Thread: Clouded Thinking (Thunking)

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Of hedonism and regimentation
Humair Hashmi


Another source of what psychologists call cloudy thinking is the idea that history repeats itself. Holding on to the ludicrous idea causes a lot of unhappiness. If history does indeed repeat itself, one is condemned to remain trapped in one’s insufferable, miserable conditions. Unable to change things or escape from them one can only be a passive victim — suffering endlessly. Such thoughts would make anyone desperately unhappy. Of course, nothing could be farther from truth than this.

If history did indeed repeat itself, man would still be living in caves at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather and wild beasts. The fact is that man has not only changed himself, but has also conquered his environment. He has been constantly rewriting and reinventing history. And yet people overlook the enormous empirical evidence and hang on to the erroneous thought that history repeats itself.

It is true, of course, that compared to an individual’s life cycle things and epochs change very slowly. So from an individual’s perspective it would appear that time stands still or perhaps only moves at a snail’s pace and that things do not change as rapidly as one would like them to. But to assume that things don’t change and events or history repeat themselves is false. More importantly from the psychological point of view, the thought is a “cause” of much unhappiness. For anyone to be reasonably happy this cognitive confusion must be clarified. Changing the thought can lead people to be happy or, at least, less unhappy.

In the late 1990s, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, identified a number of erroneous ideas that he considers a source of unhappiness in a person. His conclusions follow his depth-interviews with a large number of creative people. Those interviewed belonged to practically all professions, including the sciences, the arts, politics, and business.

Csikszentmihalyi has proposed that the current way of thinking of a majority of mankind is based on a rejection of a moral code that is seen as hypocritical. The way of thinking, he says is characterised by a loss of faith in permanent values. Additionally, it is based upon a narcissistic self-centeredness, and an unabashed search for sensory satisfaction. He believes that this view has been popularised in the United States by the ‘Playboy’ philosophy whose basic message is that “one should do what feels good, because the body knows best”.

In such a way of thinking, any attempt to interfere with the pleasurable process is suspect. As it turns out, there is astronomical research evidence to show that the idea that our body knows best is false. The evidence shows that giving into bodily demands is not only wrong but may even pose a great danger to the body. The increasing number of obese people, drug addicts, alcoholics, and HIV/AIDS victims demonstrates that “what feels good” can easily lead to feeling very bad indeed. And yet most of us hold on to the erroneous idea that we should do what feels good.

What he is talking about is the old doctrine of hedonism. It is defined in the literature as the idea or belief that pleasure is the chief or proper aim of life. The ancient Indian philosophy, particularly the Upanishadic Idealism, proclaimed that self is the ultimate reality. A distorted, debased interpretation of the Upanishadic doctrine is that since self is the ultimate reality, the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain for the self should be the chief aim of life. The ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman philosophies and practices reflect the same doctrine. As such, life in those epochs was driven, at least partially, by this doctrine of maximising bodily pleasure and minimising bodily pain.

The vulgar flip side of this thought is the opposite idea that to subject one’s thought and behaviour to a rigorous regimentation and discipline is highly desirable. Mihaly calls it the “limit of reason”. He goes on to discuss the concept by quoting from Freud and Marx. In modern psychology, the roots of thought-regimentation can be traced back to the influence of Freud and the system of psychoanalysis that he created. Freud propounded the theory of “psychic determinism” proposing that thoughts and actions are determined by our repressed childhood memories. In order for us to be able to escape their negative influence, they need to be understood and rigorously controlled. Thought-regimentation, hence, is a dire necessity of the modern man.

Another criticism of free thought and action comes from the misunderstood orthodox Marxist philosophy, where material self-interest is regarded as the main motivator of man’s thought and behaviour. Since the narrow material self-interest is the chief motivator of man, the reasoning goes, his thought and behaviour need to be strictly monitored and controlled so that no harm comes to others, and to society at large.

