Over the past couple of years, the Unitarian Universalist congregation to which I belong has increasingly become the Church of the Left Brain vs. the Right Brain. It now seems almost inevitable that any serious discussion will feature references to the left-brain/right-brain thing. Actually, its adherents refer to ‘brain balance,’ although they then trash the left side and seemingly want the right side to dominate. This is because the left side of the brain is supposedly where language, logic, and analysis get done, generally ruining the magic of life by reducing the seamless flow of existence into things, whereas the right side is where holistic and unfiltered perception, intuition, and wonder take place. More metaphorically, the left side is like a self-serving accountant, whereas the right side is a hippie flower-child.
I doubt that we gain anything from this perspective, and I have several reasons. I’ll give two below.
First: we have only one, integrated brain – not two competing ones. It locates specific functions on different sides, but it combines functions from each side to do almost anything that the left brain/right brain people discuss. (You’re correct – I’m not a neuroscientist. Here’s an article from Harvard.) Furthermore, the division of functions among sides of the brain differs among people; for example, lefthanders’ brains don’t exactly mirror righthanders’ brains, but they often locate some functions on different sides of the brain from righthanders.
Second: my main critique of labeling actions as either right-brained or left-brained to organize one’s life is that, even if the brain were to work like this, understanding and attempting to manage ‘brain balance’ is utterly unnecessary. That is, unless I’m a neuroscientist, it’s extraneous to know which side of the brain is producing a thought, perception, or emotion. It’s much more productive to base our actions on their anticipated consequences, rather than on the (supposed) cerebral processes behind them.
For example, my most recent blogpost presented a similar dualism, between explicit and implicit values. In our society, these tend to boil down to ‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘what about me?’, respectively. Maybe brain-balancers see these sets of values as being produced on opposite sides of the brain. But what does it matter? I had no need to refer to brain structure to make and explore my point; in fact, it would have served only as a distraction.
Likewise, I recommend against judging whether meditation is good for you based on ‘brain balance.’ You’ll know whether you’ve achieved balance where it really matters by seeing whether you’re healthier, more content, or whatever you’re going for. That’s how humans have been operating until now. Basically, all of the great insights that have sprung from spiritual traditions, science, art, and so forth owe nothing to knowledge of differences between brain hemispheres. So let’s keep our eyes on the proverbial prize rather than on a (dubious) process.
