Critiques Regarding Bicameral Mentality & Jaynes’s Neurological Model – 2.7
2.7. Confusion Regarding Schizophrenia as a Vestige of the Bicameral Mind (Iain McGilchrist)
Critique: “The problem with [Jaynes’s view that schizophrenia is a vestige of the bicameral mind] is that all the evidence suggests that schizophrenia is a relatively modern disease, quite possibly existent only since the eighteenth century or thereabouts, and that its principal psychopathological features have nothing to do with regression towards irrationality, lack of self-awareness, and a retreat into the infantile realm of emotion and the body, but entail the exact opposites: a sort of misplaced hyper-rationalism, a hyper-reflexive self-awareness, and a disengagement from emotion and embodied existence.” − Iain McGilchrist, psychiatrist, in The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern Western World, p. 261.
Response: The original subtitle of McGilchrist’s book was “The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World.” This likely received immediate push-back (many current cultures don’t fit McGilchrist’s mold), so it was quickly changed to “The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.” Yet trying to connect even so-called “Western” cultural changes to alleged changes in brain hemisphere dominance is completely unsupported by evidence — but more on that later.
First, McGilchrist states that schizophrenia is a “recent disease.” While the label of schizophrenia is certainly recent, the primary symptom of psychosis — auditory hallucinations — is now well documented throughout history among both literate and pre-literate societies. Jaynes’s main point is that the auditory hallucinations that are still frequent today have their roots in bicameral mentality.
Next, McGilchrist overplays symptoms that are sometimes associated with schizophrenia while underplaying the primary symptom of auditory hallucinations in a weak effort to discredit Jaynes’s theory. Again, Jaynes’s main point is that people given the label of schizophrenia often hear voices, and these voices have a previously overlooked historical context.
One of the problems with understanding schizophrenia as a vestige of the bicameral mind is that schizophrenia is used rather broadly as an umbrella term to refer to a variety of symptoms that may in the end have little to do with one another. Indeed, the scientific validity of schizophrenia as an illness has been called into question (Boyle, 2002). For this reason, I rarely use the term and prefer to focus on the experience of auditory hallucinations.
An important point that is often lost in critiques of Jaynes’s view that schizophrenia is a vestige of bicameral mentality is the significant difference between
1. A conscious person who lives in modern society, and then experiences commanding auditory hallucinations that don’t have a cultural context (and which often lead to feeling ostracized), and
2. A person that was raised in a bicameral civilization or pre-literate society where hearing voices is the norm and are culturally reinforced.
These two very different scenarios are often erroneously equated. My point is the experience of someone hearing voices today in a society that marginalizes the experience is very different than it would have been for someone in a culture that encourages it, and this distinction is often lost on critics.
McGilchrist likely felt compelled to go out of his way to criticize Jaynes’s theory because McGilchrist is arguing for the exact opposite case as Jaynes: that rather than our brain hemispheres being more integrated today than in the distant past, he argues that they are now less integrated, and that our brains have essentially been hijacked by our left hemispheres. Further, according to McGilchrist, this left hemispheric dominance is the cause of most of the ills of Western civilization. For all of these sweeping claims, he presents shockingly little evidence.
I realize that many people that are interested in the subject of brain hemispheric differences are ardent fans of McGilchrist’s book. For those who are, I would only suggest that you try summarizing the evidence McGilchrist presents for his core claims and then reflect on whether or not this evidence seems persuasive. My guess is that many people simply enjoy the book because they like the subject matter or for other reasons, and not because McGilchrist’s arguments are particularly persuasive. The fact is, humans are predisposed to enjoy being “told a story” (somewhat like our childhood enjoyment of fairy tales), but often never concern themselves with whether or not evidence was presented, and whether or not that evidence was credible and persuasive.
Summary: McGilchrist’s critique that auditory hallucinations, the primary symptom of schizophrenia, are not a vestige of bicameral mentality lacks substance and seems to deliberately confuse the issue with other less relevant symptoms often associated with the term schizophrenia. The evidence McGilchrist presents for a left brain dominance being responsible for Western society’s problems is unconvincing.
Read more: The Master and His Emissary: A Seductive Fantasy Masquerading as Science
Learn about about Julian Jaynes’s theory by reading our latest book, Conversations on Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind: Interviews with Leading Thinkers on Julian Jaynes’s Theory.