THINK.
Think.
Question your own beliefs too.
Look for facts.
Change your mind when the facts change.
Separate what you know from what you simply like to believe.
ThinkPunk® / a declaration
WHAT IS
THINK
PUNK®?
THINK FOR
YOURSELF.
THEN USE IT.
ThinkPunk® is not a political movement.
It is not a philosophy.
It is not a motivational method.
It is not a new tribe to identify with.
Above all, it is not a place where someone tells you what to think.
There are enough of those already.
ThinkPunk® starts with a much simpler idea:
LISTEN.
OBSERVE.
LEARN.
THEN KEEP A HEALTHY SUSPICION.
Even of us.
Don’t believe everything. / Check it. / Don’t believe everything. / Check it. /
01 / The friction
DON’T
BELIEVE.
CHECK.
We live surrounded by people who have answers.
Gurus.
Politicians.
Experts.
Influencers.
Companies.
Algorithms.
Advertisers.
Ideologies.
And, of course, the person at the next table who watched a seven-minute video and now knows exactly how the world economy works.
ThinkPunk® prefers questions.
An idea doesn’t become true because lots of people like it.
It doesn’t become false because only a few do.
It doesn’t become clever because an important person says it.
And it isn’t stupid just because it comes from someone without a title before their name.
WHAT MATTERS IS WHETHER IT HOLDS UP.
Take what might help.
Check it against reality.
Change it.
Throw away what doesn’t work.
02 / The permission
DON’T
ASK FOR
PERMISSION.
Here’s where punk comes in.
But not the mohawk.
Not the boots.
Not the studs.
Not mass-produced “ANARCHY” merchandise from a factory on the other side of the planet.
ThinkPunk® is interested in another part of punk’s inheritance:
DO IT
YOURSELF.
Have something to say?
Say it.
Want to write?
Write.
Want to create?
Create.
Want to build something?
Start.
It doesn’t mean you’ll succeed.
You can be wrong.
You can fail.
You can discover your brilliant idea was complete rubbish.
Brilliant.
You’ve just learned something.
03 / The catch
FREEDOM HAS
ONE SMALL
CATCH.
IT REQUIRES
RESPONSIBILITY.
It’s easy to say:
I DO WHAT I WANT.
Harder to ask:
DO I REALLY WANT THIS?
Or is it a habit?
An advert?
A fear?
An algorithm?
An addiction?
A social convention?
Something we’ve done for twenty years simply because we’ve always done it?
To ThinkPunk®, freedom doesn’t mean automatically doing whatever pops into our heads.
It means trying to understand WHO’S DRIVING.
And sometimes finding out we’re not in the driver’s seat.
04 / Before the apparatus
PEOPLE
BEFORE SYSTEMS.
Economics.
Politics.
Technology.
Markets.
Institutions.
Religion.
Media.
Algorithms.
They are human tools.
They can make extraordinary things.
They can also become monstrous when they forget who they were built for.
ThinkPunk® is not automatically against markets, business, technology or institutions.
That would be too easy.
And pretty boring.
It is against the idea that people should become raw material for the tools they created.
05 / No pedestal
WE DON’T NEED
NEW GURUS.
Not even Lux.
Especially Lux.
A book can tell a story.
It can show a path.
It can lay out facts, ideas, mistakes and insights.
But there’s one responsibility no author should take from the reader:
DECIDING
WHAT TO DO WITH IT.
So if, after reading a ThinkPunk® book, you think:
“Lux talked rubbish about this.”
That might be an excellent result.
Of course, you might be wrong.
Thinking for yourself doesn’t automatically guarantee that you think well.
That would be too convenient.
06 / Two words, no religion
PUNK.
Don’t wait for someone to give you permission.
Create.
Try.
Get it wrong.
Correct it.
Start again.
Keep enough irony to stop rebellion becoming a new religion.
THINKPUNK®.
DON’T BE AGAINST EVERYTHING.
DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING.
DON’T FOLLOW EVERYTHING.
DON’T REJECT EVERYTHING.
LOOK.LISTEN.STUDY.DOUBT.DECIDE.ACT.
And if you find out you were wrong?
GOOD.
You’ve just learned something.
THINKPUNK®
THINK FOR YOURSELF.
THEN GET OFF YOUR ARSE.
ThinkPunk® / manifestoVisit the catalogue