Love and Truth.
The hidden contradictions of left and right.
My understanding of the world remains coloured by Roger W Sperry’s outdated theory of the mind. Popularised by Betty Edwards’ 1979 art book “Drawing on the The Right Side of The Brain” which my mum became hooked on, the theory suggests that the left hemisphere of the brain is home to logic, reason and planning, whilst the right is creative, instinctive, emotional. This, I must stress, is not the case. A shame because it would add useful substance to the otherwise unhelpful left/right paradigm used to make sense of political opinion.
The idea that authoritarian, rule imposing, individualistic minds are “right” whilst liberal, fluid, communitarian ones are “left” actually comes from the seats taken in a Versailles theatre by the opposing sides of the French Revolution. It would be far more satisfying if the divide spoke to some fundamental function of the brain, which it doesn’t, rather than just a 233 year-old seating plan. It would also be valuably counter-intuitive. Growing up in a very left wing family it seemed clear that we were the creative ones, the dreamers, whereas the right were the stiffs with jobs and ties. A simplistic view but one both sides still hide behind and probably part of why my mum was so desperate to learn to draw, to earn her place amongst us artists. It’s a shock then to realise how emotional right wing political arguments actually are.
Patriotism, nationalism, hanging murderers, protecting foetuses, these are ideas of the heart. Listening to people freak out about school books but look the other way on school shootings, you can’t avoid seeing how big their feelings are, how deaf to reason this makes them. It also takes a moment to realise that whilst many of us on the left would self describe as caring and compassionate, our empathy is rooted in frighteningly stark logic. The idea of equality grows chiefly from the inability to find any biological difference in the corpses of Kings. At some stage the left must draw a line where equality ends, I don’t love all children as I love my own. The logic of biological reality leaves no space for love, the greatest inequity of all.
Logically we were better off within the European Union, but instead our hearts won the liberty of beggars. Who truly is the more emotional, Greta Thunberg, choking up as she reports the grim evidence of climate change or the climate deniers, last in a long line of flat earthers and Popes who have all shut their eyes to the facts of our species’ diminishing importance and salvation. Churchill’s maxim about becoming more right wing with age correlates not with a fading of youthful enthusiasm or increase of ageful sagacity but just the rising fear of creeping ever closer to death. The fewer beats your heart has left, the more it will guide you.
The mechanics of the brain have interested me ever since my childhood diagnosis of cross-lateralism. My mum’s explanation of the child psychiatrist’s explanation was that in normal people the right side of the brain dominates function in the left side of the body and vice versa. So right-handed people are governed by their logical, methodical left-mind, whilst left-handers are wild weirdoes controlled by their creative, intuitive right brain. However I, her second child to be born dead, or at least unbreathing, I was different. For reasons left unexplored in the superhero origin story of my birth, the lack of early oxygen caused my brain to swap dominance. Whilst the rest of you are crossed over and tied tight like bootlaces, I am straight down the line, a left-handed person in a right-handed body, unco-ordinated and clumsy. Not box tickably disabled but prone to muddling numbers, unable to ride a bicycle, read maps or dance, even when no one is watching.
For her this was why I was a story teller not a sportsman. Researching cross-lateralism now, I found the medical literature of the 1980s didn’t use the term “superhero” as much as “retarded”, a term it banded around quite freely. My special powers of falling off bicycles were, according the text books, a thing of shame, something stern education might have corrected away. I rarely think of myself as struggling or retarded, though I can see echoes of my cross-lateralism through the contradictions of my life. A straight Dr.Who fan, consistently bullied for wearing velvet smoking jackets as a ten year-old, I once took to a pair elbow length silk evening gloves until my Dad stood by my bedroom door singing “There’s a funny fellow, wears his sister’s clothes, I don’t know what to call him but I think he’s one of those…” I am a left-handed right-hander, a gay-straight, I give out confusing signals, too inside to be out and too outside to be in. I have rarely thought of myself as struggling or retarded but I do start to wonder. I wonder if the love my mother showed by telling such a beautiful story about me has not given me false expectations, hurting me more than the sad reality of my being perhaps a little sub rather than super human.
The latest research is that the different sides of the brain do not have different functions, though they do function differently. The left brain is narrow, goal orientated, solving problems by breaking them apart. The right is broad, tackling problems holistically, rooted in experience and connection. Most importantly, the brain is best when both sides work in tandem, approaching the same problem in parallel.
If I were to draw any political lesson, it would be that our mistake is to ever hand full control to either side. In a politics that mirrored the healthy mind, we might vote for MPs but not governments. The executive would instead represent the house as a whole, a constant coalition of heart and head. But what do I know? Another consequence of how my own mind operates is, of course, that I still can’t tell left from right.
I have written before about the contradictions of politics, like this piece about the surprising diversity of the right, or this about how the laws of advertising mean parties must appear the opposite of what they are. I have also written more about my parents in this piece about the shape of biographical narratives, and this about the role of pain in story telling.
I’m delighted to say that on the 20th June I’ll be at the Lexi Cinema hosting a Q&A with my friend the filmmaker Jane Gull about her new movie “LOVE WITHOUT WALLS”. Jane’s first film “MY FERAL HEART” remains one of my favourite British movies of recent years and I can’t wait to see her second. All the UK cinema screenings of the film are available to book here.