Lily on Berry's "Two Minds" essay

Lily on Berry's "Two Minds" essay

The essay in Citizenship Papers called "Two Minds" is also interesting. Many thanks to Andrew for pointing it out to all of us.

The discussion of the two different ways that humans think is very useful. I find myself, however, a little surprised at the vehemence of Mr. Berry's normative judgment between the Rational Mind and the Sympathetic Mind: the former is Bad, the latter is Good. Since he acknowledges upfront that, for the sake of discussion, his analysis of these two different kinds of intelligence necessarily renders them "allegorical, too neat, and too separate," I wonder why he is so unhesitating throughout the rest of the essay, in his condemnation of the Rational Mind.

I think I'd find his discussion of the topic somewhat more convincing - and useful - if he seemed to think that the Rational Mind had at least some usefulness or worth. Seems to me it'd be more accurate to say that each mode of thought is what it is, for better or worse, and the two can complement and balance each other. The person of full integrity is the one who has integrated the two - that is, the one in whom the two "minds" are in harmony and balance. Decisions are made with reference to both reason AND emotion, rationality AND intuition.

Perhaps Mr. Berry's strong endorsement of the Sympathetic Mind over the Rational Mind is employed at least partly as a rhetorical device to draw out the differences between the two? I'd be very interested to hear whether he has anything to say elsewhere about how/whether we can integrate the two, both on the collective and individual levels; and/or whether we should try.