When I was an undergraduate student in Canada in early 2000s, I had a professor who was an Italian Communist. A tall, very handsome, very gay far-left dude. Brilliant but mega annoying with his leftism. I was fresh from the USSR, and most lectures consisted of me and the professor yelling at each other to the great enjoyment of other students. This was the leftism of 25 years ago, and who knows, maybe the professor has traveled in the direction of Paul Kingsnorth since then. I haven’t kept in touch.
The Italian Communist professor’s whole schtick was that the Western civilization is too cerebral, logical, and obsessed with rationality and correctness. The professor accused the West of demolishing the indigenous ways of knowing which, in contrast, are intuitive, more natural, and less obsessed with noxious things like punctuality, attention to detail and rules of social behavior.
When I listened to Iain Mcgilchrist’s Ways of Attending, I immediately recognized the ideas I first heard from the Italian Communist. Mcgilchrist adds the word “hemisphere” to the argument and coaches it in terms of his studio of brain functioning. In everything else, his theory is identical to that earlier leftism of the 2000s. Like Paul Kingsnorth, he’s one of those old-school leftists who are upset with the consequences of their own philosophy. They are horrified that liberalism has gone all neoliberal all the time and are trying to carve out a niche for themselves on the Right. I found out about Mcgilchrist from Kingsnorth’s book Against the Machine because Mcgilchrist is a huge influence on Kingsnorth, and now it’s clear why.
Kingsnorth and Mcgilchrist are both extremely intelligent, brilliant men. But they deeply dislike the entirety of the Western civilization which is the animating force of the leftist project. They can coach their repulsion towards the West in the terminology of brain science, ecologism or newfound religiosity. But the foundation of their thinking is the same. They simply don’t like the West. This is very different from the position of a standard right-winger who believes that the West is the best and that all of the problems we are experiencing are caused by the West losing the self-assurance of being the best that humanity has been able to offer. Kingsnorth and Co want to undo the West completely. Right-wingers, on the other hand, want to restore it to its glory.
Clarissa's Blog 