A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

This principal theme of the text is the purpose of Pink’s undertaking and permeates every chapter. As Pink argues for the importance of the right hemisphere, he is constantly working to undo generations of stigma assigned to emotionally driven aptitudes. These skills, generally, are involved with empathy, artistic ability, and “soft” sciences. They have been assigned to right-brained dominant individuals and most often reduced to overgeneralizations and misunderstandings. Pink’s book demonstrates that society has come to value one way of thinking over the other, resulting in a decline in necessary right-brained skills. The text implies that society’s favoring of left-brained individuals—those who become lawyers, doctors, and accountants—originated from the demand for knowledge and skilled workers necessitated by the Information Age. During this economic period, creatives and empaths were marginalized and undervalued because their skills did not conform to standardized production and an apathetic work environment. 

Emotionally driven skills are about intuition, vision, and feeling. They are essentially high concept and high touch. Within the business world, empathy has “often [been] considered a softhearted nicety in a world that demanded hardheaded detachment” (160). To dismiss a person and their thoughts, one only need to utter that their sentiment is “touchy-feely.” The argument that society’s treatment of right-brained skills has perpetuated left-brain dominance and, therefore, made L-Directed Thinking obsolete through abundance is apparent within Pink’s thesis for the text.

R-Directed Thinking has always been necessary, but society is just now moving to embrace it because there is a gap in the workforce that only creative and empaths can fill. This is the great irony of Pink’s argument; it is apparent, though, and underlines the demand for not just R-Directed Thinking, but whole-minded thinking. Pink’s detailed explanation of the reasons for and the repercussions of societal left-brained dominance implies that overcompensating—just replacing left-brained dominance with right-brained dominance—will extend the problem. The text does not advocate for the devaluation of emotionless skills but for society to progress towards welcoming balanced, whole-minded aptitudes. 

The six senses are all emotionally driven or emotionally associated skills. Each sense’s respective chapter demonstrates the origin of its stigma and explains why mastering it will lead to prosperity. These aptitudes are becoming integral to success precisely because they were neglected in the previous economic ages. Their dismissal stemmed from a universal belief that they didn’t contribute to productivity or could not be exploited for monetary gain and thus were worthless. To address this belief, Pink takes a neoliberal approach: Rather than arguing that skills that cannot be monetized are equally valid, he assures readers that emotionally impactful skills can indeed be capitalized upon in the business world. This theme demonstrates that the devaluation of emotionally driven skills is a symptom of a highly competitive market that favored productivity, abundance, and a stoic approach to business. Now, as the products and services borne of the old business approaches becomes plentiful and individuals begin seeking professional and personal fulfillment simultaneously, creativity, empathy, and intuition are assigned value.