The brain is the right and left hemisphere. And people are right-handed and left-handed. How does this manifest itself in human activity, and is it dangerous to be "left-handed"?
Apparently more dangerous than right-handed. Anyway, this is the conclusion of Dr. Diana Halperi and psychologist Stanley Coren. In Southern California, according to them, the average life expectancy is 75 years for right-handed people and only 66 years for people who prefer to perform difficult tasks with the left hand.
Lefties make up from 10 to 20% of the world's population (data from the American weekly "Time" and the German magazine "Stern"). These half a billion are forced to live in a world that is practically not adapted to their needs and requirements.
Driving a car, an accordion keyboard - in fact, everything is designed for people for whom the "main" is the right hand. Lefties can remember, and the rest can try how “convenient” it is, for example, to distort the bolt of a machine gun with their left hand.
Probably the reason is in the peculiarities of the human psyche and anatomy. The left hemisphere of the brain, "controlling" the right hand, is simultaneously "responsible" for the technical creativity of a person. It is believed that exact knowledge is concentrated here, mathematical calculations are carried out, technical projects are maturing. The “patron saint” of the left hand - the right hemisphere of the brain - is considered the focus of emotions and associations, the center of artistic creativity.
Perhaps that is why the proportion of left-handers among outstanding people is so large: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Martina Navratilova, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Gerald Ford, etc.
And nevertheless, the attitude of the right-handed people to their, often great, but numerically minority brethren, is at best disrespectful, if not offensive at all. Judge for yourself: "rule", "rule", enter the "government", administer "justice", be "right-wing" and fight for a "just cause" can and should only be right-handed? And "left" earnings and suspicious campaigns "to the left" - is it only the lot of left-handers?
A similar moral discrimination is recorded in the French language: "Gaucher" is not only a left-handed person, but also a "tactless", "stupid" person. The Spanish zurdo is also a suspicious type. Latin asserts that "right" is "skillful", and "one on the left" is "clumsy." And in the English-speaking world: "so that everything is good" - "all right", that is, here the obligatory "right".
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The discriminatory attitude towards left-handers, according to the researchers, can be seen already in ancient sources. In the Gospel of Matthew (ch. 25) it is indicated that the Lord will gather his "sheep", the righteous at his right hand, and the kingdom of God is prepared for them. The Lord will direct the wicked, built to his left, "into eternal fire prepared for the devil" and "eternal torment."
The conclusion of physicist Wolfgang Pauli can serve as "consolation" for the left-handed minority: there are more elementary particles moving in their orbits from right to left, counterclockwise in nature.
Stanley Koren, a psychologist from Vancouver, Canada, drew attention to the fact that the percentage of left-handed people in the population decreases with age. So, among twenty-year-olds, almost 13% are left-handed, but among eighty-year-olds less than one percent. And it's not about retraining: only a few left-handed people manage to learn to do everything with their right hand.
After analyzing the statistics of accidents for four years among two thousand young people, Koren found that left-handers are 20% more likely than right-handers to be injured in sports, just as often they have accidents at work and 40% more often at home.
They are 54% more likely than right-handers to injure themselves with tools (was the Tula craftsman really just as awkward?). The psychologist, however, believes that left-handers are no less agile than right-handers, they are simply uncomfortable in a world where everything is adapted for the right hand.