39 pages • 1 hour read
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Six Senses”
Chapter 6 Summary: “Symphony”
Symphony is the faculty to combine separate entities into one whole. It relies on synthesizing rather than analyzing and requires the individual to “detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers” (130). The best way to understand and strengthen this aptitude is to draw.
Pink takes a drawing course to strengthen his Symphony sensibility, but he struggles. His instructor, Bomeisler, says that Pink’s challenge is that he doesn’t draw what he sees, but draws the learned symbols from his childhood. What Bomeisler means is that Pink is not drawing his lips, but a standardized symbol for lips that he remembers from his childhood. This process is from the left brain. The right brain, once free, can see and “integrate those relationships into a whole” (133). Seeing relationships is an essential component to mastering Symphony. Pink argues that there are three types of people who excel at this: the boundary crosser, the inventor, and the metaphor maker. Boundary crossers shine in vastly different spheres. Inventors combine separate things into one unified creation. Metaphor makers decipher and create meaning, enabling the understanding of themselves and the world they live in. The largest part of mastering Symphony is being able to see the big picture.
Pink, when he completes his self-portrait, finally sees the relationships he had to integrate in order to see himself. Pink proposes that readers listen to symphonies regularly, read magazines and papers that they don’t usually read, draw, and keep a record of interesting metaphors they encounter daily. He also suggests that readers start coming up with problems for their solutions (instead of the opposite) in order to think outside the box.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Empathy”
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what someone else is feeling or experiencing. It is not sympathy, which involves feeling for someone but not with them (159). During the Information Age, empathy was maligned as “a softhearted nicety in a world that demanded hardheaded detachment” (160). Now, empathy is one thing computers cannot mimic and is therefore more vital than ever.
Empathy is useful in deciphering facial expressions. In 1872, Darwin argued that all mammals have emotions that they convey through facial expressions. The assumption in the scientific world was that although faces conveyed emotions, they were “products of culture rather than nature” (162). This theory was disproved, however, in 1965 when a psychologist conducted a study by showing images to a remote tribe in New Guinea; they interpreted the emotions in the photographs in the exact same way as Manhattanites, proving that facial expressions—and empathy—are universal.
The need for Empathy is apparent in every field. In medicine, doctors who can intuit their patients’ feelings and symptoms save more lives than doctors who approach their work apathetically. Pink argues that nursing’s association with empathy is one reason the career is one of the “key professions” as we move into the Conceptual Age. Pink attributes this importance to their ability to deliver a service that cannot be outsourced and will always be needed. According to an annual Gallop survey, nursing is reviewed as the most “honest and ethical profession” in the United States (171), and its pay rate is consistently and quickly rising.
Although Pink advocates for androgynous minds, he recognizes that women are more often associated with empathy and more likely to recognize it within themselves. Male brains are more likely to “systematize” than to empathize. However, Pink is careful to make clear that not all men have male brains, and not all women have female brains. Instead, the associations society holds with L-Directed Thinking are often intertwined with understandings of traditional masculinity, and R-Directed Thinking is often inseparable from understandings of femininity. Pink does not intend to advocate for everyone embracing their “feminine side” but rather to begin understanding the mind as entirely androgynous in order to let go of right-brained misconceptions. To improve Empathy, Pink recommends taking online EQ quizzes, studying the work of Paul Ekman, keeping a notebook of overheard conversations, taking an acting class, and, especially, volunteering regularly.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Play”
Pink introduces Madan Kataria, a man who loves to laugh and is passionate about bringing joy to others. Kataria is a physician who believes that laughter is more infectious than any virus, so he left his practice and endeavored to become “the Typhoid Mary of laughter” by opening laughter clubs (186). His philosophy is contrary to that of American businesses; Henry Ford of Ford Motor Company explicitly condemned smiling and laughing in his factories because he feared doing so would slow production (187). Now, in the Conceptual Age, Play is beginning to be seen as an essential component of work because it allows humans to work better. Video games and their rising presence in workplace bonding exercises demonstrates this point: More and more employers turn to video games to facilitate teamwork and trust and to keep employees happy while on the job.
Humor is an essential component of Play. The right hemisphere processes and enjoys humor, but when it is damaged, the brain’s ability to understand humor is compromised. This is because humor typically is brought about through incongruities, which the right hemisphere is responsible for piecing together. Despite its reputation, humor is essential to understanding humanity. For example, Pink argues that humor is often indicative of one’s environment because it reveals relationships between people and the culture within which they operate. Most importantly, sophisticated humor cannot be replicated by computers.
