January 1, 2050
Report by Chimenem Wodi on the great ideas that led to us becoming the cooperative society that we are:
It is trite to state that even a rudimentary collective consciousness that is shared between wolves in a pack as they are hunting cooperatively provides a staggering advantage. In lions too, the pride is far greater than the sum of its individuals. In the same vein, collective human consciousness can produce historical events as the moon landing.
In the dark days of 2024 when the survival of humanity was in question, the web of relations that gave life meaning came to be disrupted. The challenge was to transform our ways of conceiving human relations that was based on a little more than utility, greed, and competition to one based on felt connection and cultural continuity. Humanity saw the dire need to transform a greedy populace into an altruistic one.
It was at this time that I was fortunate to read a book authored by Dr. Iain McGilchrist entitled “The Master and His Emissary: A Divided Brain and The Making of the Western World.” In the past, I read works of very penetrating minds on western civilization such as A.E. North Whitehead’s Adventure of Ideas but Whitehead did not make me descend my Ivory tower of imagination. It was not until I came across McGilchrist’ “The Master and His Emissary: A Divided Brain and The Making of the Western World.” Where McGilchrist practically led me by the hand as I descended my imaginary tower by bridging the mind/brain (to say it differently, matter/consciousness) relationship with the human brain as an apt metaphor. He then showed me how the collective intelligence out there in nature resonates with our collective consciousness as a society or community. While using the metaphor of the brain, he demonstrated various ways of conceiving society and the consequences when we privilege a certain way of thinking that is characterised by greed competition which he called left brain/hemisphere mode as opposed to a rather altruistic mode of appreciating the intricate web of connectedness in our relationship as a society which he called the right brain/hemisphere. In guiding me through his teachings which I call “brain hemispherics as a means to truth.” He also showed me the periods of the renaissance, enlightenment and post-industrial age and how a society that was right hemisphere oriented brought about the beautiful period of the Renaissance. After helping me bridge the mind/matter divide and leading me on the path of truth. I restlessly waited to get hold of the sequel to the Master and His Emissary entitled: “The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World.” After reading The Matter With Things, I imagined that in my own little way, I could steer humanity away from the dangerous iceberg of greed and competition to a more altruistic society by seeking out a right hemisphere mode of conceiving society and our relationships. By doing so, perhaps I would be taking on the charge in the concluding page of the epilogue of Dr. McGilchrist’ tome where he quoted the seventeenth century priest and physician Angelus Silesius thus:
“Friend, that is surely enough. And should you want to read more, Then go and become yourself the words, and yourself the Being.”
I was able to apply the teachings of Dr. McGilchrist in my household/local community by prioritizing a right hemisphere mode of conceiving the world. A way of thinking that saw our community as one in harmony with nature, intrinsically connected in our relationships and our relationships as being ontologically prior to the relata. Over time my household and later on our community increasingly saw the need for prioritizing/placing higher values of truth, goodness and beauty at the apex of our pyramid of values, while greed, competition, deception, and utility was placed at the bottom of the pyramid. My local community became free of certain vices as we sought the best ourselves in this process of transmutation from basic instincts of utility, and greed to enduring values of goodness, truth and beauty. This further illuminated on the importance of local institutions that were disregarded in the yesteryears because we saw the value of things only from the lens of utility.
Fast-forward to 2050, our local community is one where people appreciate the place of good values in their dealings with their neighbours, there is a sense of shared connection and kinship in community, the reverence for culture, a sense of belonging to a place, and a sense of the sacred. Today I am glad that my willingness to embrace the charge of Dr. Iain McGilchrist set off an initiative that revolutionised my local community. Now in 2050 it is only a delight to see humanity in this track that is set to hand over the baton of an altruistic society to the future generation.