In A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Daniel H. Pink describes the four major historical ages: agricultural age (farmers), industrial age (factory workers), information age (knowledge workers), and conceptual age (creators and empathizers).
Pink suggests that while left-brainers ruled the first three ages, right-brainers will rule the upcoming conceptual age. I tend to agree with him.
Consequently, it’s critical that parents and educators focus on helping the next generation develop their creative imagination. Those who cannot “think outside the box” in the future will not have the same job security as those who can.
I don’t know about this one. I suppose it depends on how dilligent these right brainers are in cultivating their logical/scientific/math skills. I’m sure right-brainers will excel, as they always have, at designing the front ends of things – the art, the cases, the presentation, ect. But without the logical/scientific/math skills, how are they going to produce the functional back-end of any of this new technology?
How exactly are we going to move beyond industrial age concerns without ubiquitous automation and machine design removing that whole level of maslow’s heirarchy from most people’s scope of concern? How are you going to do that without at least some people, probably a lot of people, understanding the brass-tacks world of science and engineering?