Thinking Our Way to Peace and Healing

By James Olson

Some years ago I attended a workshop presented by a neuroscientist that changed my life forever. Using a method of "mapping" participants’ brains, he was able to identify where we stood on what he called the left-brain/right-brain continuum. When I found out that I was strongly left-brain dominant I was rather surprised. I wondered how this affected my relationships with those occupying the opposite half of the continuum, especially women.

The workshop experience became a catalyst for my life’s work from that moment on and eventually led to my writing How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future. In my exploration of the way our brains function, I was drawn to the very different ways that people perceive their environment depending on which side of their brain is dominant. In some cases the operating system of their dominant brain hemisphere is holistic — typically associated with right-brain dominance. In other cases it’s dualistic — typically associated with left-brain dominance. Holistic thinking takes in the big picture all at once, and dualistic thinking is sequential and narrowly focused on particular problems.

As my research deepened, I discovered that these two ways of thinking are often (and incorrectly) perceived to be antithetical and contradictory rather than mutually complementary. They may even seem to be at war with one another. And since most people tend to be dominated by either a holistic or a dualistic operating system (due to genetic complete dominance), people who think and perceive one way tend to fight with people who think and perceive things the other way. This is reflected in interpersonal relationships, the “culture war” that has become such a dominating force in recent decades, and the relationships between cultures and countries.

In our culture, and in most industrial cultures, the dualistic mode of thinking has come to dominate public discourse and decisions, and appears to be valued more highly than the holistic mode. Clearly, both forms of thinking are necessary. Regardless of our genetic inheritance, we can integrate these two very complementary modes of thinking and being and doing. In this way we not only greatly increase our self-understanding, but we can do much to heal our relationships with others.

I have found that the polarization so prevalent in today’s society is the result of differences in the function of people’s brains. For example, conservatives and liberals are just responding to what their brain leads them to believe, and these beliefs are augmented by their education — which of course is the product of someone else’s brain. I have found that liberals tend to overlook important details that can only be seen from the point of view supplied by their detail-oriented “conservative” left brain; and that conservatives often fail to see the big picture, typically because they’re focused on some part or parts of it at the expense of the whole, and they are thus blinded to whatever is not in their narrow beam of focus. I have found that when a unified picture is presented, the flaws in both political camps become obvious — whereas typically we see flaws only in the opposition’s point of view.

It’s difficult to see how we can be transpartisan if we believe that there are only two views to choose from and that ours is superior, as this tends to create physical, mental and spiritual divisions. If we seek to reduce the destructive aspects of polarization in its many forms — masculine and feminine, conservative and liberal, aggressive and peaceful, and any number of other areas — it’s crucial that we better understand the nature of the relationship that’s polarized. By understanding the various ways in which the holistic and dualistic sides complement one another, we mentally position ourselves to see them as contributors rather than competitors. Once we gain a clearer understanding of how the two hemispheres divide up our perception of reality and affect our behavior, it’s easier for the two sides to find harmony. And once this harmony is achieved, our lives and our planet become arenas for peaceful, creative collaboration.

Although study of the brain hemispheres garnered a great deal of attention and notoriety in the latter part of the twentieth century, it later became neglected or dismissed by many researchers (for a complex of reasons I describe in my book). But subsequent research has shown that the key to understanding the two sides lies in how they do things rather than what they do, and also in knowing that the operating systems complement one another. Given these new insights, my passion is to reignite an appreciation of how the split brain divides our thinking and behavior, and how, through conscious, creative mind management based on an enhanced awareness of our options, we can develop whole-brain thinking. I believe that our inability to recognize and address the fundamental source of our conflict feeds our polarization and prolongs our quest for peace. I am confident that we can reverse this trend by thinking with our whole brain.

James Olson is an integral philosopher whose wide-ranging studies have included management, economics, politics, engineering, art, religion, psychology, neuro-linguistic programming and neuroscience. Following the unifying guidelines of philosophy and drawing on his broad education, James has made it his mission to help bring the planet's masculine and feminine energies into greater harmony and a more peaceful state through his advocacy of whole-brain thinking. His book, How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future, was published in early 2017. An earlier work, The Whole-Brain Path to Peace, garnered eight national book awards.