We need Imagination, Creativity and Critical Thinking more than ever
A recent study of 12 European countries seems to signal a worrying trend in that ‘nearly half the adults in Britain and Europe hold extremist views’[1] and therefore viewed within the context of wider geo- and socio-political changes we are in a time of seemingly major transition, one in which extremism of all kinds is on the rise.
As demonstrated by Brexit and the US Election campaign, the growth in the use of Social Media has now created a population of ‘journalists’ and combined with rolling 24 hour media coverage we no longer have to wait for news and thus interest in and connection with global events is at our fingertips and thus events become even more magnified and the impact seems greater.
Pankaj Mishra describes recent events as the ‘irruption of the irrational’ where ‘progressive versus reactionary, open versus closed, liberalism versus fascism, rational versus irrational’ and where only ‘what counts is what can be counted’[2]
In response, the development of leadership programmes (for young people) should have a much greater focus on areas such as critical and creative thinking and by no means least, imagination. Leading thinker and advisor on education, Sir Ken Robinson, talks of imagination being more important than knowledge because of the limits of knowledge, i.e., being only what we ‘know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.’
Complementary to this, Creative Thinking allows us to ‘focus attention, escape the confines of the current situation and generate connections to keep the mind moving....Children do this naturally but many adults find this process difficult and challenging.’[3]
The need for a new generation of young leaders not merely confined to dealing with ‘traditional’ or rather (in the case of Northern Ireland), tribal issues, but equipped with the capacity to deal with a much wider and dynamic range of (future) issues with global significance is more pressing than ever.
I are therefore proposing that leadership programmes go beyond traditional and/or ‘typical’ approaches, e.g., team building, participation, motivation, confidence, etc. These are of course important but to meet the challenges of the 21st Century we need a much more dynamic and forward-thinking approach to equipping our young people for the years ahead.
Young leaders need to be more than just willing, confident, motivated and so on, they need to be able to imagine, create and in the context of recent global shocks, think critically. Critical Thinking is now more important than ever because as the most recent World Happiness Report demonstrates, our capacity as rational human beings to think critically is severely lacking:
Many of our decisions are led by emotions and instincts, and only later rationalized by conscious thought. Our decisions are easily “primed” by associations, imagery, social context, and advertising. We are inconsistent or “irrational” in sequential choices, failing to meet basic standards of rational consistency. And we are largely unaware of our own mental apparatus, so we easily fall into traps and mistakes... If we think of each individual, every one of us has her own genetic make-up, but the person she becomes depends on the interaction of those genes with the environment she encounters.[4]
It’s this seemingly (and rather alarmingly) growing inability to rationalise and think critically, or as social media has demonstrated our inability to critique the news, emerging stories, available evidence or ‘reliable’ sources that necessitates the need for an increase in our capacity for Critical Thought – that and our ability to imagine and (as a result of imagination to) create constructive responses to modern issues is why we need to re-think our traditional approach to leadership programmes for young people.
Eminent Professor, Physicist (and formerly one half of pop duo, D:Ream) Brian Cox, is more than well known for his views on Climate Change but in a recent article in The Guardian he makes a salient point with regard to education: ‘It’s alright spending billions of pounds on aircraft carriers [the UK recently approved major spending in defence] but they’re not going to matter much when you’ve not given them [young people] the opportunity to learn to think’
In light of recent world events there’s a need to promote a much more thoughtful approach which essentially equips young people to respond to modern challenges not only with confidence, motivation, etc but with the capacity to imagine, create and think critically, qualities which have been prioritised in the EU’s 2012 Youth Report, the ‘ET2020’ strategy and second European Youth Work Convention.
So what are issues we face?
Guardian Columnist George Monbiot describes Brexit as one of ‘The 13 Impossible crises that humanity now faces’[5] the impact of which will be felt by everyone, not least of all young people, the majority of whom are pro-European.
Employment opportunities is of course a major concern (now more than ever) as it’s overwhelming impact is felt by young people and as CFNI’s Vital Signs Report of 2016 (for Northern Ireland) reported the ‘expansion of zero-hour contracts, part time and temporary employment are repeatedly described as concerns for people seeking work.’ This is also exacerbated by concerns around ‘Automation’ and the decline in jobs and as Jamie Smartt describes in his book, ‘Clarity’, the need for the development of Social Entrepreneurship is one of 15 ‘Future Issues’ facing humanity.
A number of major reports, studies and eminent writers have outlined the challenges we face in the years to come. The UN[6] and International Civil Society Centre[7] highlight Climate Change and Sustainability as among our most pressing concerns; the same UN reports highlights the lack of electoral Participation and this lack of engagement with or alienation from ‘elitist politics’ can be attributed in no small way to what Karl Popper describes as the ‘horrible’ party system ‘since its makes parliamentarians tend primarily to serve their party rather than their constituents’[8]. And as we have seen with Brexit, Trump, ‘the Arab Spring’, ‘Occupy’ and Momentum in the UK it paves the way for what Kingsley L. Dennis refers to ‘rising intolerance and frustration from a politically awakened humanity’
Issues of Sovereignty/Identity/Nationality have come to the fore again, not just with Brexit and Trump but the recent flood of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants into Europe as the 2008 recession took hold and conflict in Syria, Libya Iraq displaced millions, we have seen the ‘Rise of the Right’ across most European states.
On the back of this is the fear of what’s now being referred to as ‘Normalisation’. Donald Trump, for example, has been compared to Hitler and his ascent to the White House has given rise to the fear that views traditionally labelled as fascist are now being accepted as the new normal. This was recently illustrated by the debate over whether or not the ‘Alt-Right’ movement in the US should even be referred to as ‘Alt-Right’ and not as many commentators have been clear to point out, i.e., a fascist movement (that should not be labelled in such a way so as to give it a veneer of acceptability) does lend weight to this fear.
