Sir Kenneth Robinson an advisor to the queen of England in a Ted talk
presentation asserted that the education system kills creativity. By
education system he meant the British education system of which he is a
major contributor. He is a known expert on the subject of creativity and
has published several papers and books on the subject.
If he had this to say about the almighty education o f the British system, it may be time to start worrying about our very own most under resourced research-deficient system. However if the British system has produced the likes of John Lock, David Hume and Berkeley who we should add are of the philosophy stock then it can be understood that the few who could think above the crowd have been responsible for the GREAT British empire and its many achievement. Indeed thinkers are in their own way the backbone of any civilization as we have seen in Greece, Rome and today’s empires.
With lots of economic theories flying around, the continent of Africa has seen a lot of experimentation especially by adventurers. The economic experts provide all kinds of theories and prescriptions which in our 50 odd years have not proved to be the solution to our underdevelopment and poverty. In fact it is very difficult to understand why we continue to prescribe economic solutions to something that is clearly a mind problem.
Perhaps this is why I have found a reason to part company with Africa’s favorite American President as he proposed that Africa does not need strong men but strong institutions. Well for your information Mr. President an institutions is only is as good as the people who run them and the larger system they exist in- the thought structure.
Negative minds therefore cannot but turn an institution designed to work for the people against the people. In this part of the world, that is something we see on a daily basis. Ask any Ghanaian what he or she thinks about the judiciary and pay close attention to how they associate it with corruption. Indeed the CIA’s report on Ghana appears to acknowledge this fact while we are sitting on radio trying to execute those who point us to this devastatingly numbing fact.
I secretly sneaked into Malsow’s personal lab and conducted a little experiment on my own- planting Ghana as a nation on his famous hierarchy of needs pyramid. What I saw was not very good. It appears we are at the bottom of the pyramid as we are still function by our physiological needs. Now for those who do not understand, this is not a good thing because according to the theory people at that level only care about eating, drinking, excretion and that likes of it. In case you still do not get the point, it also means that we will do anything for money even if it is dishounrable- maybe that sounds familiar but I am sure you are one of those who have wondered why there is so much corruption and nothing works. Well this is expected; those on this level have no regard for honour and the glorious package it comes with it. In fact it explains why a typical Ghanaian or Nigerian woman will make a comment like, “what does he want me to do with flowers: we want money you say flowers”. Aesthetics? For the where?
You see according to Maslow human needs change for the better as the lower needs are met. I do not feel it is my responsibility to explain the whole theory to you: perhaps you should Google it. In effect we are not far from our animal cousins who may eat continuously and indiscriminately without regard to etiquette and self control. What Maslow calls self actualization is the ultimate need which is where selflessness and honour and similar behaviors are prominent. It appears we are light years away from there as a nation.
It is important to understand that nations have a mind of their own and it is the dominant thinking of the individuals that crystallizes into the psyche of a nation- the structure of thinking. We must by that begin to understand that the leadership we complain about are products of a system and that if you take the average Ghanaian and plant him or her into a leadership position, they are very likely to steal money- period. It is the very structure of our thought system.
So with a stroke of a reductionist brush I have managed to take the blame away from our politicians/leaders who evidently have no interest in the progress of this country but to fill their pocket with dosh- nothing new there.
Having done away with our politicians, I dare propose that the way to solve this problem is not to throw money at economic projects. It is a mind problem and must be solved in the mind. That is where Obama and I lost each other. It has always taken one man… erm woman too; to cause change and in our case we need a major shift in structure. I am not talking about upgrading a system here; I am talking about replacing the whole chasis. A new fundamental architecture is needed and it must not be another framework. It has to be a platform that can be expanded by further reasoning as times change. To do this it has to start with one man.. erm woman too; who is “strong” enough to fight the great principalities that will oppose him/her- nothing new there either.