But unduly strict discipline and regimentation of thought and behaviour leave one in an ideological straitjacket that may take any number of forms and hues including the communist orthodoxy and Islamic fundamentalism. Mihaly argues that both hedonism and strict thought-regimentation are suspect.

And yet we contribute to, practice and preach them. Consider in this regard the younger generation in general and some of the young artistes in particular, on one hand and the staunch fundamentalists on the other. One group is a victim of unabashed freedom and the other of overly strict unnatural regimentation. Both suffer from cognitive confusion.

Can thoughts be changed and can the change make one more satisfied, and happy? Most certainly. Not only that, by changing one’s thoughts one can also come to radiate happiness thus making others around one happy.

Additionally, one can become more creative. The connection between ways of thinking and creativity has been subjected recently to a lot of research and debate. The line of investigation has been particularly pursued by a Cambridge University teacher, Edward De Bono who calls it ‘lateral thinking’. More on lateral thinking perhaps later.

Humair Hashmi is a professionally certified psychotherapist who teaches at Imperial College Lahore. This is the third in a series of articles on flawed ways of thinking. This is the concluding article in a four-part series of articles on the subject

The economics of happiness

Can't buy it?

Jan 13th 2005

Happiness: Lessons from a New Science
By Richard Layard



FOR the past half-century, those lucky enough to have been born in a rich country have had every prospect of growing richer. On average, incomes in Britain, America and Japan, adjusted for inflation, have easily doubled over that time. On top of this come the benefits of longer lives of better quality, thanks to advances in medicine and to a plethora of consumer goodies making living easier and more enjoyable. You might, even, expect folk to be a great deal happier today than in the 1950s.

You would be wrong, according to many surveys taken in rich countries. These tend to show that, once a country has lifted itself out of poverty, further rises in income seem not to create a meaningful rise in the proportion of people who count themselves as happy. Since the 1950s, for example, the proportion of Americans who tell pollsters that they are “very happy” has stayed constant at around 30%, while the proportion who say that they are “not very happy” has barely fallen. Explaining this paradox, and offering suggestions for increasing the supply of happiness, is the aim of a new book by Richard Layard, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics and a Labour peer.

Lord Layard devotes a good portion of the book to a summary of what is known about how to be happy. Much of it will appear self-evident: cultivate friendships, be involved in a community, try for a good marriage. But his big idea is controversial. It is that a zero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and that this rat race is a big source of unhappiness. Put simply, one person's pay rise is another person's psychic loss. To make that loss worse, says the author, there are only so many top rungs on the ladder of status—and as a peer of the realm, Lord Layard should know.

He is among a growing group of economists who are dissatisfied with the way that the dominant neoclassical school of economics gauges well-being. When they try to divine human desires and happiness, mainstream economists look much more at what people do rather than at what they say. If, perhaps, you choose to work 90-hour weeks and skimp on leisure time, it follows that work is what makes you happy—or at least happier than taking extra time for leisure: otherwise you would not be doing it. Your actions, in other words, are said to reveal your “true” preferences, even if you tell a researcher that you would rather be spending more time with your children (what is known as your “stated” preference).

To counter such Panglossian logic, Lord Layard draws upon the findings of behavioural economists, who make use of the insights and techniques of psychologists. These are more inclined to give credence to people's stated desires and feelings. Among many things, the behaviourists have found that it is relative, not absolute wealth, that matters most to people. Mr Layard cites as evidence a study in which Harvard University students claimed to prefer earning $50,000 a year when their peers are on only $25,000 to a world in which they earn $100,000 while their peers get more than double that amount. The survey sample is anything but representative, but you get the point.

So, Lord Layard's thinking goes, by spending 90 hours a week in the office, you may be improving your own income, but you are also causing other people to feel less satisfied with theirs. They may be encouraged to work longer themselves just to keep up, taking from the time that gets devoted to family and community.

