A Whole New Mind - Daniel Pink

I had major criticisms of both the assumptions he makes, and how he

makes them, and there are three piles: 1) ignorance of history, 2)
unnecessary polarization, and 3) lack of devils advocacy. Since what
follows is long, I have to say the book was thought provoking, though not
necessarily in the way the author intended.
If you havent read it, and dont want spoilers, go read it before continuing.
Ok, youve been warned.

Ignorance of history: Right brains have been dominant at other

times: namely, the European Renaissance. What happened? Why didnt the
world change in the ways he describes ours will if we can get better at Right
brain thinking? He doesnt say. The rise of Impressionism, Cubism, Rock
music, Surrealism, Punk rock, Free Love, Video Games, Movies, Music
videos, the birth of Greek philosophy and drama, and other huge
cultural/political contributions driven by R-dominant (his term) behavior
arent mentioned either. R-dominant thinking is old: it may be so old its new
again, but to frame the argument as a Whole New Mind, without any hat
tip to things pre-1950 is glaring, or as Tom Standage might say, overly
chronocentric. The shifts between L to R dominance at the culture level,
across time, has been discussed by other authors, from Leonard Shlains
excellent Art & Physics and to some extent, Daniel Boorstin, but no
reference from this line of thought is mentioned.

Polarization: Isnt the best possible world one where we use all of
our talents, as appropriate, to the problems at hand? Wouldnt it be just as
dangerous to have an R-dominant world as it is to have a logic, or L-
dominant one? The tag line for the book is Why right-brainers will rule
the future. Rule? Is that for the best? I bet hed agree our rulers should be
people who recognize the value of both kinds of thought, and that hes
fighting for a return to some kind of balance, but the book doesnt say so (If
I does, I missed it, despite a careful read). Perhaps I should have read the
book as a manifesto, a provocation, but I found that hard given the attempts
at logical arguments and statistics he uses in his arguments.

Devils Advocacy (DA) : Every book makes a bet on a core theme

and then tries to live up to it. But what should a writer do when writing
chapter 6, when they discover a good counterargument to the title of the
book? Or several major points? Ideally at least one of them is discussed (
however briefly), hopefully theyre mentioned, and minimally theyre
referenced. I didnt find any kind of refutation or questioning of the core
thesis in the text or in the notes. If Im guilty of this in my books, fine, Im a
hypocrite and Ill do better next time. But that said, my DA questions
included:
The book states MFAs are the new MBAs. What? Pages 54-56
discusses the rise of design in business, which is true and good. But if
MFAs are infiltrating the management ranks of GM, GE and McKinsey,
its to complement the L-Dominant people they have in abundance,
not to replace them. Im all for R-dominant people, but I doubt theyd
be great at doing corporate taxes, remotely managing 1000s of
employees (remotely in Asia), or the other dozens of core business
functions that will always be core business functions. Or put another
way How many R-Dominant people does a company really need?
(And footnote: he mentions the low acceptance rates in MFA programs
as an indicator of how hot MFAs are in the business world, but likely
makes the wrong conclusion. First, there are likely fewer MFA
programs than MBA programs, and the class size accepted are
generally much smaller, often 20-30 I bet this has always been true,
so its not a trend, and likely has more to do with how MFA programs
work than anything going on in the rest of the world.
The environment. Pages 74-86 explore the increasing value of
design, a point I agree with. But the emphasis here is heavy on
consumerism, not designing things better for the world. Pink writes
The forces of Abundance turn goods and services into commodities
so quickly that the only way to survive is by constantly developing new
innovations, inventing new categories, and giving the world
something it didnt know it was missing (pg. 81). Victor Papanek, one
of the fathers of Product design, would call this a horribly selfish
distortion of the power of design. How is it good for the planet, and
our grand-children, if our only solution to problems is to keep making
new stuff for people to buy, only to throw them away, despite their
perfectly good conditions, replaced by more stuff people really dont
need? How is this sustainable in any way? Not mentioned.
Are there tests or skills for helping a person have a balanced
mind? Is it possible for a person to not be L-Dominant nor R-
Dominant? I kept wondering if this binary kind of thinking is useful,
other than as a polemic. I mean, doesnt the book rely more on L-
Dominant thinking in most of its arguments? Sure, thats a side effect
of written language, but then doesnt anyone who works via e-mail, or
the web, face the same challenge? Namely, that R-dominant talents
are, almost by necessity of how modern communication happens,
filtered through L-dominant skills?
Do some cultures, perhaps in Europe, Africa or Asia, have more
balanced views of the mind (e.g. Yin/Yang)? The United States
has a poor view of art and architecture relative to Europe, if not other
parts of the world. So is this an American problem? If so, why did we
 become so L-Dominant when other cultures did not? One argument is
the Enlightenment of the 18th century sent Europe, and America, on a
logic dominant world view, with Descartess I think therefore I am
(ab)used to overstate the importance of rationality over other modes
of mind. Pink doesnt ask these questions or hint at their possible
significance (If these themes are embedded in our history, culture and
government, how do we remove/modify them?).
Most great works involve both L-Dominant and R-Dominant
thinking, and its the synthesizers we lack most. This is perhaps
the biggest problem with the book. No great painting, or sculpture or
software is made without a synthesis of many different kinds of
thinking. The thing we most lack are people who understand multiple
perspectives and can lead a diverse team of specializations through
the process of making something that seems whole and complete
despite the wide range of talents and people involved. We need more
people with diversity of mind, thats the thing most scarce today,
relative to history.