Diagnosing the Metacrisis: Reality & Meaning in Modern Life | Iain McGilchrist

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Government, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 452 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Iain McGilchrist, a neuroscientist and author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things. His work on the divided brain has helped millions of people find wisdom, meaning, and guidance for living in the modern world.

Iain and Demetri begin their conversation exploring McGilchrist's core thesis about the divided brain, how the left and right hemispheres attend to the world in fundamentally different ways, where we see evidence of an increased preponderance in left-brain thinking, and how this has impacted the way we conduct science, reason through problems, use our imagination, and apply wisdom to the world.

Iain believes that our civilization is caught in what some have described as a metacrisis, exacerbated by the encroachment of the left hemisphere onto more and more areas of lived experience. We see it in the procedurally abysmal manner in which modern medicine goes about formulating diagnoses, the ever-increasing obsession with process over outcomes, the commodification of writing, the rise in depression, the policing of language, and the reverence for machine-like efficiency and profit maximization at the expense of almost everything else.

The two discuss the importance of self-actualization in the context of community and why Iain is inspired by the change of heart he sees in younger generations who are no longer satisfied with furthering a broken paradigm and are willing to imagine something different—a different way forward that makes room for our humanity and which provides people with a relational sense of meaning and purpose.

Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by:

Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed
Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Joining our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io.
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 12/01/2025

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Gaffinus, and you're listening to Hidden Forces,
0:06.3	a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens, the challenge consensus
0:13.0	narratives, and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.
0:19.1	My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Ian McGilchrist,
0:22.6	psychiatrist, former Oxford literary scholar, an author of the master and his emissary,
0:28.5	and the matter with things, whose work on the divided brain and the nature of reality has become
0:34.1	a touchstone for people searching for wisdom, meaning, and how to live in the modern world.
0:40.3	Ian and I begin our conversation today exploring his core thesis about the divided brain,
0:46.3	how the left and right hemispheres attend to the world in fundamentally different ways,
0:51.3	where we see evidence of an increased preponderance in left brain thinking,
0:55.0	and how this has impacted the way we conduct science, reason through problems, use our imagination,
1:01.0	and apply wisdom to the world.
1:04.0	Ian believes that our civilization is caught in what some have popularly described as the
1:09.0	meta-crisis, exacerbated by the encroachment of the left
1:11.9	hemisphere onto more and more areas of lived experience.
1:16.3	We see it in the procedurally abysmal manner in which modern medicine goes about formulating
1:21.0	diagnoses, the ever-increasing obsession with process over outcomes, the commodification
1:26.9	of writing, the rise in depression,
1:29.5	the policing of language, and the reverence for machine-like efficiency and the maximization
1:34.5	of profits at the expense of almost everything else. We discussed the importance of self-actualization
1:40.9	in the context of community and being in service to others, and why Ian remains hopeful, especially when it comes to the change of heart that he sees in younger generations, who are no longer satisfied with furthering a broken paradigm, and who are willing to imagine something different, a different way forward that makes room for our humanity, which provides people
2:01.8	with a relational sense of meaning and purpose.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 14 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Demetri Kofinas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Demetri Kofinas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.