ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of the polemic idea, which functions in tension to creative thinking. Developing the nuclear idea necessarily stimulates thinking, an emotional experience associated with learning. The polemic idea, in contrast, focuses on controlling emotional responses and has its goal to incite or inhibit the individual's and group's action. Whereas the nuclear idea emerges unbidden from interactions among the minds of the individuals comprising the group, the polemic idea emerges from a calculated mind-set of an individual or subgroup, with a particular purpose to sway other minds and group process. Polemic ideas are located in surface and deep strata of intersubjective life, reflecting the influence of the earliest phases of cognitive–emotional development. Democratic as well as fascistic governments, well intentioned as well as malevolent families, leader as well as member—all groups and all individuals are vulnerable to bipolar thinking.
