BRUCE LERRO—Over the course of Western history, the left side of the brain has gotten more powerful. But at least initially, as Karl Jaspers demonstrated in his book The Axial Age, the shift to the left-side of the brain has happened not just in the West, in Palestine and Greece, but also in the East in China and India. As we shall see, this power struggle is further externalized in the material world in Western history when we examine the differences between the Renaissance and the Reformation, between the Enlightenment and Romanticism and between capitalism and socialism. They will also show themselves in the commonalities between the Reformation, the scientific revolution of the 17thcentury, the Enlightenment and the Industrial revolution.
Bruce Lerro
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Bruce Lerro
Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his four books: From Earth-Spirits to Sky-Gods: the Socio-ecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism and Hyper-Abstract Reasoning Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World Co-Authored with Christopher Chase-Dunn Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present and Lucifer's Labyrinth: Individualism, Hyper-Abstract Thinking and the Process of Becoming Civilized He is also a representational artist specializing in pen-and-ink drawings. Bruce is a libertarian communist and lives in Olympia WA.
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The Dark Side of Left-Brain Operations: Schizophrenia, Modern Art and Western History Part I
by Bruce Lerro39 minutes readBRUCE LERRO—Faust is seen by many as the best representative of modern self-consciousness who declared there were two souls in his breast. The right side of the brain deals with the big picture and emerges first in human development. Its attention is diffused and it searches for unique patterns in the real world. Whatever information it finds, it places it in a context. For the brain’s right side, wholes are more than the sum of their parts. Once the new information is in, its function is to stabilize the system (negative feedback). The right hemisphere watches out not only for itself but for the left side as well. It multitasks. In the brain, the right-side does parallel processing of systems at the same time. It generates alternatives to problems.
The left hemisphere is its junior partner and is more unpredictable. The left hemisphere is more specialized, focused and sees the parts very well in isolation. The left hemisphere does not seek out new information but focuses on bringing order and logic within the system.
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Dogmatic Neoliberal Democrats: An Authoritarian Party and Their Upper-Middle Class Loyalists
by Bruce Lerro50 minutes readBRUCE LERRO—Although Neoliberal Democrats, being upper middle class, have more control over their minds than working class dogmatists they can still reify their emotions, making them “rigid states” rather than processes that can be changed by cognitive changes in interpretations, explanations or assumptions. Neoliberal Democrats, like everyone else has a need for social connection, but as an upper-middle person they are surrounded by most people who are not like them. Yet they must find commonality with them became they want them to join the Democratic Party. Because they are more or less oblivious of the social class distinctions, they find ways to avoid talking about them. They are most emotionally sensitive to race relations, since most African-Americans and Latinos are not upper middle class.
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Aryan Idols and the Search for Indo-Europeans: The Prehistory and History of Fascist Mythology Part II
by Bruce Lerro37 minutes readBRUCE LERRO—In the Journal of Indo-European Studies, Roger Pearson, founder of Northern League for Pan-Nordic Friendship and former director of the World Anti-Communist League, was described as “one of the most persistent neo-Nazis in the world was one of the most persistent neo-Nazi apologists in America and one of the best-connected racialists in the world”. Pearson continued his writings on the relation of race, intelligence and eugenics. One of the books announced itself as based on Hans Gunther, having been the 3rd Reich’s foremost theorist of racial science. Pearson also arranged for an English edition of Gunther’s work on Indo-European’s religion.
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Aryan Idols and the Search for Indo-Europeans: The Prehistory and History of Fascist Mythology Part I
by Bruce Lerro45 minutes readBRUCE LERRO—During the 19th century, racial anthropologists began to discuss IE, threatening the proprietorship of linguists. Instead of the study of religion, language and folklore to find the origins of Indo-Europeans, the new school focused on differences between people in material and physical characteristics and their geographical location. Racial anthropologists argued that people’s physical appearance could directly explain their degree of civilization. They debated which race was the original one and whether other races were the result of evolution or degeneration. They thought pure races were more fit than mixed ones. Racial anthropology became a study of signs where the internal moral and cultural states could be interpreted from external physical signs.