In the history of this continent only one man have presented a “framework” (as he called it) that sought to cause a change in the structure of thinking- I am referring to Nkrumah’s Philosophical Consciensism (something I am slowly becoming obsessed with). To say I was fascinated when I came across it will be an understatement. I had never heard anybody say anything about it in the media- not even the Nkrumahist. I know I have not been around that long but it seems the feeling of the sixties was more positive than today. There was a great change going on and people thought more positively about what they can do for their nation and not what their nation can do for them. It seemed theory was working and the evidence was in the atmosphere.
In the introduction of consciensism Nkrumah gave what I might call a brief romp through philosophy referring to the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Kant etc as titans and also made mention of his ten years of study in America and how he came to be there instead of England which would have been the natural course for a colonial subject- this in my opinion was the presage of what was coming, the young Nkrumah even at that point had a need to depart form the norm- he was functioning on a structure that was different from most people though this structure was still at a seed stage. It will take ten years in a place like America to mature it (which in itself is a significant point to be explored).
Nkrumah referred to the western philosophers mentioned earlier as the University philosophers and said this about them
“…were expounded in such a way that students from a colony could easily find his breast agitated by conflicting attitudes. These attitudes can have effects which spread out over a whole society, should such a student finally pursue a political life.(Ha! Leadership eh)
The colonial student does not by origin belong to the intellectual history in which the university philosophers are such impressive landmarks. The colonial student can be so seduced by these attempts to give a philosophical account of the universe, that he surrenders his whole personality to them. When he does this he, looses sight of the fundamental social fact that he is a colonial subject.”
I should quickly point out that there is a difference between a colonial subject and neo-colonial subject. But I do not want to digress. Let us continue with Nkrumah….
“In this way, he omits to draw from his education and from the concern displayed by the great philosophers for human problems, anything which he might relate to the very real problems of colonial domination, which as it happens conditions the immediate life of every colonized African”
Ok to reproduce the whole book here will amount to a crime so I will encourage you to find the book and read it at least five times over. Essentially it paints a decent enough picture of the point I am about to make in the next few lines. Please feel free to look beyond my need to quote Nkrumah every chance I get and pay attention to the substance of what I am trying so hard to say with my rather limited vocabulary:
It appears that there is a structure to thinking as I pointed out earlier and where there is structure there is likely to be content. The structure determines the direction and shape of the content. So that whiles a person may get an education in biochemistry, or physics or even rocket science, it is this structure that determines what he does with this education. Therefore a negative structure will render a perfectly positive education which was intended to improve society; negative- i.e. turns it against society.
Many have asked questions about how it is possible that we have had some many Africans educated in the best universities around the world and in fact many of our people do demonstrate tremendous intellectual power in these world class institutions yet their education have not translated into an improvement of our lot as Africans.
I propose that their education being the content no matter how excellent it is, must necessarily be contained in a structure. Something that doesn’t seem to change much in many of us even after years of learning and even lecturing in the best universities around the world. The structure gets its character from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy. When a person is driven by the need to eat, he thinks everything his got must be directed at that need. Hence the need to get an education (which I must point out has become a way to belong; and a way to get into a position) is driven by the need to accumulate wealth(arguably a physiological need). So that the position that comes with being highly educated only puts a person in the position to accumulate wealth. Therefore all the years of training in ethics and all the noble subjects is only as useful as the structure in which it dwells.
