Practical Wisdom Table Lg

©Paul H. Ray, Integral Partnerships, LLC 2007

Practical Wisdom at the Personal and Group Levels The items in this table may evolve into a measurement scale: A score of +15 points would be very wise indeed, and a –15 would be very foolish indeed. At first, it might seem that this is a discussion of intelligence vs. stupidity, but in fact many intelligent people make these mistakes, so what is also at stake are issues of maturity, refinement of judgment, learning from broad experience, of a cultivated and less egoic consciousness. But it is also a matter of what a culture prescribes, and what its habitual ways of thought will allow, and often will call to be created. That is, the (sub)cultures of groups, organizations, societies, and whole civilizations can also be wise and foolish, just as individuals can. It’s amazing: No one has named them before, but now they seem obvious

Characteristics of Wisdom Corresponding Follies The first test of Wisdom: Is this a Wise Person or Group and/or a Wise Process? Can it deliver Wise Assets?

The first test of Folly: Is this a Foolish Person, Group and/or Process? Will it lose Wise Assets?


Characteristics of Wisdom Corresponding Follies

The first test of Wisdom: Is this a Wise Person or Group and/or a Wise Process? Can it deliver Wise Assets?

The first test of Folly: Is this a Foolish Person, Group and/or Process? Will it lose Wise Assets?

1. Using the big picture: a) Long term, b) Larger context, c) Whole system (all parts of a system), d) Whole process (all process stages of maturation, stories, growth, production, or creation). Primary assets: Foresight and superior strategy for new opportunities. It avoids losses due to fundamental changes and crises in the world. It finds ways both to win and be right, not either/or\w

Using the small picture: Tightly focused, specialized and short term view of problems: This prevents an understanding of the larger, longer term, whole system or whole process context It is also often immature Incapacities: Poor foresight and strategy, even if tactics work short term: It misses new opportunities, and creates high risk exposure to loss


2. Using many ways of knowing, in all modalities: objective, factual, analytical, scientific-technical, and logic, plus bodily, heart, intuition, spiritual, and sensory. All put to the service of the larger good of a larger whole. More able to deal with unprecedented crises Primary assets: More channels of information input, superior creativity, better quality of service, good branding and credibility capital

Using just one or two primary ways of knowing, e.g., finance, engineering, marketing, employee relations—often habitual, or an ideology not grounded in facts, serving narrow, anti-humane interests, at the expense of a larger whole. Unable to deal with unprecedented crises Incapacities: Too few channels of information input, poor creativity, damage to service, brand, reputation, and credibility


3. Acting in the service of larger purposes, loyalty to the Whole, and to Life in the large, planetary sense. Has outgrown narrow tribal, sectarian, national loyalties, ideologies or –isms. Works to harmonize conflicts, and is capable of intervening as a peacemaker. Primary assets: Seen as credible, moral and wise. Good support from people of good will. Strong influence on policy processes and outcomes

Acting in the service of narrow, selfish or power hungry purposes, or in the name of narrow tribal, sectarian, national loyalties, ideologies or –isms, lacking a larger sense of the whole, or the planet as a whole. Works to heighten conflicts, often for personal gain. Incapacities: Low credibility, loss of allies and support with its first misstep. Often viewed with deep suspicion on policy processes and outcomes


4. Very socially responsible, balancing self-interest with the needs of the whole. This is often taking the mature position of the wise elder rather than immature positions of those who damage others carelessly or for gain. Takes seriously a responsibility not to do harm.

Socially irresponsible, immature, careless, selfish, greedy, criminal, and damaging to the wider community. Fails to take wide, long term consequences seriously, and winds up harming people, property or environment, either accidentally or intentionally.