It is, the author argues, something similar to environmental pollution, where one person's action (or a company's) makes others worse off. Fortunately, he notes, economists have already figured out how to deal with such externalities: tax them so that the polluter internalises the cost of his actions. And so, near the top of Lord Layard's list for improving human happiness, comes the following recommendation: much higher rates of income tax to tame the rat race.

The author singles out income inequality as a psychic wound uniquely worthy of state intervention. But if raising the level of happiness is to be the chief aim of government policy, as he argues it should, where then is the call to make divorce harder, given the pain that he says broken homes inflict on children? Further, where is his desire to compel the worship of a higher being, also on his list as a source of happiness? Thankfully, both are absent, but he never mentions the obvious reason for why they are: namely, that most people value freedom as a greater good than enforced happiness. The pursuit of happiness, Lord Layard's book will convince most people, is a private matter

Vertical and lateral thinking
Humair Hashmi



Edward de Bono is a name recognised all over the world. His books are read in China, he has addressed seminars in Russia, his methods are part of school curriculum in Venezuela, he has held workshops in Japan, his concepts are used in educational institutions across the North American continent: Canadian teachers use his methodologies in kindergarten schools and American businesses such as Du Pont and IBM employ his methods to train corporate executives. He has lectured in over fifty countries across the globe. Recently he came to Pakistan and delivered talks in Islamabad.

De Bono studied in Malta and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford where he studied psychology, among other subjects, and did his doctorate. He did another PhD from Cambridge. He has taught at Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Harvard universities. He has written extensively and at the last count, had authored over thirty books. His works have been translated into twenty-four languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, and Urdu. Dr de Bono travels extensively lecturing and holding training workshops for business executives, teachers, Nobel laureates, and young children in primary schools across five continents.

Edward de Bono’s system can be viewed at two levels: his theory of a different way of thinking, that he calls lateral thinking and his methodology of putting that theory into practice for use in real life situations. Theoretically, he distinguishes between two ways of thinking, one that he calls vertical thinking and the other that he terms lateral thinking. The term lateral thinking is familiar world wide to denote a different, unconventional or creative way of thinking. The term is so widely used and accepted that it has now an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as “seeking to solve problems by unorthodox or apparently illogical methods”.

Thinking, as the term is used by a lay man, is what de Bono calls “vertical thinking”. It can be described as the conventional pattern of thinking where the thinker proceeds from one state of information to another. Its chief characteristic is logical continuity. Most of us, de Bono says, are used to conventional ways of thinking, or are “trapped” in vertical thinking. This way of thinking is not conducive to problem solving, because by its very nature it is bound by conventionality and problem solving requires thinking beyond the rules and conventions.

Lateral thinking on the other hand is a way of thinking characterised by escape from rules and conventions. One of the chief features of lateral thinking is discontinuity as apposed to continuity which is a hallmark of vertical thinking. De Bono believes that children are taught at home and school to think vertically, in a logical, conventional manner, such that vertical thinking becomes a habit, a second nature with a lot of us. We are thus tied securely to conventional patterns of thinking. Such thinking is a good tool for routine life, but a very weak and inadequate tool where problem solving and discovering unconventional ways of dealing with life are concerned.

Dr de Bono has identified a number of variables that distinguish lateral from vertical thinking. Let us consider some of the more challenging and interesting ones. Vertical thinking is looking for an answer in a problem-solving situation, whereas lateral thinking raises additional questions related to the problem. Thus where vertical thinking focuses on the answers, lateral thinking generates questions and hypotheses. Verticality is selective and upward mobile, laterality is non-selective and sideways mobile. “To laterate”, he says, “is to move sideways” in thinking.

Another distinction is made on the basis of relevance. Vertical thinking is considered relevant to the situation at hand, whereas lateral thinking “welcomes chance intrusions”, seeking to “avoid the obvious, the relevant”. Verticality chooses rejecting irrelevance, laterality encourages various choices, encompassing new, different, patterns and options.

