Those who follow my brainless meanderings closely will know by now that I’m a big fan of neuroscience and neuroanatomy. Much of my interest in this area was stimulated a few years back when I read (or rather, struggled to understand) a learned piece about why the whole left/right theory of brain function is bollocks.

The old idea was that left brain did logical and right brain emotional. But the piece I laboured through said oooo no, it’s more subtle than that: they share functions, but add differently sourced insights to the process.

I could get along with that. It made sense to me. And so I went along with it, this being a reasonable course of action for a chap who could get along with it. I’m not always an awkward cuss, yer know.

However, two years ago, while researching the tragic illness of someone dear to me, I read about frontal lobe behaviour in relation to controlling actions. This too has been exhaustively researched, and it seems that without the old frontal lobes we’d all be Mr Hyde dominating Mr Jekyll. I then watched this process in action, and decided that it definitely had merit.

The problem was, I now had left/right cooperation and front/back conflict with which to wrestle.

But today, yet more information is to hand, and I must confess to being somewhere between confused and fed up. Whichever politically correct idiot it was who coined the phrase “settled science”, he clearly wasn’t a student of the brain.

Now the new theory on the block is top and bottom brain. “The top- and bottom-brain systems always work together, just as the hemispheres always do. Our brains are not engaged in some sort of constant cerebral tug of war, with one part seeking dominance over another,” asserts the new school, “Rather, they can be likened roughly to the parts of a bicycle: the frame, seat, wheels, handlebars, pedals, gears, brakes and chain that work together to provide transportation.”

Hmm. While this new approach is clearly sticking to the cooperation theory, its gaily tossed in observation “just as the hemispheres always do” sort of leaves unanswered the question, “So why do we need left-right-top-bottom-front-back?” I mean what is the brain, a f**king 1970s British trade union?

I think it highly likely that, in reality, the brain is neither battleground nor commune in two dimensions. Much more likely, I suspect, is that it’s a game of three-dimensional chess between Evangelos Venizelos, Mario Draghi, and Nelson Mandela….the three dimensions being greed, tactics and wisdom. So it is that, in a cunning move, Mario uses the Sicilian defence, Nelson comes back with the Queen’s gambit, then Fat Benny eats the pieces. And perhaps also the other two players as well…depending on how long it was since he had lunch.

Because of this, every decision with which the human race is faced ends in a pointless draw. Indeed – as the new research is at pains to point out – when it comes to the 2 x 2 x 2 brain bits, ‘people do not rely on them to an equal degree’. Great Scott – you don’t mean….? Yes, we’re all different.

None of the great political theories – fascism, individualism, anarchism, communism, democracy, libertarianism – recognise this blindingly obvious reality: instead, they all begin their pitch with the word ‘everyone’. Thus – respectively – “Everyone wants strong leadership/unfettered personal expression/not to be given orders/multidimensional equality/the right to vote/zero State interference”. For that reason alone, they all wind up repressing those who don’t fit into their all-embracing pigeon hole.

What I would like is a society in which there was but one overriding ethic: ‘respect the right of others to think differently, and expect the same from them’. On reaching some form of maturity, I’d like it if all citizens had been through an education system in which every teacher discerned their strong dimension, and then encouraged it. The sort of equality I’d like is one whereby nobody looked down on plumbers or up to architects. I’d like the sort of society, in fact, where nobody felt left out….and thus had no motive to be anti-social.

We will never get there, of course – at least, not within the confines of this pack-hierarchy species. We are at one and the same time controlling and licentious: we like to call repression ‘discipline’, and selfishness ‘liberty’. But every aspiration is worth it so long as we do not demand Utopia. And it seems to me tragic that we cannot find a way to allow 63 million different talents to add up to one society.