The timing of the below column couldn’t be more perfect. I’ve been studying brain hemispheric bias and am concluding that one of the faults of our civilization is the manner in which we favor left brain thinking. If in our education strategies we can encourage balance between the hemispheres, I think our future survival will be assured. The piece is written by Leonard Shlain, author of the Alphabet and the Goddess, and discusses Bush’s smirk as a sign that his two brain halves are disconnected. He makes one major omission: Cheney smirks too. Could it be that we are on the verge of Armageddon because our so-called leaders are lobotomized? Our culture certainly is.
Leonard Shlain: Why Bush Smirks - Politics on The Huffington Post:
Also, there exists a marked contrast between the distribution of emotions to the right and left of the brain’s great divide. The majority of emotions have their seat in the right hemisphere but a few reside in the left. Optimism, cheerfulness, and happiness hold sway in the left frontal lobe. Anger, fear, terror, disgust, and sadness, are far more prominently represented in the right. The emotions in the right hemisphere are more primal and are highly attuned to instinctual “fight or flight” mechanisms necessary for a creature to stay alive in a dangerous environment.
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Most individual can coordinate both of their hemispheres to produce a symmetrical smile or frown. George Bush seems unable to accomplish this feat in his unguarded moments or when he becomes agitated. His lopsided smirk reveals an inner disconnectedness between the two sides of his brain. And the left sided scowl, and glaring left eye provides a more accurate window into his soul and psyche than does his smiling right. I would further speculate that this disconnect evident in his facial expression might have something to do with the president’s unprecedented syntactical mangling of the English language. Sentences inarticulately constructed often belie a disordering of thought processes.
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