music or dance, of courtship, love and sexual behaviour, humour, artistic creation and religious devotion’ which ‘become mechanical, lifeless, and may grind to a halt’. Even if you understand the mechanics of interconnectedness and intersubjectivity, it can whither on the branch if it remains simply an idea or concept in the Left hemisphere and not lived, dynamically, in the Right. But if this happens, if indeed one grinds to a halt when, say, the dry altruism of the Left hemisphere judders to a halt in the face of mind-numbing indifference, how does one reconnect with the holism of the Right, which should be able to fill the inky black void?

Dickie Bellringer.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.