Silly pseudoscience to mindfulness
There’s a lot of chatter in the blogosphere and beyond about neuroscience, its applications to conflict and leadership studies, the people getting it right and the people perhaps just leaping and bringing along hordes of neophytes. Mirror neurons and neuroplasticity are good examples of advances in science sometimes twisted in on themselves by pop-science culture. (Click here and scroll down for one often shared view on mirror neurons, and here for another voice.)
As a relative novice in conflict work and an outsider to the world of neuroscience, I enjoy living and working in a time when neuroscience can be accessible enough for me to have opportunities to absorb and apply it. Yet, I find it challenging to separate the true science from the pop.
I’ve come to trust Brains on Purpose for a responsible approach to the intersection of neuroscience and conflict studies. The recent “Are you a wise mediator or a woolly mystic?” is no exception.
The current work flapping some feathers is the TED lecture of Jill Bolte Taylor. Terms like “mapping the microcircuitry” sound very impressive to a layperson like me. Her message regarding the right hemisphere is one of interconnectedness that many people need right now. This is balanced by her message regarding the left hemisphere, as being that part of us which allows what many call “othering.” Her description of her near-death experience and the potential of all humankind which it revealed to her is moving (though I’ll admit, respectfully, I found myself thinking of Terrence McKenna at one point…at least a few of you might see it).
Stephanie West Allen has posted Some critical thinking about the Jill Bolte Taylor video. She quotes a professor as saying, “It is unfortunate that Jill Bolte dragged out the left-brain/right-brain stuff as an explanation for her experiences since the brain does not work that way.” And Diane Coutu says, “I can’t predict how much Taylor’s ideas are going to influence the business community, but the current popularity of so-called right-brain exercises in management training programs augurs badly.” As if the science weren’t enough, accounts of the wild profitability of this story unfortunately awakens the curmudgeonly skeptic in me.
I find the main idea of Ms. Taylor’s message to be both moving and inspiring. “We are the life force power of the universe … We have the power from moment to moment to choose who we want to be in the world…Which do you choose? And when?”
That’s something I can bring to the mediation table, to my coaching sessions, and with me in my own moments of conflict.
I think I’ll hold on to that and get my science elsewhere.