Just as with Brexit, George Monbiot also identifies the ‘Corporate Elite’[9] as one of the 13 impossible crises we need to deal with whilst issues of Well-Being/Stress/Happiness seem to have reached epidemic proportions across the ‘Western World’ and in some ways this is hardly surprising - if we stop to consider one interesting statistic, i.e., it’s estimated that someone tries to persuade you up to 400 times per day [10] be that directly, indirectly or (even more) subtly, through images, spoken word or otherwise - it’s easy to see why people’s well-being is compromised.
Advertising and Consumerism is a another major concern - in 1976 there were less than 10 advertising agencies in China – by 2012, there were 377, 000[11]; also in 1976, the average supermarket stocked 9000 unique products – the figure now is closer to 40, 000 yet it’s estimated that the average person meets their needs from 80-85% of only 150 items.[12]
Western Society has been dominated by Consumerism yet there are signals that there is growing desire to move away from consumerism. To help us consume we are bombarded by images and messages from a wide range of sources - TV, Internet, Radio, Newspaper, Social Media, and so on. It’s virtually relentless and happens in ways we don’t appreciate or are even aware of.
Our capacity for Resilience (in the face of adversity) and/or ability to manage Expectation in relation to everyday events or situations or to simply have Perspective on those events and situations is of course another concern. Take a walk into any decent bookshop and you’ll find whole sections on Popular Psychology, Well Being, Spiritual Health, Physical Fitness, and Healthy Living and so on. There is essentially an entire industry promoting positive living and is an indication of what occupies the thoughts of nation.
Matt Avery tells us that ‘Most people tend to measure their life in terms of successes and failures and their success and failure in the forms of possessions and wealth.’[13] But wherever there is wealth there is also poverty.
Poverty is a consistent – Financial Inequality continues to grow and this is only going to be further exacerbated as the Growing Middle Class in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil – many of whom have yet to experience the highlife or excess of their Western compatriots – will want of course to have their taste and share of it.
Stephen Hawking recently warned us of the ever-growing gap in financial equality describing how ‘we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality.’[14] Just recently, it emerged that 8 billionaires possessed the same wealth as the bottom 50% of the world’s population – that’s simply startling not to mention alarming.
Our Skills Base for meeting challenges head-on is also open to debate. There are many who believe (and have argued convincingly) that our formal schooling only teaches us to remember things. Tommy Lehe refers to Seven-Must have Skills for the 21st Century, none of which includes traditional subjects such as Mathematics and English but rather refers to Self-directed learning, Meta-perspective and Systems Thinking.[15] Lehe also refers to Digital Communications and Technological Change as does Stephen Hawking and its stating the obvious that there is no avoiding this.
Migration alongside Urbanisation is a major concern for the future as more and more people over the entire globe move towards the cities and away from the countryside. As we have seen over the last few years, this is not merely a case of people indigenous to their own countries relocating to cities within their borders but employment opportunities, war, conflict and natural disasters among others have forced people to move away from ‘home’.
We are faced with a wide but now-consistent range of issues, many of which are not new but will require diverse, creative, innovative and sometimes unique approaches that are no-longer (in the case of Northern Ireland indigenous to us) but cut across boundaries and borders at every level.
A wide range of respected commentators, academic’s, writers, columnists and scientists (including George Monbiot, Jamie Smartt, James Wallman, Daniel J. Levitin. Tommy Lehe and Stephen Hawking) not to mention groups and bodies of international standing including International Civic Social Centre and the UN have the pressing issues of our age.
‘Brexit’, Employment Opportunities, Automation, Social Entrepreneurship, Climate Change, Sustainability, Participation, Sovereignty/Identity/Nationality, ‘Normalisation’, the ‘Corporate Elite’, Well-Being/Stress/Happiness, Advertising/Consumerism, Resilience, managing Expectation, having Perspective, Poverty, Financial Inequality, the Growing Middle Class, Skills Base, Digital Communications and Technological Change, Migration, Urbanisation, Privacy/Surveillance, Ethics, the Knowledge Economy, Invented Regulation, Addiction, Loneliness, Growing/Ageing Population, Experience Vs Materialism.
It’s most definitely time for Imagination, Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking
[1] Revealed: Nearly Half The Adults In Britain And Europe Hold Extremist Views, BuzzFeed
Oct. 7, 2016, at 11:36 a.m., Alberto Nardelli
[2] ‘Welcome to the Age of Anger’, Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian, 8 December 2016
[3] A Do It Yourself Manual & Activities for Developing Creative Thinking, Handmade Creative Thinking
[4] World Happiness Report
[5] ‘The 13 Impossible crises that humanity now faces’, George Monbiot, The Guardian, 25 November 2016
[6] UN World Youth Report – Youth Civic Engagement - executive summary, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), 2016
[7] Exploring the Future (Scanning the Horizon) International Civic Social Centre
[8] Critical Mass, How one thing leads to another, Philip Ball
[9] ‘The 13 Impossible crises that humanity now faces’, George Monbiot, The Guardian, 25 November 2016
[10] Flipnosis, Kevin Dutton
[11] Stuffocation, James Wallman
[12] The Organised Mind, Daniel J. Levitin
[13] Secrets of Happy People, Matt Avery
[14] ‘This is the most dangerous time for our planet’, Stephen Hawking, The Guardian, 1 December 2016
[15] ‘Seven Must have Skills for the 21st Century’, Tommy Lehe, www.filmsforaction.org
