Out of Our Minds: A book review by Bob Morris

Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative
Ken Robinson
Capstone Publishing Ltd. (2011)

How and why to think differently about learning to be creative

This is a “New Edition, Fully Updated” of a book first published in 2001. Why a second edition? As Ken Robinson explains in his Preface, “…the first reason is that so much has happened since [2000], both in the world and in my world…The second reason for this new edition is that I now have more to say about many of the core ideas in the book and what we should do to put them into practice…The third reason is, not only has the world moved on in the last ten years, I have too. Literally.”

Robinson responds to three separate but related questions:

o    Why is it essential to promote creativity?
o    What is the problem?
o    What is involved?

Throughout his lively and eloquent narrative, Robinson develops and explores three separate but interdependent themes: “We are living in times of revolution; If we are to survive and flourish we have to think differently about our own abilities and make the best use of them; and, In order to do so we have to run our organizations and especially our education systems in radically different ways.”

These are among the dozens of passages that caught my eye:

“The evolution of the Internet has been driven not only by innovations in technology but also by unleashing the imaginations and appetites of millions of users, which in turn are driving further innovations in technology.” (Page 41)

“Current systems of education were not designed to meet the challenges we now face. They were developed to meet the needs of a former age. Reform is not enough; they need to be transformed.” (49)

“All truth passes through three stages;
First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer (81)

“When people find their medium, they discover their real creative strengths and come into their own. Helping people to connect with their personal creative capacities is the surest way to release the best they have to offer.” (139)

“Being sensitive to oneself and to others is a vital element in the development of the personal qualities that are now urgently needed, in business, in the community and in personal life. It is through feelings as well as through reason that we find our real creative power. It is through both that we connect with each other and create the complex, shifting worlds of human culture.” (196)

“Creating a culture of innovation will only work if the initiative is ked from the top of the organization. The endorsement and involvement if leaders means everything, if the environment is to change.” (219)

“Creativity is not about a lack of constraints; often it is about working within them and overcoming them. The dynamics of culture are such change travels in all directions. With the power of the Internet and of social networking, ideas and innovations can move quickly and inspire others to action. Sensitive policy makers will feel the change and may even say it was their idea.” (266)

There have been hundreds (thousands?) of books and articles published in recent years that explore one or more aspects of creativity. What differentiates Robinson’s book from all them are the scope and depth of focus on how and why to think differently about learning to be creative in all domains of human experience. While reading and then re-reading this book, I was reminded of Walt Whitman’s assertion in Song of Myself:

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

As he also does in an earlier book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, Ken Robinson urges those who read his latest book to think creatively about who they are (“large”) and how they will explore and develop all dimensions of their humanity (“multitudes”). Moreover, especially to those with direct and frequent contact with children, he affirms the importance of helping others to do so. May reason guide and passion drive these noble initiatives.

Ken Robinson on the arts and the sciences

In his latest book, Ken Robinson observes in Chapter 7 that being creative is not only about thinking; it is also about feeling. For example, “Among the legacies of the Enlightenment and Romanticism are many common-sense but mistaken assumptions about the differences between the arts and the sciences.” (Page 186) What follows are brief excerpts of Robinson’s subsequent narrative.

“The main process of science is explanation. Scientists are concerned with understanding how the world works in terms of itself. Science aims to produce systematic explanations of events, which can be verified by evidence.” (187)

“Many of the great [scientific] discoveries were made intuitively. Scientists do not always move along a logical path. They may sense a solution or discovery intuitively before an experiment has been done and then design tests to see if the hypothesis can be confirmed or proved wrong. Every attempt is then made to be as methodical as possible. But although rational analysis plays a part, it is only a part of the real process of science.” (190) “Scientific understanding is the product of the creative mind…creativity is at the heart of science.” (191)

“The main process of art is description. Artists are involved in describing and evoking the qualities of experience…Artists are concerned with understanding the world in terms of their own perceptions of it” with making feelings, with imagining alternatives and with making objects that express those ideas. At the heart of the arts is the artifact. Artists make objects and events as objects of contemplation.” (191)

*     *     *

“It is not what interests artists or scientists that distinguishes them from each, but how it interests them. The difference lies in the types of understanding they are searching for, in the functions of these processes and in the modes of understanding they employ. Artists and scientists are not always different people. In the Renaissance the individuals roamed freely over both the domains that we now think of separately as arts and sciences. (195)

“It is through feelings as well as through reason that we find oyr real creative power. It is through both that we connect with each oitger and create the complex, shifting worlds of human culture.” (196)

*     *     *

I hope these brief excerpts convince you to check out Robinson’s latest book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, New Edition, Fully Updated (Capstone Publishing Ltd, 2012) and I also highly recommend his earlier book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, (Penguin, 2009) as well as Frans Johansson’s The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World (Portfolio/Penguin, 2012), Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011) and Michael Michalko’s Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work (New World Library, 2011).

