A sufficiently complex society cannot be governed with “wisdom” anymore than it can be with “science”.
We’ve learned to be suspicious (too suspicious?) of authoritarian-high-modernist Taylorist scientism, but we haven’t yet learned to be wary of Straussian wisdomtism.
Conversation
This doesn’t mean giving up, or giving in to mad-crowd governance. The philosophical stance most conducive to effective governance of complex societies is probably something like “opportunistic experimentalism”.
2
3
9
You assume homeostatic gridlock as “normal” and look for opportunities to conduct equilibrium-jumping experiments with low downside.
You won’t look wise, scientific, or like a crook doing this. You’ll look like you’re gamely trying to get lucky without making things worse.


