CONVERSATION WITH A PUBLISHER – THE FISHER PARADIGM©™®

CONVERSATION WITH A PUBLISHER – THE FISHER PARADIGM©™®

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© March 19, 2010

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REFERENCE:

A publisher has shown some interest in one of my manuscripts, but feels THE FISHER PARADIGM©™® detracts rather than enhances my message. Also, it is not seen as sufficient to stand alone as a publication. That said I woke up in the middle of the night and submitted what follows.

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My reason for mentioning THE FISHER PARADIGM was only because the examples are demonstration of right brain or intuitive thinking, which complements conventional critical thinking and is instrumental to creative thinking.

Alexander the Great is alleged to have solved the mystery of the Gordian knot by slicing it apart with a sword. Plutarch disputes that saying he pulled it out of its pole pin. In either case, whatever is true, Alexander the Great wasn't confined to conventional thinking. He acted outside the box. Edward de Bono would say he embraced lateral thinking.

FDR came into office after the Great Depression had been raging for going on four years. More than 25 percent of American workers were unemployed. President Hoover was log jammed as he attempted to break the Gordian knot of the depression with the same thinking that caused it -- unregulated speculation and unbridled commerce without government intervention.

Ideology took precedence over the demands of reality. Matters only got worse.

If you study history, you will see that FDR had no idea what to do but knew he had to do something. The cognitive Gordian knot was not being undone. FDR launched a program of acronyms (WPA, NRA, CCC), many were of only marginal success, but were breakthroughs nonetheless because it changed the psychological dynamic of the nation. Double-digit unemployment mocked his efforts right up to the Second World War, but people were working again!

Scientists and economists, schooled in cognitive thinking, have been writing for some time now that exclusive dependence on left-brain thinking has become a weakness of Western problem solving and a crippling impediment to progress.

If Congress had gotten past the impasse of cognitive or left brain thinking -- worrying about getting reelected or playing with voodoo economics of costs -- healthcare would have been passed long ago. Everyone or nearly everyone seems confounded by the Gordian knot of media.

The Western Ship-of-State is taking on water if not sinking, and what are we doing? We are obsessed with bailing out the water rather than fixing the leak.

You have to go no further than look at the current impasse in Congress to see the limits of critical thinking. Congress, whether on the right or left side of the aisle, is paralyzed with brain freeze inertia.

THE FISHER PARADIGM is but a gauge to look past critical thinking to the possibilities of creative thinking. It introduces the bicameral mind's left lobe to its right lobe, and attempts to get the two sides working together towards the same end.

Women have been using both sides of their brains for years, but, alas, few women are in power positions, and those that are often feel compelled to think like men, which neutralizes their power and contribution.

The three spheres of influence of THE FISHER PARADIGM -- personality, geography and demographics -- clash and burn when limited to critical thinking, but clash and produce insight when acknowledged and used in creative thinking. Several illustrations in THE FISHER PARADIGM attempt to show this from an empirical perspective.

Freud introduced the idea of quid pro quo, something gained for something given. It was an idea that resonated with the Western mind, especially the American mind that could see relations as transactions. Others followed to get beyond critical thinking into the maze of creative engagement.

Eric Berne's wrote "The Games People Play," using transactional analysis to get psychiatry out the funk of attempting to solve irrational problems with pure rationality.

R. D. Laing did the same, even going to the point of sitting down naked with a naked patient to talk to him.

Thomas Szasz went so far as to write "The Myth of Mental Illness." Each was attempting to break through the wall of conventional thinking to make empathetic connection with people as persons.

Berne's provided a psychological skeletal structure to get people to look at their problems in other than two-dimensional terms, bringing into the language the power of "warm fuzzies." Such books followed his as, "I'm OK You're OK" by Thomas Harris. This resonated with a wider audience that could see itself in his schematics.

Each of them put hooks into the song we all sing with little lyrical variation. Whatever your regard for their effectiveness, they got people thinking differently on purpose.

I am an idea guy, who has had many careers by not following convention and not thinking as I was programmed to think. My attempt is to share, not with scholars, but with ordinary workingmen and women alternatives to their difficulties beyond the limits of Socratic thinking.

Packaged right, promoted effectively, and targeted to the right audience people could benefit.

I accept your call that THE FISHER PARADIGM is not sufficient to stand-alone. My reason for sending it was for you to see what it contained, and whether or not it could be integrated into the narrative to possibly enhance it. If not, then I agree it should be tabled.

I've been writing continuously since 1990 and have learned one thing if nothing else, and that is writing is the easiest part of the publishing process.

Be always well,

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.