What struck me, in particular, though, was the set of criteria used by the authors to define wisdom or, more specifically, "crucial aspects of wise reasoning":
willingness to seek opportunities to resolve conflict; willingness to search for compromise; recognition of the limits of personal knowledge; awareness that more than one perspective on a problem can exist; and appreciation of the fact that things may get worse before they get better.If you compare this list with current political rhetoric in the US, you will see that there is not very much wise reasoning in today's political arena.
On a happier note, it is encouraging that these studies at least show that, on balance, we can expect an older population to be at least as good at wise reasoning as a younger population.
Thanks for this post. When i saw this I thought about an article I had read about demographics, war, and Iran.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/02/29/irans-rational-suicide/
His main idea is that since the leaders of Iran are convinced that their civilization is as good as dead they have no qualms about shedding a huge amount of blood in war and that this further is not irrational from their point of view.
A wisdom in a Malay word is 'hikmah'. It originally from Arabic word which is 'hakama'.
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