5. Insightful: Cuts through to the heart of a matter, to the underlying causes, and sees into the depths of what is going on with persons, or situations, usefully expresses those insights. Seeks the deepest possible understanding of a phenomenon: structure, assumptions, meanings

Lacks Insight: Failing to go to the heart of the matter, or see underlying causes, being superficial about persons, or situations, not able to express what is seen in useful ways. Understanding is not a goal so much as seeking success, with or without understanding


6. Perceptive and subtle observers: Inclusive, open-minded and nuanced about what to pay attention to; Notice what others ignore, exclude, or suppress; They use discrimination in perception and reasoning about people, events

Closed-minded on what to pay attention to; ignores, excludes or suppresses information that doesn’t fit a preset picture of what they suppose is true of many situations, people, or events; lacks discrimination


7. Aware of limits and uncertainty of knowledge and particular perspectives, so is open to perspectives of others, not dogmatic or ideological, steps outside of conflict positions to a higher, wider perspective on them

Excessively certain about what’s known, is dogmatic or ideological, clings to narrow perspectives, e.g. shareholder value, only using market solutions, fundamentalisms; is caught in conflicts, or exacerbates them


8. Authentic and Trustworthy, with a love of the Truth, having Integrity (has integrated one’s own self), demonstrating the truth with one’s own transparency. Part of trustworthiness is that personal power or gain is has been put into service of the whole

Inauthentic, fake, misleading, concealing key information rather than telling the truth, corrupt, lacking personal integrity, often in the service of personal power or gain, or in the service of narrow interests and ideologies at the expense of the whole


9. Grounded in realities of a variety of situations (physical, ecological, social, psychological and spiritual), and also of one’s own life. Has concepts, reasoning, emotions and perceptions appropriate to such realities and applies them strategically

Ignorant or ungrounded about realities of various situations (physical, ecological, social, psychological and spiritual), and of one’s own life. Lacking concepts, reasoning, emotions and perceptions appropriate to such realities, so can’t apply them strategically


10. Discriminating, fair and appropriate judgments that are equitable, just, inclusive, moral, humane. Has concepts, reasoning, emotions and perceptions necessary to good judgment, and uses them to serve the whole

Unfair, inequitable, exclusionary, immoral, inhumane judgments, often for hierarchy and privilege. Misuses concepts, reasoning, emotions and perceptions to defend weak judgment, and serve narrow interests


11. Socially skilled and knowledgeable: has a mature and nuanced insight into how social life and relationships actually work or not, often across cultural and social class lines. Works to reduce cross-cultural misunderstandings, and to build new possibilities.

Clumsy and ignorant outside a restricted set of social situations, with immature or inept insight, assumptions and strategies, especially ones that cross cultural or social class lines. May worsen cross-cultural misunderstandings, reducing possibilities.


Wise Person and Process+Inner Riches 12. Is familiar with higher levels of consciousness, but doesn’t shame those who are not. Uses ‘altered states’ for greater insight and inner development. Their development of skill and capability is often the basis for the above capacities and insights.

Foolish Person and Process+Inner Poverty Knows only the states of consciousness of asleep or awake, drunk or sober. ‘Altered states’ used for gratification or self-justification. Little inner development of skill or capability, so little ability to correct the above follies, or to take on wiser perceptions.


13. Having a wise group process that elicits leadership from the entire group. This is distributed leadership that arises as needed, for wider most wiser elements above.

Believing there’s only one wise leader, and that He can do it all. This leaves little room for other leadership to arise, and has very limited capacities.


14. Letting be, and letting go, trusting the universe, allowing new possibilities to come in the natural process of things, where that is understood to include conflict as well as harmony, and learning that is uncomfortable and unasked for, and living with ease and generosity.

Tries always to stay in control, mistrustful of the universe, and nervous about what new developments may bring, graspingly, jealously guarding positions and possessions, avoiding conflicts if they can’t be dominated, belief that power means not having to learn.


15. Having a very large and varied repertoire of values, benefiting more people, across more life situations, with more criteria and distinctions about values/morals, from a more inclusive place

Narrow, restrictive and selfish about values, blunt, lacking discrimination, rigid, ignorant, or barbarous in application to life situations. Often exclusionary about application of values/morals.


Here are the basic distinctions in sentence form:

First: Wisdom always uses a wider, longer-term context than everyday mind, and folly is a narrower, more short-term context. We can distinguish wise and appropriate foresight from foolish failures, because wisdom reduces risk and losses, vs. creating exposure to risk and loss.

Second: Wisdom uses more ways of knowing, which is superior to fewer, while folly tends to elevate just one or two ways, or depends on pure ideology. To use more ways of knowing allows cross checking of approaches, more error correcting, and opportunities for different approaches to offer creative ideas. Wisdom will stay on course with fewer ways of going wrong, while folly has more of chances for error. Wisdom puts multiple ways of knowing to service of the larger good, whereas folly is likely to choose fewer ways because it uses selfish justifications.