It is this structure that Nkrumah seemed to have broken very early in his life and a transformation of this structure is what he sought to execute with his philosophical consciensism. In fairness there are a few others even of our time who seem to have broken this structure and trying against all odds to cause change whiles the greater forces instead of protecting these few who hold society together try to eliminate ethem. They do not seem to understand that our very existence depends to a large extent on the minority positive forces as it has been proven by empiricist like Richard Dawkins that altruism is the best means by which specie can survive and continue to thrive and that defect will see us eliminate ourselves from the face of the earth. (This is a fundamental question of failure and success on the micro level but I shall save that for my Plus Thinking® class lecture)
It is the same structure which I also seek (arrogant as it may seem) to replace when I created ultra-thought and its babies, Plus thinking® and ultra-Performance®. It is also the reason why when some say that Nkrumahism is dead, I find it very worrying- for we needed to complete the process of transforming the mental structure initiated by Nkrumah before we completely take on democracy (which as I pointed out earlier will be only as useful as the people who run it) in its entirety. What we have now is a mere imitation that leaves gapping holes for both internal and external exploitation. It must be seen that a corrupt democracy is easier to “rape” than an iron clad communism. On that front I will caution you on how you argue against socialism or communism for we have seen that the concept of freedom can be very fluid indeed. Man’s monumental progress, by the press of one bottom can be wiped away if freedom was allowed to stray too far. We will indeed become animals again if we did not have rules that guide our behavior.
It must be noted that the dramatic turn around story of the eastern tigers began with a formulation of a thought system- A structure. Notable among these was Mao and his communist ideals for China. It seems to me that when people have not learnt how to live for each other the concept of free-will may be a dangerous device to entrust to their undeveloped minds. That; perhaps democracy is only as good as the people who run it. That; Plato may indeed be right in proposing the idea of the Philosopher king.
Nevertheless; the performance of any entity can only reach its peak when all assets and resources are united in purpose and working for the system and not against it. It is the idea behind Marcus Garvey’s one God, One aim, one destiny. Uniting the forces in thought structure is how you minimize leakages and neutralize negative forces at least for a while until such a time when the new idea has be become the dominant thought. Rebels are nor always right though they may be necessary to test the validity of the system they fight against!
If indeed we sought to create a structure with freedom and justice, it seems to me that it has not worked. There is hardly any justice in this country and freedom is available for a chosen few. But perhaps the introduction of “integrity” may form a geometrical structure in which we might be able to squeeze all our content: for the two dimensions of freedom and justice appears not to have the capability to hold our content.
Feel free to disagree with me and even call me confused. Some have done that and still walk free... lol. This is not the end of this matter as I shall explore the concept of adding integrity to freedom and justice in my work GH3.0 . There are more demons that haunt us than you might be aware of.
If he had this to say about the almighty education o f the British system, it may be time to start worrying about our very own most under resourced research-deficient system. However if the British system has produced the likes of John Lock, David Hume and Berkeley who we should add are of the philosophy stock then it can be understood that the few who could think above the crowd have been responsible for the GREAT British empire and its many achievement. Indeed thinkers are in their own way the backbone of any civilization as we have seen in Greece, Rome and today’s empires.
With lots of economic theories flying around, the continent of Africa has seen a lot of experimentation especially by adventurers. The economic experts provide all kinds of theories and prescriptions which in our 50 odd years have not proved to be the solution to our underdevelopment and poverty. In fact it is very difficult to understand why we continue to prescribe economic solutions to something that is clearly a mind problem.
Perhaps this is why I have found a reason to part company with Africa’s favorite American President as he proposed that Africa does not need strong men but strong institutions. Well for your information Mr. President an institutions is only is as good as the people who run them and the larger system they exist in- the thought structure.
Negative minds therefore cannot but turn an institution designed to work for the people against the people. In this part of the world, that is something we see on a daily basis. Ask any Ghanaian what he or she thinks about the judiciary and pay close attention to how they associate it with corruption. Indeed the CIA’s report on Ghana appears to acknowledge this fact while we are sitting on radio trying to execute those who point us to this devastatingly numbing fact.
I secretly sneaked into Malsow’s personal lab and conducted a little experiment on my own- planting Ghana as a nation on his famous hierarchy of needs pyramid. What I saw was not very good. It appears we are at the bottom of the pyramid as we are still function by our physiological needs. Now for those who do not understand, this is not a good thing because according to the theory people at that level only care about eating, drinking, excretion and that likes of it. In case you still do not get the point, it also means that we will do anything for money even if it is dishounrable- maybe that sounds familiar but I am sure you are one of those who have wondered why there is so much corruption and nothing works. Well this is expected; those on this level have no regard for honour and the glorious package it comes with it. In fact it explains why a typical Ghanaian or Nigerian woman will make a comment like, “what does he want me to do with flowers: we want money you say flowers”. Aesthetics? For the where?