Another characteristic of vertical thinking mentioned by de Bono is that it is closed-ended, whereas lateral thinking is open-ended. Social scientists use questionnaires as one of their instruments of research. Some questions in those questionnaires may be closed-ended and others open-ended. A closed-ended question is one which restricts the answer to a limited, predetermined response, whereas an open-ended question is one which provides the opportunity to the respondent to answer in any way that he chooses to. For instance the closed-ended question may be “did you like the ad that you just saw on TV”? And an open-ended question may be “what are your views about the ad that you just saw on the TV”? The former is structured in such a way that it predisposes the respondent to give a short answer, but the latter is structured in a way that may open up a variety of responses from him. Verticality and laterality in thinking are similar to the example of the closed or the open-ended questions. Verticality minimises and reduces a response and laterality maximises and amplifies it.

Another distinction made by de Bono in this context is being analytical and provocative. He says that vertical thinking is analytical, in the sense that it seeks why an idea would not work under the given circumstances; whereas lateral thinking seeks what possible benefits could be gotten out of the idea that would not work. Thus verticality is reductionist, whereas laterality is catalytic. De Bono’s stress is, as is obvious by now, upon accepting the different, the unconventional ways of thinking and using them to one’s advantage in any given situation. He says that an unconventional, different, way of thinking or lateral thinking is synonymous with creative thinking. A creative thinker is unconventional, lateral, in his thinking; an ordinary thinker is vertical such that conventionality is a hindrance in his creativity. In order for one to be creative therefore, one must shed verticality and adopt laterality, he stresses.

One is reminded of having said at a workshop some time ago in the context of de Bono’s concept of lateral/creative thinking, that a sportsperson or a criminal may be a lateral/creative thinker. That remark did not go well with one of the participants, who was the PTV programmes manager at that time. His objection was that a sportsperson or a criminal could not be “creative”. Only people connected with certain “artistic” professions could be creative. The gentleman could not be convinced that professionalism, ethicality or morality might not be relevant to the creativity of a person. The bowler who invented the reverse swing or the “doosra”, or a criminal who finds a novel way of e-mail fraud, might perhaps be as lateral/creative a thinker as a painter or a writer. But such arguments were wasted on him. In the end one was left with a sad feeling that perhaps there was no hope for new programme ideas to germinate where such vertical thinkers remained at the helm of affairs.

Humair Hashmi is a professionally certified psychotherapist who teaches at Imperial College Lahore. This is the first part of a two-article series on the subject

It is obvious, however, that this is a crooked way of thinking, even if it is operative across various segments of society regardless of the literacy level.

Christian community

In one of the cricket Tests against Australia, Yousaf Youhana acted as captain of our team in the absence of Inzamam-ul-Haque. The other day when I was standing near a newspaper shop, I overheard the remarks of someone saying, “choorey noon kiyoon cuptaan banaya ai”.
In this connection I wish to bring to the notice of the readers that not all members of Christian community in our country are sweepers. Way back in the fifties or sixties there used to be one Lewis Hussain as Chairman Wapda who was a convert. There was one P. N. (Prem Nath) Joshua, Session Judge residing on Waris Road Lahore, who was a convert from Hindus. Similarly Sarojini Naidu and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur were both Christian who were prominent political leaders of pre-partition days.
My own ancestors were Qadeemi Syeds. My grandfather named Mohammad Shah Safer was a “Mudarrus” in British Army barracks and used to impart moral training to the soldiers in pre-partition days. The British converted him to Christianity. My maternal grandfather was a prominent Muslim Hakim of Guru Jandiala (Amritsar) India who got converted to Christianity at the hands of British. –Y. PERVEZ SHAH, Lahore, January 3.

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/jan-2005/20/letters7.php


I think that bloke who said that deregatory remark about Christians being sweeper is the type of chap who should be lynched.

