Table Of ContentCONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Edward de Bono
Title Page
Foreword
1 Introduction
The need to give some positive help to evolution if we are to avoid a gloomy
future based on the increasing complexity of the world, and the inadequacy of
crisis management and drift. What happens when an organism evolves
characteristics that make further evolution impossible?
2 Mechanisms of Change
The nineteen methods of change on which we rely for the improvement of
society and why most of them have little constructive energy.
3 Thinking Habits
A look at our highly negative thinking style that is directly derived from the
medieval habit of theological debate with its emphasis on absolute ideas, the
adversary system and the destructive intelligence.
4 Organising Methods
The restrictions imposed on progress by our traditional habits of organising
people, ideas, change, risk and protest.
5 Logic-bubbles and Bubble-logic
Why there are no villains and why the collective stupidity of society arises
precisely from the focused application of high intelligence within a limited
bubble of perception – and the methods that society has used to overcome this
problem.
6 The Edge Effect
How the ultimate destination of Paradise City is much less important than the
very next step and why it may not be possible to travel North if you are never
very next step and why it may not be possible to travel North if you are never
prepared to turn South.
7 Provocation and Po
There may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said:
provocation is as important for creativity as analysis is for truth.
8 Concepts and Battle-cries
The need to appreciate how the most potent and resounding of battle-cries
may be quite ineffective as operating principles.
9 Positive Concepts
A listing of the priority concepts for the development of a positive future and
an understanding of the relationship between freedom and structure.
10 Mood
Jungles and nurseries and chemical changes in the brain and the cult of the
microscope.
11 Productive Wealth
The purpose of productive wealth is to produce time, services and goods and
to free yourself from having to do that.
12 Work and Employment
The suggestion of some broader concepts for work and employment and the
need to escape from our one-track approach.
13 Industry and Capital
The recent shift from the capitalist society to the managerial society and
various concepts including the trinity system and unowned capital.
14 The Economy and Trade
The limitations of the market economy and the planned economy add up to a
need for new concepts beyond the adjustment and correction of the older ones.
15 Politics and Government
How the advantages of democracy are all negative, and the development of
the cosmetic politics of inaction.
16 Law and Order
The removal of the notion of sin from crime and its segmentation as social
pollution.
pollution.
17 Education
Why a system that has become an end unto itself with satisfaction of its own
criteria of success may not be contributing enough to a positive future.
Summary
Index
Copyright
About the Book
Why are we more prone to be negative? And how can we become more positive,
both as individuals and as a society? We need to develop new concepts: some
brand new and some slightly different. We have to make a deliberate and
positive effort to secure a positive future; we must harness the focused power of
human thinking unleashed from its pettiness.
Since Future Positive was first published in 1979, our belief in the power of
positive thinking has only deepened.
De Bono was on to something in 1979: the future is positive – if we want it to
be.
About the Author
Edward de Bono studied at Christ Church, Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar). He
also holds a PhD from Cambridge and an MD from the University of Malta. He
has held appointments at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge and
Harvard.
In 1967 de Bono invented the now commonly used term ‘lateral thinking’ and,
for many thousands, indeed millions, of people worldwide, his name has since
become a symbol of creativity and new thinking. He has written numerous
books, which have been translated into 34 languages, and his advice is sought by
Nobel laureates and world leaders alike.
Other Titles by Vermilion:
The Six Value Medals
How to have a Beautiful Mind
How to have Creative Ideas
Think!
Six Frames
Serious Creativity
Lateral Thinking
The Mechanism of Mind
H + (Plus) A New Religion?
FOREWORD
This book was written in eight days in the summer of 1978 while I was staying
with Vera and Philip Le Cras at their delightful house in Jersey and I am most
grateful to them for providing the atmosphere that made it possible to write the
book in such a short time.
I mention this short time not as a boast nor as an excuse although I appreciate
it may very reasonably be construed as both. I mention it more as an explanation
and as an instruction to the reader to read through the book in the same manner
as it was written. Go through the book lightly stepping on each concept before
moving on to the next one. Do not expect each idea to carry the full weight of
solemn pounding. There may be times when you do wish to pause and to
examine in detail the implications of a particular concept. In that case you must
use your own thinking and do much more than just react to what I have set
down. You may see positive possibilities which have escaped me. That you may
see dangerous implications which I have not set down is very probable. But do
not let those pitfalls bring your exploration to an end.
It is said that one ought to visit a country for three days or for thirty years. In
three days you get a general impression and it may take thirty years to get a true
picture. In between you will get distortion as you pursue each aspect in detail. If
I had to spend thirty years writing this book it would still be too short a time to
do justice to the subject but the book would not be much better for it would be so
weighted down with qualifications and hesitations that the brashness of
provocation would be quite lost.
1
INTRODUCTION
There is much to be said for being realistically gloomy about the future and not
much to be said for being irresponsibly cheerful. If you are gloomy you are
unlikely to be proved wrong by history and you can also feel that you have done
a useful service by shocking society into mending its ways in order to avoid the
looming disaster. Yet I believe the future will be positive and even marvellous.
It is only fair to say that this positive view of the future is not supported by
present trends. A huge increase in crime threatens the fabric of society. Every
month one thousand Londoners are wounded in personal attacks with knives or
coshes or firearms. Every day 478 cars are stolen in London. Last year there was
a 23 per cent increase in violent crime. In Italy expremier Aldo Moro was
kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigade. Twenty-two German dentists drive
in their Mercedes cars to a Dentists’ Conference in Milan – eighteen of their cars
are stolen. On a world scale we continue to use up energy and material resources
at a fast rate with only a slight reduction in the rate of oil consumption following
the rise in its price. We are almost as careless about pollution as ever. Adding
copper to a pig’s feed increases the profit per bacon pig by £2.72 so farmers
resist the recommendation to reduce the amount of copper added to reduce the
risk of polluting the soil where the pig slurry is disposed of. The world
population will climb to 6.3 billion (from 4 billion today) by the end of the
century and to 8 billion by 2020. The World Bank estimates that there are 600
million people living today in absolute poverty. Even in progressive Brazil there
are said to be 30 million people with annual incomes of only $77. We seem set
to use nuclear fuel and its contamination hazards. Nuclear confrontation remains
a permanent threat.
It seems that bit by logical bit we have built up a Frankenstein monster which
has acquired a system-life of its own and is beyond our control. As with the
weather we can observe it and chart its progress but remain unable to alter it. We
can take temporary shelter from the storms and crises but we seem powerless to
prevent them.
Does there come a point at which power and complexity take over and the
world system hastens, out of control, to inevitable disaster? Certainly we have
the complexity. There was a time when government leaders were able to
understand the world they were supposed to govern. Then, as matters got more
complex, the leaders had to call on expert advisers but were still able to