You see according to Maslow human needs change for the better as the lower needs are met. I do not feel it is my responsibility to explain the whole theory to you: perhaps you should Google it. In effect we are not far from our animal cousins who may eat continuously and indiscriminately without regard to etiquette and self control. What Maslow calls self actualization is the ultimate need which is where selflessness and honour and similar behaviors are prominent. It appears we are light years away from there as a nation.
It is important to understand that nations have a mind of their own and it is the dominant thinking of the individuals that crystallizes into the psyche of a nation- the structure of thinking. We must by that begin to understand that the leadership we complain about are products of a system and that if you take the average Ghanaian and plant him or her into a leadership position, they are very likely to steal money- period. It is the very structure of our thought system.
So with a stroke of a reductionist brush I have managed to take the blame away from our politicians/leaders who evidently have no interest in the progress of this country but to fill their pocket with dosh- nothing new there.
Having done away with our politicians, I dare propose that the way to solve this problem is not to throw money at economic projects. It is a mind problem and must be solved in the mind. That is where Obama and I lost each other. It has always taken one man… erm woman too; to cause change and in our case we need a major shift in structure. I am not talking about upgrading a system here; I am talking about replacing the whole chasis. A new fundamental architecture is needed and it must not be another framework. It has to be a platform that can be expanded by further reasoning as times change. To do this it has to start with one man.. erm woman too; who is “strong” enough to fight the great principalities that will oppose him/her- nothing new there either.
In the history of this continent only one man have presented a “framework” (as he called it) that sought to cause a change in the structure of thinking- I am referring to Nkrumah’s Philosophical Consciensism (something I am slowly becoming obsessed with). To say I was fascinated when I came across it will be an understatement. I had never heard anybody say anything about it in the media- not even the Nkrumahist. I know I have not been around that long but it seems the feeling of the sixties was more positive than today. There was a great change going on and people thought more positively about what they can do for their nation and not what their nation can do for them. It seemed theory was working and the evidence was in the atmosphere.
In the introduction of consciensism Nkrumah gave what I might call a brief romp through philosophy referring to the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Kant etc as titans and also made mention of his ten years of study in America and how he came to be there instead of England which would have been the natural course for a colonial subject- this in my opinion was the presage of what was coming, the young Nkrumah even at that point had a need to depart form the norm- he was functioning on a structure that was different from most people though this structure was still at a seed stage. It will take ten years in a place like America to mature it (which in itself is a significant point to be explored).
Nkrumah referred to the western philosophers mentioned earlier as the University philosophers and said this about them
“…were expounded in such a way that students from a colony could easily find his breast agitated by conflicting attitudes. These attitudes can have effects which spread out over a whole society, should such a student finally pursue a political life.(Ha! Leadership eh)
The colonial student does not by origin belong to the intellectual history in which the university philosophers are such impressive landmarks. The colonial student can be so seduced by these attempts to give a philosophical account of the universe, that he surrenders his whole personality to them. When he does this he, looses sight of the fundamental social fact that he is a colonial subject.”
I should quickly point out that there is a difference between a colonial subject and neo-colonial subject. But I do not want to digress. Let us continue with Nkrumah….
“In this way, he omits to draw from his education and from the concern displayed by the great philosophers for human problems, anything which he might relate to the very real problems of colonial domination, which as it happens conditions the immediate life of every colonized African”
Ok to reproduce the whole book here will amount to a crime so I will encourage you to find the book and read it at least five times over. Essentially it paints a decent enough picture of the point I am about to make in the next few lines. Please feel free to look beyond my need to quote Nkrumah every chance I get and pay attention to the substance of what I am trying so hard to say with my rather limited vocabulary:
It appears that there is a structure to thinking as I pointed out earlier and where there is structure there is likely to be content. The structure determines the direction and shape of the content. So that whiles a person may get an education in biochemistry, or physics or even rocket science, it is this structure that determines what he does with this education. Therefore a negative structure will render a perfectly positive education which was intended to improve society; negative- i.e. turns it against society.
