the nativisation of the triune brain

The shamanistic (triune mind) paradigm is the nativistic paradigm of mind shared by most (especially black) Zimbabweans. It is why I find them very easy to relate to -- because we understand implicitly that we are relating to each other from a point of view of ego/emotion that can be relativised at any time, due to such things as religious sensibility or intellectual transcendence. I think that this implicit understanding that ego can always be relativised is why Zimbabweans joke with each other in a way that implies they do not take a lot of things seriously. Actually, they do. And, paradoxically, it is their sense of reverence for these other aspects of life (the mystical oneness derived from the lower parts of the brain; and the possibility of transcending reality through the intellect) that is involved in their relativisation of the ego.

By contrast, Westerners do not relativise the ego, therefore much of the joking that takes place between Zimbabweans would not make as much sense to an average person of a Western consciousness. For Westerners, however, there are no higher or lower realms of consciousness that are just as real as ego. Rather, for practical purposes, there is only one level of consciousness -- a Cartesian plane -- and so whatever is said had better be said with the maximum degree of seriousness and expectation of permanence. Also, emotion here is alienated, so that it becomes more dangerous and even something to be feared.

Also, on the theoretical level, the two level model, of Western Cartesian dualism, leads to a miscontruction of "primary processes" as being "emotional", when in fact they do not relate to emotionality as such but to a kind of apperception of power relationships. An understanding of power is the key point around which (at least, early) primary processes are oriented. Emotions are not developed at the very early level of primary process thinking (the paranoid-schizoid level of consciousness), but rather later, perhaps at the time of the development of the "depressive position". This is a significant point, since these early level processes cannot be "reached" via emotional expression or communication, but only via overt (such as ritualistic) displays of power. That is why, when dealing with problematic power relationships, emotional pleading or abstract reasoning will often miss their mark.