Third: Wisdom uses a more encompassing sense of “whose good is served?” which tends to the common good, and is thus superior to narrower loyalties. In the long run wisdom has more credibility and less conflict, vs. folly has less credibility, more conflict.

Fourth: Wisdom seeks social responsibility, balancing individual and group needs in a mature way, avoiding harm and building trust. Folly’s social irresponsibility shows up as carelessness, greedy criminality and damage to the wider community. It’s avoiding messes vs. making them.

Fifth: Wisdom makes fewer mistakes, and promotes more good outcomes by going deep, rather than remaining shallow and immature. The foolish and shallow are not just


immature, stupid or ignorant: they use too little energy for insight and thought, so naturally reality bites back.

Sixth: Open, subtle, nuanced perceptions are wiser than being closed-minded and ignoring, excluding or suppressing perceptions. Wisdom allows flexibility and adaptive behavior, including an ability to notice both more opportunities and more dangers, while folly is rigid, defending a viewpoint, and misses a lot of good chances, and falls into bad problems.

Seventh: Wisdom is aware of the limits and uncertainty of particular forms of knowledge and perspectives. Thus it is able to avoid dogmatism, ideology, errors and conflicts, while the excessive certainty we associate with folly falls into avoidable errors and makes many messes.

Eighth: Authenticity, trustworthiness, loving the truth, and having integrity even when it may not be convenient, all exemplify wisdom and the ability to gain the trust of others, while their shifty opposites exemplify folly and engender distrust. These wisdom characteristics are more developed with maturity and having a good inner moral compass.

Ninth: Wisdom is grounded in the realities of a wide variety of situations, and has learned from a varied base of experience, with appropriate situational diagnoses, and strategies to match. Folly is often ignorant of the variety of human situations and experiences. It adapts poorly to obvious contingencies of life, and is less likely to come up with appropriate diagnoses and strategies.

Tenth: Wisdom is discriminating, fair and appropriate in judgments, and often judicious, using that in service of the whole. Unfairness, inequity, exclusion, immorality and


inhumanity lead both to folly, and to the production of evil, usually based on weak judgment and selfishness.

Eleventh: Wisdom is often socially skilled and knowledgeable, with mature, nuanced insight into social life and relationships across many different settings. It uses that to reduce conflict and aids possible new developments for a positive future. Folly and immaturity are clumsy, ignorant and inept outside a narrow context, both worsening conflict and reducing possibilities for the future.

Twelfth: Higher levels of consciousness are inner riches that build ever more wisdom and capacity as well as skill at solving problems. But knowing only ‘asleep or awake, plus drunk or sober’ has neither skill nor capacity for growth, much less the ability to correct folly.

Thirteenth: Wise group processes can elicit leadership from the entire group, allowing wise contributions to come from anywhere in the group, while the hero leader model is very limited. Wise group processes are not only more adaptive, but serve the needs of more group members in more humane ways, and are better for the long run than the authoritarian models.

Fourteenth: Deep wisdom is letting be, and letting go, trusting the universe, allowing new possibilities to come in the natural process of things, where that is understood to include conflict as well as harmony, and learning that is uncomfortable and unasked for. Folly is wanting to stay in control all the time, mistrustful of the universe, and nervous about what new developments may bring, jealously guarding positions and possessions, avoiding conflicts if they can’t be dominated, and employing the foolish belief that power means not having to learn.


Fifteenth: Wisdom takes more kinds of values into account, benefiting more people, across a wider variety of life situations, operating with generosity and altruism, whereas folly is selfish, narrow and restrictive on all of these. Wisdom has a wider, more inclusive sense of whose good is to be promoted, and a larger variety of values, and indicators of value, than folly does. Wisdom also has more criteria and distinctions about what values are, how they work, and their application to morals and ethics, across a wider variety of social and personal situations. Folly is blunt and lacking in discrimination, either rigidly trying to apply too small a set of morals to diverse situations, or it is ignorant and barbarous, lacking in application of values and morals.

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Practical Wisdom Table Lg