Wisdom and Wanting What's Good
Collective wisdom for a time of crisis and renewal
This paper explores wisdom as a practical, collective capacity, why modern society has neglected it, and what it would take to revive it.
Modernity has staged a heist: the field of legitimate knowledge has been stripped of all that's good and beautiful, leaving only what can be measured. No wonder we've forgotten to trust our inner compass - what use is wisdom when the only admissible civic choices concern how much and how many? Neglected and under-cultivated, our innate faculty of wisdom is weak, but it isn't extinct. Our future depends on reviving it.
The sixth paper in the Seeds of Renaissance series (formerly the Second Renaissance series), and Part 1 of two papers on wisdom. By Rufus Pollock and Rosie Bell (Life Itself Sensemaking Studio).
Summary
Against a backdrop of global crisis, wisdom emerges as a vital capacity for a regenerative future. Wisdom can be framed as a capacity for choosing what's good and acting skilfully towards it. A core foundation is the discernment of extra-rational, unmeasurable value.
Modern systems, shaped by reductive materialism, have neglected value and dulled the inner compass that knows (and co-creates) it, with consequences all the more catastrophic given our technological power to harm what is most precious in the living world.
Closing this potentially deadly 'wisdom gap' depends on reintegrating intuitive capacities with other powerful ways of knowing, and empowering decisionmakers through wisdom-preserving practices.
What's in the paper
Wisdom is a word we often invoke but less often examine across the field(s) of thought and practice dedicated to addressing the planetary (meta)crisis and a civilizational transition. Wisdom means many things to many people: from a loose sense of shrewd or intuitive knowing, to a vast array of traditions and practices designed and evolved towards living a good life.
In this first of two papers, we get to know wisdom as a practical, collective capacity, made of three interwoven strands: sensing what matters (valueception), understanding how things are and what would work (sensemaking), and the will to act on what we discern. The paper explores:
- Decision-making the modern way - how modern societies came to trust only what can be measured, from GDP to education, and what that does to our shared sense of what matters.
- Knowing beyond measurement - why reviving our intuitive sense of value matters, with the architect Christopher Alexander as a case study.
- Cultivating civic wisdom - how wisdom grows through lived experience, embodiment and attunement.
- Who's wise, and how do we know? - how societies might empower wise decision-makers without corruption, and what that means for democracy.
A second paper, exploring the spiritual dimensions of wisdom, is forthcoming.
Join the webinar
Wednesday 18 November, 18:00 CET / 17:00 GMT / 12:00 ET / 09:00 PT - a roundtable with the paper's authors and invited guests.
- Why has modern society grown so distrustful of wisdom and intuitive judgement?
- Can we sense what's good - and can we trust that sense?
- Where does our collective will fail, even when we know what to do?
- How might societies recognise and empower wise decision-makers?
Bring your own questions - and your own sense of where wisdom is most needed now.