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Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff and this is Freedomblog. The theme for today is Thinking—The Engine of Freedom. For Freedom-Lovers and Freedom-Builders, this means we are free who believe we’re free and have the thinking skills to become free.

It is no random occurrence that the first use of the adjective “human” happened in America: human relating, human potential, human resource development, human capital development, human processing, human possibilities, human technology, human freedom. No other people of any other culture or nation in the history of the world has focused such a concentrated effort upon understanding the effects of human beings upon each other and their worlds.

R&D began in earnest with human relating. In the “ideal”, America conceived of itself as a “melting pot.” In “reality,” America was a “boiling cauldron” which required human relating if it was to work.

Extensive studies of hundreds of thousands of people discovered the basic principle of human relating: the core of dimensions accounting for most of the effectiveness in all human relating is interpersonal. When participants respond empathically and initiate operationally, they stand a 95 percent chance of being effective in any human endeavor.

When we respond empathically and initiate operationally, we facilitate thinking or reasoning:

Responding Exploring
Personalizing Understanding
Initiating Acting

In a very real sense, human relating was the parent of human reasoning. The power, however, is in the generative reasoning. People who reason generatively make “breakthroughs” in all areas of endeavor. For example, individuals who think generatively make “breakthroughs” in their career endeavors; nations that process generatively are “positioned” to influence the commercial marketplace.

Let us get a quick overview of the phases of generative human reasoning or thinking:

• Exploring where we are in our experience;
• Understanding where we want to be;
• Acting to get to where we want to be.

In short, when we explore, understand, and act for our own values, we are reasoning.

There are specific sets of skills involved in each of these phases of reasoning. Generativity means we create new and different ways of doing things. Basically, we expand our possibilities in order to narrow to probabilities which we then act upon.

Once again, the sad thing is that we have abandoned these principles of thinking. For example, by electing and appointing people who have been “fast-tracked” through a “Chain-of-Command System,” we have gone in the direction of the conditioned responding now popular in our corporations and our government, as well as our military.

Indeed, we prepare our children for the very jobs which the Multi-Nationals are out-sourcing to the Third World.

Alas, even our schools are retrogressing. Labeled “No Child Left Behind”, this legislation has ensured that every child in need will be left behind indeed.

There is no retreating from standards of processing for our leaders as well as ourselves. Toward this end, we are going to attach Freedom Scores to candidates over the next election. Hopefully, some will drop out and make our job easier.

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People… are as free as we think!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”