The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

by Iain McGilchrist

Sixth, a culture that exemplifies the qualities of the left hemisphere’s world attracts to itself, in positions of influence and authority, those whose natural outlook is similar. People with certain autistic traits will be attracted to, and be deemed especially suitable for, employment in the areas of science, technology and administration which have, during the last hundred years, been immensely influential in shaping the world we live in, and are if anything even more important today. Thus a culture which already has some prominent autistic characteristics attracts to positions of influence individuals who will help it ever further down the same path. This is not the only vicious circle involved. Increasing technologisation and bureaucratisation of life help to erode the more integrative modes of attention to people and things which might help us resist the advances of technology and bureaucracy, so that in this way they aid their own replication. They make us more like themselves.