Yohanna, a Christain, is the best batsman of the Pakistani team. How can he forget the contribution and instead give such demeaning statements?

We have Irfan Pathan, Md Kaif, Zaheer. Their contribution to Indian victories are many. Who would give such deregatory remarks in India and if they do, will they survive the wrath of the fans?

Irfan is no stunner like Imran Khan of Pakistan and yet young girls have travelled by train to his hometown in the hope of marrying him. And they are not Moslems!

http://www.edwdebono.com/course/index.htm

Our Army is full of this.

Honestly, it is interesting, but when the chips are down very few remember!

Yes, when the chips are down, it's difficult to keep instinct down as well - but I was hoping that you or someone might discuss the fact that "lateral" has some very unpleasant implications for the foundation of method as we know it -- for science itself?

And really I did not have armed forces in mind with this thread, I had ordinary youth, especially Pakistani youth in mind - every solution is essentially "creative" - but as de bono points out nad Popper before him, it's the question which is more important, it presupposes the answer.

Ray, have you ever had a instance in life, when you concluded that you have had a original thought or idea? I never have - I thought about that alot, but cannot honestly say that I have ever had a thought or idea that was "original" - isn't that, well, I don't really know what that is, sad, weird, good, or bad, I don't know.

I was watching an episode of science frontiers on the Discovery channel not too long ago, and from what I've gathered from the articles posted above, the emphasis in that episode was on the so called lateral thinking.

Most people in the scientific community are quick to dismiss anything that seems irrational to them as 'unscientific'. According to that programme, formal scientific education creates a biased mind, and makes people dismiss things that 'seem' far-fetched as totally lacking in scientific proof and so on.

In fact, the prerequisite for any scientific research should be an uncluttered mind- a mind that has the capacity to investigate and ask questions and think the unconventional rather than rejecting something as impossible.

One interesting example- Jane Goodall, the world renowned expert on animal behavior, had no formal education. She spent most of her childhood in Kenya, when it was a British colony. She apparently went trekking once and had her first glimpse of chimps in their natural habitat. The curator of Nairobi's natural hsitory museum apparently gave her a go ahead to study chimps only because she had an uncluttered mind, free from the bias of formal education. Today, Goodall has authored numerous books on animal behavior and in many ways is the worlds leading authority in that field.

Also,Thomas Alva Edison was considered too dim to go to school and Einstein never really had a formal education.

Formal education to blame ? I dont know.

Tarek,

It would be presumtous of me to believe I had ever any 'original' ideas. I would say yes, I did see 'original' ideas which were so commonplace that I was surprised that others did not realise it!


But remember, there is always resistance to change. It is worse, if it is 'original'!

Remember Md Tughlak - the guy who wanted to conquer China by going over the Himalays or the first person who introduced paper money? He moved his capital deep into the South. Militarily, it was brilliant. He wanted the marauders from outside India to increase their line of communication i.e. supply and get them exhausted in retrograde battles and then hit them with reserves when the nmarauders were seriously imbalanced. That would be the end of the marauders! The history books even now call him mad. It shows how shallow historians are!
Yes, his capital in the South failed. It was because of resistance to change. His courtiers could not mentally accept the move to alien areas! - the 'all or nothing' dichotomy

Mr. Dinakar


I have some sympathy with those scientists - because, at least o the surface, exactly where "lateral thinking" fits into "scientific method" is unclear, indeed, it may represent an alternate method, or a leap from scientific method -- scientific method is esentially that bit about "vertical thinking" -- these links in a chain type of thing.

You mentioned that the program you saw suggested that scientifc method is "biased" -- well, another way to put it is that it is "theory laden" - allow me to explain: Scientifc method, we are taught, begins with "observe" - however, the answers "Observe what?" demonstrate that we "select" the object of observation, that we bring to the observation, our training (presupopositions, biases) - and it is in this way that science is theory laden.

