He takes to task our widely practiced thought-pattern: the sort of "good guy/bad guy" cartoon caricature of events and processes, which in reality are multidimensional - involving a multitude of forces and recursive loops.
Yet, as Morin points out, whenever this kind of oversimplification occurs, another vicious cycle is set in motion, for, "the more problems become multidimensional, the less chance there is to grasp their multidimensionality... Incapable of seeing the planetary context in all its complexity, blind intelligence fosters unconsciousness and irresponsibility. It has become the bearer of death."
Morin describes what he calls "disjunctive (either/or) thinking" as - a myopic kind of intelligence that "nips in the bud all opportunities for comprehension and reflection, eliminating at the same time all chances of corrective judgment or a long- term view."
Morin's blunt description of this compartmentalized, linear mindset as: "... mutilated thinking that considers itself expert and blind intelligence that considers itself rational."
Speaking of humanity's desperate need for "a reform in thinking," Morin describes the all-too-common "black/white," "right/wrong," "either/or" approach to solving problems as a mode of thought that is "simplistic in the extreme, which underlies so many dialogues, [leading] inevitably to dead-ends... [This occurs in part because it is] blind to inter-retro-actions and circular causality."
Instead, we need a type of thinking that tries to discern interdependencies - a radical thinking (which gets to the root of problems), a multidimensional thinking, and an organizational or systemic thinking.
Morin argues that, whether we realize it or not, problems are spatially and temporally interdependent; therefore, only a complex kind of thinking (which he also describes as "holographic," "recursive," and "dialogic") can deal with the "inseparability of problems... in which each depends on the other." Such a reform in thinking, Morin summarizes, implies a mental revolution "of considerably greater proportions than the Copernican revolution."
Implications
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