Nick,

My current thinking is that Universities cannot become wisdom based until they can overcome being wealth based.

See: http://www.globalcircle.org/blog/?p=367

And also: http://www.globalcircle.org/blog/?p=274

Creating money as interest-bearing debt obligates us to continue to grow the economy to obscure the Ponzi scheme it is based on. See: https://waveofaction.org/index.php?do=/video/61/the-story-of-debt/

So I believe the starting point has to be a basic rethinking of money, what it is, how we create it, and how we use it.

See: https://waveofaction.org/index.php?do=/rethinkingmoney/

Universities must continue to overlook wisdom so they can pursue money until we can free ourselves from the bind created by many economic faults.

See: http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/leland-r-beaumont?tab=blog&blogpostid=21782

So let’s rethink money so we can pursue wisdom.

Thanks,

Lee Beaumont

From: Group concerned that academia should seek and promote wisdom [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Maxwell, Nicholas
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 4:46 AM
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