>>>monopolists and speculators have evaporated in the minds and public comments of liberals.<<<
Sorry. I failed to pay due respect and to acknowledge your well justified sarcasm. You see, I am a conservative and only look for well constructed arguments. You know ... reality.
I certainly agree that it is at best disingenuous that the liberals never say that they were wrong when crude prices drop.
However I must warn that this issue has never gone away in the minds of the liberals. They view and value things differently. They too are interested in transfer functions. Its just that they are interested in what happens in the polls and want to know the change in their standing as a result of their speculator bashing. In fact, they draw a correct inference. You will see it increasingly in Barney Frank's and all the vulnerable Senator's rhetoric as we move into the fall as they wail on the bankers - who deserve it in spades I might add. It may simply be the case that the libs have put speculator bashing on the back burner because bankster bashing has a greater yield - today.
BTW: I caught wind and read the introduction of what is supposed to be a profound book, The Master and his Emissary (description at bottom). The author doesn't so much seek to describe which human cognitive functions lie in which hemisphere of the brain - acknowledging that nobody has been able to figure that out after a century, and that things like language tend to hang in the left, but can occur or process in parallel with the right. What he does do is note that there are dramatic physical differences between the lobes and asks what affects these differences might have upon the world which we perceive - or have constructed. He suggests that if we understand that better we might be able to stop repeating history. It seems that one side gets frustrated and likes to accept the old transfer function instead of what is really going on. I might cite as an example the current debate between deflation and inflation and Keynesians and Austrians.
He goes on to suggest that in the much larger picture of life, the left side is analytic and the right side is "hopeful" - or perhaps uses a "hands-off" management style. The left is in fact subordinate to the right, and relies on the right for survival. But the left has been breaking free, and this accounts for the control freaks, planned economists, Stalin, etc. Spooky stuff. I might actually go read the whole book. It doesn't mean that the liberal/control freak/spoilers of the energy industry shouldn't be taken out and shot. It does mean that we should spiritually pardon them and that when we shoot them it should be done mercifully because after all - they knew not what they did. It was in their brain structure.
Of course the other implication is that if our circumstances are indeed baked into the genetic, DNA, roll of the dice, that we will see more and more Hugo Chavezs. We may not be able to get them out of the gene pool, but we can take action to live within that untoward trend with the least collateral damage to ourselves. Someone once said to me .... "Government. You don't have to like it, but you do have to understand it."
_____________________________________________________
The Master and his Emissary
• A brief description
• Some responses to The Master and his Emissary
• Download Introduction (PDF file, 455 KB)
• Buy a copy
About Iain McGilchrist
Contacts
Links
A brief description of The Master and his Emissary
This book argues that the division of the brain into two hemispheres is essential to human existence, making possible incompatible versions of the world, with quite different priorities and values.
Most scientists long ago abandoned the attempt to understand why nature has so carefully segregated the hemispheres, or how to make coherent the large, and expanding, body of evidence about their differences. In fact to talk about the topic is to invite dismissal. Yet no one who knows anything about the area would dispute for an instant that there are significant differences: it's just that no-one seems to know why. And we now know that every type of function - including reason, emotion, language and imagery - is subserved not by one hemisphere alone, but by both.
This book argues that the differences lie not, as has been supposed, in the 'what' - which skills each hemisphere possesses - but in the 'how', the way in which each uses them, and to what end. But, like the brain itself, the relationship between the hemispheres is not symmetrical. The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an 'emissary' of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that the right hemisphere - the 'Master' - cannot itself afford to undertake. However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master. And he has the means to betray him. What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he will also betray himself.
The book begins by looking at the structure and function of the brain, and at the differences between the hemispheres, not only in attention and flexibility, but in attitudes to the implicit, the unique, and the personal, as well as the body, time, depth, music, metaphor, empathy, morality, certainty and the self. It suggests that the drive to language was not principally to do with communication or thought, but manipulation, the main aim of the left hemisphere, which manipulates the right hand. It shows the hemispheres as no mere machines with functions, but underwriting whole, self-consistent, versions of the world. Through an examination of Western philosophy, art and literature, it reveals the uneasy relationship of the hemispheres being played out in the history of ideas, from ancient times until the present. It ends by suggesting that we may be about to witness the final triumph of the left hemisphere – at the expense of us all. |
