THE PROBLEM WITH THE HUMAN RACE

There’s no question that there’s something wrong with the human race. But what? Why so many fights, conflicts, wars, and poverty? Why so much competition, prejudice, hate, and fear? What’s gone wrong? Some think that it is inherent in human nature, that it’s genetics. They assume we are essentially animals so when we act like wild beasts, it is because society, civilization, morals, collaboration, love, etc. goes against our nature. I don’t believe that at all.

Maslow also did not believe that. Even though he started out as a Behaviorist and an atheist, he shifted and created a psychological model of the healthy and bright side of human nature. Along the way, he wrote extensively on the presence of ‘evil,’ its origin and source. His explanation? It arises from deficiency of basic needs; it arises from cognitive errors; it arises from failure of groups to move beyond the biological needs to the human needs. Maslow wrote, “The neurotic is not sick, he is cognitively wrong.” Bateson similarlyi wrote—the problem is “a defect in the ideational system” (1972, p. 194).

So what is the problem with the human race? Thinking. Ultimately, it goes to wrong thinking, distorted thinking, prejudicial thinking, childish thinking, primitive thinking, etc. And because everything human goes to the quality of thinking— things go right when people think clearly, precisely, and accurately. Things go right when people think critically and creatively. And things that go wrong can be made right by thinking about our thinking and quality controlling our thinking for accuracy and a search for the facts.

This is true at the individual level, the group level, the organizational level, and the national level. Where distorted thinking leads limiting beliefs, toxic prejudices, competitive win/lose decisions, ego-centric biases, etc. there human nature and human relationships go wrong. All this is actually good news. How is that? Because if the problem goes to being cognitively wrong, then the solution is to straighten out the thinking.

The solution is to learn to think—to truly think. I say truly think because there are many ways to think wrong and there are seven kinds of pseudo-thinking that we humans tend to opt for in an effort to avoid the work of thinking. What are those?

Reactionary thinking. Reacting out of fear and anger, guilt and shame, etc. Sympathetic nervous system thinking that focuses on threat, danger, stress, and/or overload thereafter leading to reactive fight/flight behaviors. Automatic thinking. The thinking that is now at the unconscious level of habit which saves us the effort of doing fresh thinking or staying conscious so we act without thinking. Borrowed thinking. The kind of thinking we all experienced in our first 20 years as we

learned what to think from others. The thinking we do as we accept the bullet points we hear from the media, parents, teachers, etc. It’s the thinking we do when we quote what we have not studied ourselves. Shallow thinking. This is the thinking we do when we engage in small talk, friendly chit- chat with friends, often to rest our brains, but sometimes to avoid delving into serious or difficult subjects. We flee from unpleasant truths, avoiding them, repressing them. Agenda thinking. When you have made up your mind and have an agenda that you are pushing, your so-called thinking is actually pseudo-thinking because you are not truly open to conflicting information. You have an outcome to reach, a point to make, an idea to sell, etc. Your agenda controls your thinking by closing down any information that conflicts with it. Certainty. When you are certain, when you are ‘sure,’ when you ‘know’ and are confident, your state of being ‘certain’ closes the subject and you cannot actually reconsider things. Other points of view are excluded from entering your mind. Expectation. This form of pseudo-thinking distorts the healthy thinking forms of anticipation, imagination, forecasting, guessing, etc. In expecting, you demand that your future predictions come true. They pseudo-thinking sets you up for disappointments.

Amazing, isn’t it? As a species we have invented seven kinds of pseudo-thinking patterns which allows us to avoid the most critical thing a human being does in surviving and thriving in life— think. Now we know how to upgrade the human experience. Now we know how to secure our future and create the kind of world that’s truly human and meaningful— upgrade every person’s thinking skills.

Change the thinking and communication changes, relationships change, performance changes, science improves, sanity spreads, people become effective, efficient, and productive, businesses thrive, enjoyment deepens, etc. Thinking is the key and thinking-about-your-thinking is the strategy.

Ready for Training? Get to one of the presentations of Thinking for Humans.