Many have asked questions about how it is possible that we have had some many Africans educated in the best universities around the world and in fact many of our people do demonstrate tremendous intellectual power in these world class institutions yet their education have not translated into an improvement of our lot as Africans.
I propose that their education being the content no matter how excellent it is, must necessarily be contained in a structure. Something that doesn’t seem to change much in many of us even after years of learning and even lecturing in the best universities around the world. The structure gets its character from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy. When a person is driven by the need to eat, he thinks everything his got must be directed at that need. Hence the need to get an education (which I must point out has become a way to belong; and a way to get into a position) is driven by the need to accumulate wealth(arguably a physiological need). So that the position that comes with being highly educated only puts a person in the position to accumulate wealth. Therefore all the years of training in ethics and all the noble subjects is only as useful as the structure in which it dwells.
It is this structure that Nkrumah seemed to have broken very early in his life and a transformation of this structure is what he sought to execute with his philosophical consciensism. In fairness there are a few others even of our time who seem to have broken this structure and trying against all odds to cause change whiles the greater forces instead of protecting these few who hold society together try to eliminate ethem. They do not seem to understand that our very existence depends to a large extent on the minority positive forces as it has been proven by empiricist like Richard Dawkins that altruism is the best means by which specie can survive and continue to thrive and that defect will see us eliminate ourselves from the face of the earth. (This is a fundamental question of failure and success on the micro level but I shall save that for my Plus Thinking® class lecture)
It is the same structure which I also seek (arrogant as it may seem) to replace when I created ultra-thought and its babies, Plus thinking® and ultra-Performance®. It is also the reason why when some say that Nkrumahism is dead, I find it very worrying- for we needed to complete the process of transforming the mental structure initiated by Nkrumah before we completely take on democracy (which as I pointed out earlier will be only as useful as the people who run it) in its entirety. What we have now is a mere imitation that leaves gapping holes for both internal and external exploitation. It must be seen that a corrupt democracy is easier to “rape” than an iron clad communism. On that front I will caution you on how you argue against socialism or communism for we have seen that the concept of freedom can be very fluid indeed. Man’s monumental progress, by the press of one bottom can be wiped away if freedom was allowed to stray too far. We will indeed become animals again if we did not have rules that guide our behavior.
It must be noted that the dramatic turn around story of the eastern tigers began with a formulation of a thought system- A structure. Notable among these was Mao and his communist ideals for China. It seems to me that when people have not learnt how to live for each other the concept of free-will may be a dangerous device to entrust to their undeveloped minds. That; perhaps democracy is only as good as the people who run it. That; Plato may indeed be right in proposing the idea of the Philosopher king.
Nevertheless; the performance of any entity can only reach its peak when all assets and resources are united in purpose and working for the system and not against it. It is the idea behind Marcus Garvey’s one God, One aim, one destiny. Uniting the forces in thought structure is how you minimize leakages and neutralize negative forces at least for a while until such a time when the new idea has be become the dominant thought. Rebels are nor always right though they may be necessary to test the validity of the system they fight against!
If indeed we sought to create a structure with freedom and justice, it seems to me that it has not worked. There is hardly any justice in this country and freedom is available for a chosen few. But perhaps the introduction of “integrity” may form a geometrical structure in which we might be able to squeeze all our content: for the two dimensions of freedom and justice appears not to have the capability to hold our content.
Feel free to disagree with me and even call me confused. Some have done that and still walk free... lol. This is not the end of this matter as I shall explore the concept of adding integrity to freedom and justice in my work GH3.0 . There are more demons that haunt us than you might be aware of.
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