Dear Ian,

Your message regarding practicalities of how to 'spread the word' is on 
point.

As you indicate, the question is, what is the 'word' that this Campaign is 
seeking to spread?

And that is where this Campaign stumbles. This is where the leadership of 
'Friends of Wisdom' has always stumbled and continues to do so.

This Campaign does not clearly recognise or address the root of the problems 
it is seeking to remedy, and so finds itself peeing on fires, while doing 
nothing to prevent the fires from getting started in the first place.

The root of the problem is psychological intransigence based on the abstract 
objectification of what is perceived as 'other'. It is the illusion of 
definitive separation of one thing from another, which is sustained by 
two-value logic and its underlying misrepresentation of natural space and 
boundaries as sources of absolute discontinuity.

The way through that psychological barrier is signposted in the attached. 
Only once that barrier has been breached will there be any chance of 
bringing all the disparate voices questioning the status quo into 
confluence.

Warmest

Alan



-----Original Message----- 
From: Ian Glendinning
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 4:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Campaign for Wisdom-Inquiry

Hi Jiyan,
One reason we as a small group set up "Global Circle" was to integrate
the many threads and allow smaller enthusiastic groups to put their
weight behind any current campaign or focus of activity - all with
common "big picture" aims, but acknowledging the need to join forces
as you put it with other topical like-minded campaigns.

As for vehicles to do that, there are many. Global Circle is a
Wordpress blog, we tried Ning to "Join Dots and Weave Threads" before
that, and several here have migrated to "Best Thinking" another
Wordpress blog platform. Symphony is another integrating platform. In
any event we need to separate questions of platform, media, channels
and content.

Books are here to stay, as are papers and articles, and these can be
presented as multi-media presentations or originated entirely in other
media. Each of course needs a point, a message, an agenda objective.
Once "published" the channels are all already connected.
Even a hard copy paper book can be promoted on twitter, with the right
tag line and link.
Even emails drafted "for publication" can be routed straight out to the 
wires.

Think message and audience.
We already have the integrated media, platforms and channels.
Say the word.

"Let's do X" needs to be framed in terms of the achievable changes we
want in the world.
(Not which media / channels / platforms)

[End of Rant ;-) ]
Ian

On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Qiao, Jiyan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Nick and friends of wisdom,
>
> This is a grand cause and we need the join efforts of like-minded people
> around the globe to effect substantial changes gradually. While a top-down
> method can be effective to some extent as well, for launching the 
> campaign,
> it seems we need to first, build a campaign team (three to five firm
> believers of the cause might be enough for launching it) and have a brain
> storming of all team members (convene a meeting of founding members);
> second, with the most immediate tasks being identified at the first 
> meeting,
> assign them to each to be implemented. Among these tasks, one most urgent 
> I
> think is to enhance the presence of our cause in social media, including
> Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, (each reaches a certain group of audience with
> its distinctive features of communication. I am not sure if LinkedIn is a
> good fit for us at the moment) and Symphony (which orchestrated all of the
> previous social media genres). We have to admit that in our digital age,
> especially over the last decade, people are reading less and less of hard
> copy books and newspapers, but they are reading more and more of these
> piecemeal writings published on those new media. Our Wisdom cause is yet 
> to
> be made present in this new world.
>
> Please let me know if I can help.
>
> Best,
>
> Jiyan
>
> From: "Maxwell, Nicholas" <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 08:46:14 +0000
>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Campaign for Wisdom-Inquiry
>
> Dear Friend of Wisdom,
>
>
>
>                                      You, like me, hold that the world is
> heading towards disaster: global warming, population growth, vast
> inequalities of wealth and power around the world, lethal character of
> modern war, destruction of natural habitats and extinction of species,
> pollution of earth, sea and air.  You, like me, hold that these current 
> and
> impending disasters have been made possible, even caused, by modern 
> science
> and technology.  The basic fault is a kind of academic inquiry (devoted to
> the pursuit of knowledge) damagingly irrational, in a structural way, when
> judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare.  As far as
> the long-term interests of humanity are concerned there can scarcely be a
> more important task than to correct the gross defects of academia, and put
> something like wisdom-inquiry into practice so that humanity may come to
> have what it so urgently needs: institutions of learning rationally 
> designed
> and devoted to helping us make progress towards as good and wise a world 
> as
> possible.
>
>
>
>                                      Climate change is perhaps the most
> striking example of the urgency of the need for academic change.  Academia
> ought to have generated sustained discussion in the public domain as to 
> what
> humanity ought to be doing to bring down CO2 emissions as rapidly as
> possible.  But we are still stuck in the rut of discussing whether or not 
> we
> are causing global warming, and how seriously we should take it. 
> Academia,
> devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, seems to be incapable of taking an
> active role in creating serious discussion of policies in the public 
> domain
> – even when the future of civilization may be at issue.
>
>
>
>                                     If all this is correct – and if not,
> where does it go wrong? – then it becomes a matter of great urgency to get 
> a
> campaign going to alert scientists, academics, the public, the media, even
> politicians, about the urgent need to transform universities so that they
> begin to put wisdom-inquiry into practice.
>
>
>
>                                     How might such a campaign be 
> initiated?
> What steps might be taken in an attempt to get such a campaign underway?
> What might Friends of Wisdom do?  Might we as, potentially, a campaigning
> organization, write letters to newspapers, post talks on You Tube 
> outlining
> the argument, write to influential scientists and academics who might be
> sympathetic?  Do we take to twitter?  Do we spell out the message on
> Facebook and LinkedIn?  Do we talk to colleagues about the matter?  Do we
> email vice-president of universities around the world?  Do we find some 
> way
> of alerting students to the situation?
>
>
>
>                                    It would be very interesting, and it
> might even be helpful, to have suggestions as to what such a campaign 
> might
> do to spread awareness, at least, of the urgent need to transform 
> academia.
>
>
>
>                     Best wishes,
>
>
>
>                                    Nick Maxwell
>
> Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom
> Publications online: http://philpapers.org/profile/17092
> http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html
>
>