Tao Te Ching: A book review by Bob Morris

Tao Te Ching: The Ancient Classic
Lao Tzu, with an Introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Capstone Publishing Ltd. (2012)

The definitive examination of what is “the timeless, changeless spirit that runs through all life and matter”

There is no shortage of outstanding translations of Lao Tzu’s ancient classic and an even greater number of commentaries on what he characterizes as  “the timeless, changeless spirit that runs through all life and matter…Being that is all inclusive and that existed before Heaven and Earth.”

Those who have read one or more of the volumes that comprise Tom Butler-Bowdon’s 50 Classics series already know that he possesses superior reasoning and writing skills as well as a relentless curiosity when conducting research on history’s greatest thinkers and their major works. For these and other reasons, I cannot think of another person better qualified to provide the introductions to the volumes that comprise a new series, Capstone Classics.

Unlike so many others, he provides more, much more than a flimsy “briefing” to the given work. In his 32-page Introduction to this edition of Tao Te Ching, Butler-Bowdon discusses subjects and issues such as these in order to create a context, a frame-of-reference, for Lao Tzu’s insights:

o  What is – and isn’t – “Tao”
o  Recognizing and then being in harmony with its power
o  The value and limits of worldly power, fame, and riches
o  The need for self-restraint
o  Why we should treasure simplicity, purity, compassion, economy (i.e. frugality), and humility
o  The importance of “not doing” (i.e. wu wei)
o  The limits and perils of “striving”
o  Tao Te Ching and Tolstoy’s theory of history
o  The unique value of timelessness
o  Tao Te Ching and Plato’s concept of “Forms”
o  Lao Tzu and Confucius

When concluding his brilliant Introduction, Butler-Bowdon acknowledges attempts by major scholars to understand – and then explain – classic works such as Tao Te Ching:

“Yet as Lao Tzu himself implies in the text (‘The learned men are often not the wise men, nor the wise men, the learned.’), scholars are usually not good at grasping spiritual concepts, and moreover the Chinese language with its five thousand characters is ill-equipped for expressing the abstract idea of Tao. [Dwight] Goddard was therefore not interested in providing the most pedantically correct translation, but rather to capture the essence of a work he loved.”

This Capstone edition uses the classic rendering of the Tao Teh Ching in Dwight Goddard & Henri Borel’s Laotzu’s Tao and Wu Wei, New York: Brentano’s, 1919. According to Tom Butler-Bowdon, Goddard’s approach is the one to take. That’s good enough for me.

The Prince: A book review by Bob Morris

The Prince: The Original Classic
Niccolò Machiavelli, with an Introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Capstone Publishing Ltd. (2010)

How and why a leader needs to be both “a fox to discern snares, and a lion to drive off wolves”

Those who have read one or more of the volumes that comprise Tom Butler-Bowdon’s 50 Classics series already know that he possesses superior reasoning and writing skills as well as a relentless curiosity when conducting research on history’s greatest thinkers and their major works. For these and other reasons, I cannot think of another person better qualified to provide the introductions to the volumes that comprise a new series, Capstone Classics.

Unlike so many others, he provides more, much more than a flimsy “briefing” to the given work. As Butler-Bowdon points out, “recent research has focused on [Machiavelli’s] ethics and the fact that he was a genuine moral philosopher and well-rounded Renaissance man whose overriding wish was to be useful.” This obviously challenges the mistaken but durable perception of Machiavelli as being “evil” by those who have never read The Prince and know even less about the age in which it was written.

Indeed, as Yale’s Erica Benner suggests in Machiavelli’s Ethics (published by Princeton University Press, 2009), The Prince is “best seen not as a guide on how to be ruthless or self-serving, but rather as a lens to see objectively the prevailing views of the day, and to open the eyes of the reader to the motives of others.”

