The Archetypal Symbol of Taoism Has Many Applications
Research shows that brains have a similar difference as bodies, sex-wise. The two sexes have opposite and complementary structures on more than one level. If we want to use a romantic analogy we could say the male has the arrow and the female has the heart.
If we want to sound more dry and scientific we could say that the male body has an extension coming to a point, and the female body comes to an aperture, Or it could be phrased that the male body has the seed-implantation device and the female body has the place to grow the seeds. ( please excuse the graphic language ). All this is obviously for the purpose of the meeting, fusion and nurturing of sperm and egg, and the continuation of the species. This complementary process manifests itself in the brain as well as the body, which means that mentally as well as physically humans are sexy.
Physical/sexual mating gives physical children. Is there a mental equivalent? And where are the mental offspring? And since humankind is a very mental species, with a deep complementarity between the sexes mentally, can we long endure as a species if that complementarity is not recognized and served?-
The male brain has hemispheres that are very different. But in male brains the bundle of nerves that unites the two brain halves, or the corpus callosum, is not that big. The female brain has hemispheres that are not as different and specialized, and the corpus callosum is bigger. With a large nerve bundle between the two sides of the brain, connecting brain halves that are similar to each other, the female human can have a very good- conversation inside her own head. The male brain can be more exact over a more differentiated territory but is less holistic and integrated in its dual hemisphere functioning, and the female brain can not cover as much territory, but can tie it all together more easily for deep holistic thinking.
The sexual combination of these two kinds of brains can be seen to be optimal for really good thinking. The female is the macroscopic thinker and the male is the microscopic thinker. The female is the macro-fuzzy-generalist and idealist, that does not lose the big picture, even if she gets it fuzzy. And the male is the micro-precise specialist and pragmatist that gets the details right but then does not know how to apply it to the macro-fuzzy big picture. ( If the mostly-male politicians in this country do prove that point I do not know who does :-)- )
The image of the arrow and the heart will do fine once again as an analogy. The male searches externally with his brain, investigating the minutia of his environment, with thoughts like outgoing arrows. And the female is doing inner almost psychic fusions of a dual functioning, just as there are two sides to a heart that are connected. -
As our culture is patriarchal we get the microscopic-exact male scientific thinking done very- well, but since we do not give the same respect to the macro-fuzzy generalists, who do not lose the big picture, relatively speaking anyway, we have a very hard time to apply our science in ethical human-serving/planet-serving ways. Our science is exquisite but horribly misapplied. Our patriarchal society does not serve an archetypal feminine cultural ethic. And there is no meeting therefore of a male mental/cultural ethic and a female mental/cultural ethic. And there are no "cultural children".-
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