The most simple image to produce for early photographers was in tones of sepia. As techniques improved, colour photography took over. The same transition occurred with television. In each example the process was from simple, to complex.

The same can happen to the way we think. As children we are introduced to ideas and skills starting simply. As adults we have the opportunity to develop our thinking skills.

So if you were outraged about my previous blog concerning the difference between artists and art technicians, I will admit to being tongue in cheek – deliberately to introduce this subject.

The point I was making was not that there is no art to playing the piano or any other technique of an artist. Clearly there is. The debate is around how much art.

It was Albert Einstein who said that science is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration. I expect he would agree that artists have to perspire to produce too. The question is again, how much?

If I were to give an opinion, I would say that artistic technicians vary in the art content of their performances between ten and one percent. My view of the artist is that they put in between fifty and ninety percent art. The remainder is the technique of the artist, varying conversely.

The point I am trying to illustrate is that decisions are rarely yes or no; that is polarised between two opposites. Each yes contains a no and each no contains a yes.

Consider a court of law. There the only possible outcome is a polarised decision, guilty or not guilty. And yet, it might be that the victim bears a little of the guilt, albeit a fraction of the guilty party. If this is believed then why should not both parties be punished in proportion to their share of the guilt.

I once witnessed a road collision. I had a good clear view from a distance from start to finish. Both drivers pulled into a car park and I joined them to leave my details as a witness. In my view both parties had broken the Highway Code and their driving had fallen below an acceptable standard – known as driving without due care. The day came when the court was due to hear the case. I waited outside to be called. After a while both drivers appeared with their solicitors. The one who had been least careless had been let off and the other fined. I wasn’t even called in as a witness. But I did notice the look of exasperation on the face of the driver found ‘guilty’. He couldn’t understand how the other driver, who had also been careless was being treated as the innocent complainant. I didn’t speak to him but I sympathised with his frustration.

Because of the need for a decision in a court to be polarised, the court could not find both parties guilty.

Part of the problem is vocabulary. In English we use numerous terms that express opposites – black / white – hot cold – yes / no.

Apply the first couplet to this argument in terms of race. Negroes are not black – they are different shades of brown. Caucasians and not white – they are different shades of pink. Regrettably there are no words for these shades other than exaggerations, from which prejudice can develop. In Apartheid South Africa under Prime Minister Ian Smith, Chinese people were black and Japanese white! That proved a problem for bus conductors on the ‘white only’ buses.

Is a bath hot or cold? A mother will test the temperature with her elbow before placing a baby in a bath. Somewhere between hot and cold is the correct temperature, but alas it has no name.

The sparsity of language blinkers our ability to discriminate the finer points of anything. Most of us are familiar with the ability of Inuit people to describe snow in forty different words. This is because they need to know the difference as it will affect how they travel, hunt, predict weather, what to wear etc.

So when language lets us down we have to create in our minds the space between the meanings of words. If we do not then decision making becomes over-simplified. We start to ignore complexity in favour of ‘keeping it simple’.

Beware the effects of ‘dumbing down’. In our present society, politicians, entertainers, journalists have to be wary how they communicate with the population. Perhaps it is time adults went back to school, to brush up on thinking skills?

Perhaps it is time to teach our children how to think as well.

I firmly believe that we should teach them not to think in black and white – but to think in colour.