Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

Rise of the R-mode

As you may have felt from looking at the characteristics of L-mode and R-mode, we have a bit of cultural bias toward L-mode thinking and related activities, and we might tend to dismiss R-mode thinking as being the province of lesser mortals. R-mode seems like a quaint leftover, a vestigial appendage from some previous age when people believed the world was flat and thunder was the result of unseen gods at war.

And indeed, it was the strengths of L-mode that differentiated humankind from common beasts; it brought humanity out of the forests and jungles and into villages and towns, out of the fields and into the factories, finally to land behind a desk and a copy of Microsoft Word.

But although the analytical and verbal ...