But to be honest, with regard to any subject we may approach, we bring our presuppositions and selection, to it - just like there is no such thing as uninterpreted history, there is even with history, "selection", after all, history is those facts we choose to recall, recall all the facts would be next to impossible.

I recently read something that may interest you: "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" - but you may want ot also read "structure of scientific revolutions" by T. Kuhn-- I promise you will enjoy that.

Mr. Tarek,

I agree with you when you say that ''with regard to any subject we may approach, we bring our presuppositions and selection, to it''

We have had many instances of scientists coming out with bold theories challenging the 'known' and the 'proven'- to be treated as bilge and nonsense by the scientific community initially, only to be awarded the Nobel Prize later. The reason behind it is this intellectual inertia, which tends to resist change. Fear of reprisal and rebuke often becomes a bottleneck when you think laterally.

Selective interpretations of history borne out of presuppositions and biases is something which is true and I fully agree with you on that.

Even when it comes to religion, not many people have the liberty to choose their religion, do they? A man's religion is by default, let alone the interpretations of sacred texts.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but anyone who tends to think laterally and is slighty unconventional is often treated with contempt and is subject to ridicule by the common multitude. And this extends to a whole host of social issues of our times.

P.S - I will get my hands on those books as soon as my exams get over.

more examples of clouded thinking???: You be the judge


Is growth the only economic indicator?
Miguel Loureiro


A country’s economic success tends to be equated by many short-sighted pseudo-analysts solely with the growth rate. If the growth is above 6 percent the minister in charge of the economy is known as a wizard. Well, let me give you the years since 1950 when such a growth rate happened in Pakistan: 1953 (over 10 percent GDP growth); 1961 until 1969 (except 1966); 1972; 1973; 1977; 1979 until 1982; 1984; 1985; 1987; 1991; 1995; 2003; and 2004.

If a country’s success can be judged from its economic growth rate, and this certainly is the mindset of the current government, then the fact that Pakistan has had an extremely impressive growth rate for 23 out of 54 years should make Pakistan one of the greatest developmental success stories of the last century. This, as we know, is not true, given its rank of 138 out of 177 countries on the Human Development Index. Should 54 years, then, not be enough to learn to prioritise something other than economic growth? Is growth really the only indicator?

Let’s say we bring another economic indicator into the game: inflation.

What is inflation? Inflation is an increase in the price of goods and services resulting in a loss of purchasing power. In other words it is the it-costs-a-lot-more-to-buy-tomatoes-than-it-used-to. The problem with inflation is that on the one hand consumers need higher salaries to cover rising costs, and, on the other hand, producers tend to raise their prices to cover these increases, scale back production to check their costs (resulting in cutting jobs), and fail to invest in future production.

In Pakistan there are three indices used to measure inflation: these are the consumer price index (CPI), the sensitive price indicator (SPI) and the wholesale price index (WPI). The CPI measures changes in the cost of buying a certain basket of goods and services (the present basket covers 374 items) and tends to be the main indicator for the country’s inflation. It comprises 71 markets in 35 urban centres of Pakistan, and categorises the population under four income groups (up to Rs 3,000; Rs 3,001 to Rs 5,000; Rs 5,001 to Rs 12,000; above Rs 12,000), as different income groups tend to have different consumption patterns. The SPI assesses the price movements of essential goods at short intervals (weekly) so as to review the price situation in the country, and is assessed in a similar way as the CPI. The WPI measures the movement of prices for a set of selected items (divided into five groups: food; raw materials; fuel, lighting and lubricants; manufacturing; building material) in the primary and wholesale markets.