For this volume, Butler-Bowdon poses and then addresses key issues such as these in order to create a context, a frame-of-reference, for Niccolò Machiavelli’s insights:

o  The defining characteristics of the social and political forces of the period during which he lived and worked
o  The extent to which The Prince accurately reflects that period
o  The dominant influences (for better or worse) on Machiavelli’s career
o  Their impact on his efforts to advance that career amidst deadly perils and equally perilous opportunities
o  The unique contributions and heritage of The Prince within the development of western literature
o  Machiavelli’s articles of religious faith and perspectives political realities (e.g. his “success laws”)
o  His definition of “power” and how best to gain and then apply it
o  Girolamo Savonarola’s significance
o  The role of image and charisma in effective leadership
o  Machiavelli’s “final, powerful message” to our own times

There were so many passages in The Prince that caught my eye while re-reading it prior to writing this brief review. One was cited in its title (i.e. a leader needs to be both “a fox to discern snares, and a lion to drive off wolves”) and Butler-Bowdon cites another when concluding the Introduction to this volume: Reflecting Machiavelli’s basic philosophy regarding the division of causal power between and chance and merit, he states that, “What remains to be done must be done by you,” as ultimately “God will not do everything Himself.” To which Butler-Bowdon responds, “The Prince ultimately is a book of action, and demands of you the reader, to act without fear to achieve noble things, acquiring distinction and perhaps a certain glory in your own lifetime.”

As indicated earlier, Tom Butler-Bowdon’s purpose in this introduction is to create a context, a frame-of-reference, for Machiavelli’s insights. He does so brilliantly and also in each of the other volumes in the Capstone Classics series that have been published thus far.

Think and Grow Rich: A book review by Bob Morris

Think and Grow Rich: The Original Classic
Napoleon Hill, with an Introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Capstone Publishing Ltd. (2009)

The “Supreme Secret” of success: “Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve.”

Those who have read one or more of the volumes that comprise Tom Butler-Bowdon’s 50 Classics series already know that he possesses superior reasoning and writing skills as well as a relentless curiosity when conducting research on history’s greatest thinkers and their major works. For these and other reasons, I cannot think of another person better qualified to provide the introductions to the volumes that comprise a new series, Capstone Classics.

Think and Grow Rich was based on two decades of research conducted by Napoleon Hill (concluded in 1928) after being retained by Andrew Carnegie to complete an analysis of 500 of the most successful people in the United States and elsewhere. The title of his original report, Laws of Success, consisted of 1,500 pages in a series of seven volumes, in which Hill lists and discusses 17 “principles of achievement.” It is worth noting that this volume in the Capstone Classics series also contains both the “Publisher’s Preface to Original Edition” and the “Author’s Introduction to Original Edition” (published in 1937) and a list of those interviewed by Napoleon Hill over a 20-year period.

Unlike so many others, Butler-Bowdon provides more, much more than a flimsy “briefing” to the given work. For this volume, he creates a context, a frame-of-reference, for Napoleon Hill’s insights in a 16-page introduction in which he addresses subjects, themes, and issues such as these:

o A brief but remarkably insightful review of pertinent details in Hill’s circumstances when retained by Carnegie

o His magazine ventures, notably Hill’s Golden Rule and Napoleon Hill’s Magazine

o Hill’s DRAFT of a book, The 13 Steps to Riches, based on material introduced in Laws of Success

o Original title of DRAFT was changed to Use Your Noodle to Win More Boodle and then, finally and thankfully, to Think and Grow Rich

o Hill’s “four clear elements of success” (i.e. desire, faith, plans, and persistence)

o The moral and spiritual foundation of Think and Grow Rich

o 31 reasons why people fail

o The self-defeating aspects of personality that many (most?) people do not recognize

So what is “The “Supreme Secret” of success revealed by Hill in a later work, Grow Rich with Peace of Mind, published in 1967, three years before his death? “Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve.” Although it may now be fashionable to dismiss (often with ridicule) all such aphorisms, the fact remains that every success in life does indeed require an idea, an insight, that someone then makes a reality.

Thomas Edison was right: “Vision without execution is hallucination” but execution without purpose is merely effort without value. As Butler-Bowdon suggests, “Hill was saying that there were no limits to what a person can do [unless self-imposed], and history has proved it so thousands of times with the stories of any remarkable person.”

As indicated earlier, Tom Butler-Bowdon’s purpose in this introduction is to create a context, a frame-of-reference, for Hill’s insights. He does so brilliantly in this instance and in each of the other volumes in the Capstone Classics series that have been published thus far.