World Thinking Report 2
Democracy demands ‘schoolboy thinking’. It may indeed be excellent schoolboy thinking as demonstrated by David Cameron in the UK and Barack Obama in the USA – but it is still schoolboy thinking. How could it be otherwise? In a democracy the public have to understand first before they can agree, so anything too profound is useless.
Now it may be that a democratic leader in meetings with his cabinet and close colleagues exhibits a rather deeper thinking. Such a person is smart enough to know that such thinking is not suitable for public comsumption.
A crippled man of eighty-seven years old may indeed be a great sexual athlete even though it does not look that way. In a similar way a schoolboy thinker in public may be a more profound thinker in private. Indeed that thinker may be smart enough to know the sort of thinking that democracy needs – otherwise he or she would not have reached that position.
Analysis, argument and judgement are ‘ebne’ (excellent but not enough). Creative thinking, design thinking and perceptual thinking are equally important. Indeed, perceptual thinking may be the most important of all.
It may be that all governments need a Minister of Thinking. Such a person would oversee the thinking taking place in other ministries and offer creative help if needed.