Shall we look at CPI values? CPI food inflation reached as high as 14.9 percent in July 2004, the highest increase in food prices since 1997. It then went down until October 2004 but bounced back to 13.6 percent in November. As a consequence, food inflation contributed over 60 percent in the overall inflation in November 2004. Non-food inflation has also been steadily rising, mainly due to the increase of the house rent index. This made the total CPI reach 7.3 percent in November 2004 (as opposed to 2.7 percent in November 2003). In fact, CPI inflation has been rising almost uninterrupted since August 2003 (with a two-month pause in the beginning of 2004 and 2005). The State Bank of Pakistan now predicts that annual CPI inflation will fall in the range of 7.6-8.2 percent (as opposed to the previous 5 percent prediction).

Looking at recent SPI figures (remember it’s a weekly index), we see that it has increased from 112.89 percent on January 6 to 127.51 percent on January 13, with vegetables being the goods for which prices have increased the most. Actually, during the last year (from January 13, 2004 to January 13, 2005) only local telephone calls and matchboxes remained stable, with the prices of 44 items increasing, and those of seven decreasing.

So we learn that inflation is going up (more than expected), especially regarding food items. Who are the main people affected by this inflation? These would be the people that spend the majority of their money on food — i.e. the poorer. According to the State Bank of Pakistan, CPI inflation has eroded the purchasing power of the lowest income group by 10.8 percent, as opposed to 8.6 percent of the higher income group. Now remember that the poverty status of about 85 percent of the total population is linked with economic shocks — such as inflation. This has been seen over the years, where increases in the prices of essential goods have directly affected the poorest and the more vulnerable.

Last year economic growth was 6.4 percent (against the initial target of 5.3 percent) and inflation rose to 4.57 percent (against the expected 3.9 percent). So if this year economic growth is predicted to be above 6.5 percent and inflation is predicted to be above 7.6 percent, do we still want to call this finance minister a wizard? What has happened is that while Pakistan’s growth rate is once again impressive, poor Pakistanis will become even poorer this year.

PS — Next week we’ll discuss another indicator to question the wizard’s myth. It’s called “external trade”.

Miguel Loureiro is a lecturer in development studies at the Lahore University of Management Sciences

Lateral thinking and its hazards
Humair Hashmi


Based upon his theoretical framework, de Bono has developed a number of techniques that may be helpful in turning one’s vertical thinking into lateral thinking.

Consider for a moment the implications of that venture. Developing technologies for converting vertical into lateral thinking is making people more creative — the underlying idea being that creativity is not a mystical, magical attribute that only some great people may have, and the ordinary mortals may not. Lateral or creative thinking is thus equated to a skill that can be learnt and built upon by certain “corrective” training procedures. Thus a painter, a writer, a gymnast, a manager or a business executive can learn and adopt those techniques and become more creative.

Before taking a look at some of the techniques, one needs to pay attention to one’s thinking the way it is now. De Bono points out some practical things that one needs to consider in this regard. First, one must become conscious of the fact that one has learnt vertical thinking and that it needs to be changed into lateral thinking. Many years ago cognitive psychotherapists had pointed out the same thing in relation to mental disease. The first step towards recovery from mental disease or neurosis, they thought, was to become conscious of one’s problem. The lack of awareness or denial is a major hindrance in one’s recovery from one’s problem. One of the major contributing factors in chronicity of a mental problem is lack of awareness about it, or the tendency to deny it. De Bono is looking at vertical thinking from the same perspective when he stresses the need for awareness about one’s tendency to verticality. Vertical thinking is a problem and one must regard it as such in order to rid one’s self of it.

Also, since lateral thinking is a skill, the more time and effort one puts into its acquisition and practice, the more quickly one acquires and learns it. Consequently greater the benefit one may draw from its use.

Second, adequate tools must be developed for imparting the skill. He has prepared a long list of tools and techniques of lateral thinking and invites those interested to look into, learn, and adopt these tools. Notation, he points out, is a tool for the mathematician; verbal, as well as non-verbal, language is a tool for communication and expression. Lateral thinking, too, involves acquisition of some tools.

