Positive Revolution

The positive revolution is a worldwide revolution promoted by Edward de Bono in his book, Handbook for the Positive Revolution (1991), also known as "the Yellow Book." It is the culmination of many of his approaches to the future, in particular his notion of "The Happiness Purpose". The common current way of solving problems and differences is through the use of opposing forces in conflict. This was the negative revolution. Force is applied to an enemy with a goal of overthrowing it by using overwhelming power in direct confrontation. This system requires two polarized "sides" which attack each other head-on.

The positive revolution is a new paradigm of the use of a variety of forces to go around the enemy and solve problems in new ways. The focus is not on vanquishing the enemy, but on building a better structure. The energy is directed toward construction rather than destruction.

What is the foundation of the positive revolution?

The positive revolution is built on three solid foundations:

• Principles
• Methods
• Power

Principles - design with direction rather than destruction
Methods - of change
Power - of perception, information and effectiveness rather than violence and destruction

What are the five principles of the positive revolution?

The symbol of the positive revolution is the open hand. The five principles can be mapped onto the fingers to help remember them.

• Effectiveness: making sure that what you intend to do gets done. Symbolized by the thumb, without which the hand is not effective.

• Constructiveness: ensuring that everything you do follows a positive direction. Symbolized by the index finger, the finger used to point a direction.

• Respect: treating others as human beings, with human rights and human dignity. A revolution by people is also for people, so respect is essential. As this is considered the most important principle of all, it's symbolized by the longest finger, the middle finger... contrary to popular usage.

• Self-Improvement: continuously increasing positive attitude, habits and skills while decreasing negative ones. Every individual has the right as well as the duty to make himself or herself better. This is symbolized by the ring finger, which is seldom most prominent in our actions, but is always there.

• Contribution: giving what you can toward bringing the positive revolution to pass. Symbolized by the little finger, meaning that even the smallest contribution is worthwhile, and will add up eventually.

What are the methods of the positive revolution?

As a painter uses a paintbrush to paint and a carpenter uses a saw to cut wood, a revolutionary needs tools to create revolution. The tools used in the positive revolution are many and include the following methods: Changing perceptions Creating new symbols Altering thinking methods Naming things Educating on positive methods in positive ways Creating organisations to facilitate action

Lateral thinking

The term Lateral Thinking was created by Edward De Bono in 1967.

• It is a way of thinking concerned with changing concepts ans perception. Meaning that we should not go for thing that already exist, but to change those things.
• It also teaches you that sometimes you would be better of changing parts of your life instead of trying over and over again with no further results.
• "The brain as a self-organising information system forms asymmetric patterns. In such systems there is a mathematical need for moving across patterns. The tools and processes of lateral thinking are designed to achieve such 'lateral' movement. The tools are based on an understanding of self-organising information systems". This is a technical definition which depends on an understanding of self-organising information systems.
• "In any self-organising system there is a need to escape from a local optimum in order to move towards a more global optimum. The techniques of lateral thinking, such as provocation, are designed to help that change". This is another technical definition. It is important because it also defines the mathematical need for creativity.

Lateral Thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas.

Definitions

sublime

• supreme or outstanding
• complete; absolute; utter
• the greatest or supreme degree

integration

• an act or instance of combining into an integral whole
• behavior, as of an individual, that is in harmony with the environment.

contradictory

• asserting the contrary or opposite; contradicting; inconsistent; logically opposite: contradictory statements.
• tending or inclined to contradict.

holism

• the theory that whole entities, as fundamental components of reality, have an existence other than as the mere sum of their parts

analogy

• a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based

perpetuate

• to prevent from extinction or oblivion

essence

• the core -what makes it what it is

circumvent

• to go around or bypass

nuance

• a subtle difference or distinction in expression, meaning, response, etc.

transcend

• to rise above or go beyond; overpass; exceed

surge

• a strong, wavelike, forward movement, rush, or sweep

behoove

• to be necessary or proper for, as for moral or ethical considerations; be incumbent on
• to be worthwhile to, as for personal profit or advantage

René Magritte

René Magritte's artist life

It was since 1898 that Rene Magritte was breathing. At an early age, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself and by being present during the time they were pulling her out of the river, the image of his mother floating, dress obscuring her face was particularly noticeable in his amant series. After his marriage to Georgette Berger, Magritte worked in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926 when a contract with Galerie la Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. He then, in 1926 produced his first surrealist painting, The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu) (on your right), and held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Surrealists are artists who explore the meanings of dreams or our unconscious mind. The main way surrealist artists created their work was to use the "Paranoiac Critical". This allowed them travel to an alternate place, and wander across their empty canvas. Those creations were very different from the typical artists. These paintings seemed strange to a large audience which resulted in very negative critics about the exhibition. Depressed by the failure, Rene moved to Paris and became involved in the surrealist group. Magritte did attempt to change his style, experimenting in the late 1940s. From 1945 to 1947 he turned to something similar to fauvism. His friends called the paintings "vache" which means "cowlike" or crude, so this became known as his "cow period". Magritte's paintings were comical, ironic of the French fauvist style. It is not surprising he wished to lighten his mood in the dark period after the Second World War.

Philosophical and artistic gestures

A accomplished technician, his art frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects, or an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things, not always understood by people surrounding him. The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe, This is not a pipe (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) (on your left), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. (In his book, This Is Not a Pipe, French critic Michel Foucault discusses the painting and its paradox.) Note that Magritte pulled the same "stunt" in a painting of an apple: he painted the fruit realistically and then used an "internal" caption or framing device to deny that the item was an apple. It might be true that Magritte's point in these Ceci n'est pas works is that no matter how closely, through realism-art, we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself. But that interpretation trivializes Magritte's insight -- for it is true of any painting, and every artist and child would admit it, that what the painting does is only present an image of a thing, and the thing itself is not on or in the canvas. It might be more plausible to interpret Magritte as commenting on Freudian psychoanalysis, a topic not very far removed from many of his surrealistic works. Sigmund Freud, especially in his dream analysis, continually asserted that what clearly and obviously seemed to be an X in a dream was not really an X, that it was an X only patently, on the surface, but not latently or deeply, that the X in the dream represented or was a metaphor for some other thing, Y. The dream-image train is really a penis, for example. So when Magritte says, "This is not a pipe," what he means is that it may be possible to think that it is only an image that stands for something else, that the phenomenal reality of the pipe obscures or hides the true reality lying underneath. It is also a way of making us try to understand something the artist wanted to make us see threw the realist object he painted, it is a way to make us think in a way. The difficult question, if we go this far, is whether Magritte intended to provide support for or to illustrate sympathetically Freudian dream analysis -- the treachery of dreams -- or, instead, was mocking it: "You mean this image, which is obviously a pipe-image, is not really a pipe-image? Tell me another!" His art shows a more representational style of surrealism compared to the "automatic" style seen in works by artists like Joan Miro addition to fantastic elements, his work is often witty and amusing. He also created a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings. Rene Magritte described his paintings by saying, "My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable".