Dear Tommye,
Thank you for what you say about the "mission statement". "wisdom is the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others", is intended to convey the idea that wisdom is not the same thing as the capacity for successful extreme selfishness, and not the idea that wisdom involves deciding for others what is of value. I must admit that it never occurred to me that it could be misinterpreted in the way you suggest. How could it be reformulated? "wisdom is the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself but not exclusively for oneself"? "wisdom is the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others (without deciding for others)"? Both these are clumsy. Do you have any suggestions?
I am inclined to think that the necessary brevity of any initial "mission statement" as you call it will make some misunderstandings more than likely. Our hope should be that it entices the potentially interested reader to click on further pages of our web site, where we spell out what we are about in more detail and, we hope, clear up any initial misunderstandings.
A general point. As it takes some weeks to get a new web site into Google, perhaps we should launch the initial page of our website - if we can agree on that - before we have finalized the other pages. We don't have to wait until everything has been agreed.
Best wishes,
Nick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: JISCmail FriendsofWisdom Emailing Group
"...for oneself and others...." Nick: Your mission statement is beautifully worded and. more important, it captures the goal perfectly. My only concern is with the phrase "...for oneself and others...." and I think it is just a matter of semantics. As is it could be interpreted to mean we are deciding for others what is important, meaningful, etc. Could we re-word this phrase? Thanks, TR