Most of Dr de Bono’s tools can be adopted and used by children and adults alike. Here are some of those. The first is gaining awareness of one’s dominant idea in thinking. A person’s thinking is usually dominated by an idea. This is a source of vertical thinking. Examples: the idea that teachers are essential for imparting knowledge to students; or that the more learned the teacher the better he imparts the knowledge. De Bono states that it might be quite hard to become aware of the dominant idea but it can be done provided one is ready to honestly reflect upon it.

Another technique leading to lateral thinking is to become aware of one’s assumptions — the things that one takes for granted. American psychotherapist Albert Ellis has based his entire theory of treatment of mental disorders on identification of one’s assumptions. Correcting them rids a person of neurosis and misery. Dr de Bono proposes similarly that one’s assumptions are one of the major sources of vertical thinking and a barrier to lateral or creative thinking.

Ellis, Zastraw, and other American cognitive psychotherapists stress the need for correcting one’s assumptions. Our own contemporary thinkers, like Khwaja Masud, have written extensively on false assumptions and shown how these have not only been a barrier to individual creativity but are also a major reason for stagnation in the nation of Islam as a whole. One way out of such assumptions, suggested by de Bono, is to relentlessly question them. Asking “why” of our assumptions, de Bono argues, is to expand and amplify them so that one can see behind them, check their foundations and correct any flaws.

Another source of vertical thinking is the tendency toward tunnel vision. De Bono argues that “the trouble with knowing is that you have little chance of coming up with other (new) things ... The more knowledge one has the more restricted one’s field of search becomes”. This leads one to the position of “end of search” where one stops looking for the different, new and the novel, because one has already found “the most valuable”. In cognitive psychology this condition is called “functional fixedness”.

De Bono suggests that one of the ways of breaking loose from the grip of functional fixedness is to deliberately expose oneself to the “other”, the “different” the “variant”, and the “irrelevant”. In contemporary terms one way of breaking free from one’s religious fundamentalism may be to deliberately expose oneself to liberal, agnostic and atheistic philosophical positions. Similarly, one way of breaking free from one’s “liberal” positions would be to expose oneself to disciplinarian, dogmatic, and restricted positions. But then such a cognitive adventure requires great moral and academic courage. How many of us can boast of that? How many can even consider experiencing the roller-coaster ride?

Dr de Bono also warns us of the dangers of lateral thinking. He points out a number of scenarios as the negative fallout of lateral/creative thinking. These include the “butterfly mind”, where the person involved pursues a lateral/creative idea for only a short time before he moves on. He ends up with a litter of unfinished, incomplete ideas. This makes him far from creative.

Another danger is the amount of pride a lateral thinker may come to have. This is particularly true of a highly creative person who comes to regard himself, as the Persian saying goes, “Hum choo ma deegary nayst” (“there is none like me”). He then defends his ideas and positions at all costs, taking such defence to ridiculous heights. Ironically, he thus becomes more vertical and less lateral in his thinking.

Another danger is that the sheer dynamism and novelty of a creative person may isolate him from his contemporaries and his times. He may be looked upon as an eccentric, or even dangerous. Consider Galileo, Charles Chaplin, and our own Saadat Hasan Manto who were regarded deviant from their contemporary standards of values and thus rejected. But who can doubt their creativity?

Humair Hashmi is a professionally certified psychotherapist who teaches at Imperial College Lahore. This is the second and concluding part of a two-article series on the subject

Another danger is that the sheer dynamism and novelty of a creative person may isolate him from his contemporaries and his times. He may be looked upon as an eccentric, or even dangerous.

That is precisely what I was trying to say. Eccentric people born with an intrinsic array of talents are often ostracized by society. Leonardo Da Vinci for example, was a man whose thinking was generations ahead of his times. But then again, its a doubled edged sword, and I wonder if he ever led a 'happy' life.

I believe that a distinction should be made between those who are inherently eccentric and those that 'choose' to be eccentric. They cannot be presented as one. Most people often confuse the two, leading to all their prejudice.