Pink visits one of Kataria’s laughing clubs and is overwhelmed by the joy he feels within him and that surrounds him. The greatest lesson Pink takes away from Kataria is that joyfulness is not the same as happiness: “[h]appiness is conditional; joyfulness is unconditional” (202). Pink wants readers to find a laughter club to enhance their Play sensibility. He also suggests reinventing captions for cartoons, inventing fun objects, playing games of all sorts, and even going to a playground once in a while to engage childlike joy.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
Pink uses his process of learning to draw to symbolize the implementation of Symphony. Drawing is a singular function of the right brain; it not only requires the artist to process minute details into a big picture, but also requires the ability to detect patterns and to make broad imaginative leaps. Mastering Symphony, like mastering drawing, relies on the individual’s ability to quiet overly analytical functions of the left hemisphere and trust the intuitive abilities of the right. The most significant moment of Chapter 6 is Pink’s realization that his drawing abilities are imbedded with symbols he still recognizes from childhood.
This point demonstrates that the left hemisphere conditions the whole brain from a young age to interpret details on their own rather than as part of a whole; Pink cannot draw one element of his face while the left hemisphere blocks his ability to integrate the entirety of the image in front of him. It also demonstrates how early L-Directed Thinking is prioritized. Pink points out that, as early as childhood, individuals are taught to receive information from the analytical lens of the left hemisphere, and that this process often feels more natural because of how long they have been practicing it. Undoing deeply ingrained processes is deeply challenging, but Pink’s experience with drawing highlights that it can indeed be done, and will be rewarding.
Chapter 7 alludes to why empathy has been historically undervalued in the business world as it explicitly outlines why it is so valuable to the Conceptual Age. Particularly, empathy has been unrecognized as a skill because it is often thought of as difficult to measure. Pink begins to dismantle this idea through his two very different examples about the universal human capacity for empathy. First, by demonstrating that empathy is key in interpreting facial expressions and body language, Pink highlights that empathy is a key interpersonal skill that has been a part of human nature from the very beginning. The acceptance that this is universal and not a product of cultural relevance is the beginning of recognizing that empathy is universally useful in every domain of life. Second, Pink employs the trajectory of the medical field’s relationship to empathy to highlight that the aptitude is actually lifesaving; empathizing with patients rather than seeing them as just bodies to be assessed empowers doctors to trust their patients and distribute holistic treatment.
Additionally, as Pink explains that female brains are more easily wired to for empathy, he touches upon another reason empathy has historically been undervalued as a professional attribute: Being associated with reductive and binary understandings of femininity has caused empathy to be seen as a trait only useful within domestic and interpersonal realms. The world now, Pink argues, moves towards more androgynous thought processes, making way for empathy to be embraced within every single mind. Chapter 7 communicates that empathy has been generalized as intelligence’s opposite; a thought could be dismissed simply by being called “touchy-feely.” Pink’s examples prove that empathy is an integral part of intelligence because of its perceptive and high-touch associations.
Chapter 8’s encouragement for incorporating play into everyday routines is a call to embrace child-like R-Directed Thinking. The chapter’s exploration of the validity of play insinuates a key issue with the previous economic ages: Dominance of L-Directed Thinking, resulting in overwhelming pressure for individuals to be productive, has suppressed essential human needs for self-expression and exploration. For children, playing is the key avenue for achieving those needs, but as humans age, society suppresses those urges.
Aside from slowing productivity, attributes associated with Play—creativity, joy, and teamwork—might have threatened power dynamics within workplaces of the previous economic ages; employees are easier to control when their work is standardized and individualized. Now, employers recognize that production and services are in fact improved collaborative and pleasurable spaces; happy employees produce higher-quality work. In the age of abundance, quality outperforms quantity every time. Furthermore, employees are more likely to remain loyal to a company that incorporate Play into their ethos; playing—in all its forms—releases stress and allows employees to recharge, empowering them to perform better as they return to work. Overall, Chapter 8 offers a study of the power of Play while insinuating that the Industrial and Information ages resulted in oppressive work atmospheres that suppressed wonderment and joy.
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By Daniel H. Pink
