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 SERIES

HARNESSING THE POWER

OF WISDOM

FROM DATA TO WISDOM

ANDREW TARGOWSKI

New York
Copyright © 2013 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

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 To my grandchildren
Veronica, Julian, and Marcel to be wise
 CONTENTS

Preface ix
Introduction xiii
Part I. Introduction To Wisdom 1
Chapter 1 From Information Technology to Wisdom 3
Chapter 2 History of Research on Wisdom 9
Chapter 3 Applied Wisdom 19
Chapter 4 Wise People 33
Part II. Wisdom Concept 45
Chapter 5 Philosophical Wisdom 47
Chapter 6 Purposes of Life 55
Chapter 7 Four Minds of Wisdom 59
Chapter 8 History of Civilization Wisdom 81
Chapter 9 Judgment and Choice 91
Chapter 10 Art of Living 101
Chapter 11 What is Wisdom? 111
Part III. Wisdom, People and Civilization 115
Chapter 12 The Wisdom of People and Their Civilization 117
Chapter 13 Wise Civilization 125
viii Contents

Chapter 14 Wisdom, Truth and Responsibility 139

Chapter 15 Becoming Wise 145
Bibliography 151
Index
 PREFACE

ON THE QUEST FOR SIGNPOSTS TOWARDS

A WISE CIVILIZATION

(…) if man is a rational being (rational animal), it is only insofar as his

whole civilization is a rational civilization, that is, one (...) which now of
necessity consciously directs human becoming.

Edmund Husserl
The Crisis of the European Sciences
and Transcendental Phenomenology

Andrew Targowski, fulfilled in life as the co-author of the Polish

Information Superhighway (INFOSTRADA)1/PESEL (1972-74, Polish Social
Security Number and System), and only perfecting his civilizational mission in
the USA, could not help but get saturated with the pragmatic American idea of
success, which clashes within him with the residue of the Polish national
education, specializing in the celebration of national defeats as a “higher
form” of the messianic spirit that “suffers for millions;” he took part in this
collective and involuntary suffering as a child during the Warsaw Polish
Rising of 19442.

1
. Infostrada was launched to a pilot project as the “Polish Internet” in 1972-74, whereas the
Internet was made available to civilian users only in 1983.
2
. See: A. Targowski, “Dialog pokolenia pomostu z pokoleniami ojców i kolumbów, czyli
refleksje o Powstaniu Warszawskim,” [Dialogue of the Bridge Generation with the Fathers
and Columbus Generation, Refleksions on the Warsaw Rising] in Tragizm i sens Powstania
Warszawskiego [Tragism and Sense of the Warsaw Rising], ed. J. Kuczyński i J.L.
Krakowiak, 2006, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Akademickie DIALOG, 204-221.
x Andrew Targowski

If we agree that the four levels of knowledge correspond to four kinds of

mind, we thus accept a universalistic perspective, supported by the
phenomenological multi-stratum ontology of the world, which is still rather
unsuccessful in competing with the one-layer positivist concept based on
science: only facts and states of affairs exist. Husserl saw the philosophy of
facts as only generating people of facts, and so, other than the realm of facts,
the sphere of values and spirituality should also be ascertained as a constitutive
layer of being human, the current condition of which is seen by Targowski as
deplorably losing to consumerism – a religion, indeed, of the selfish genes of
business. This is also the sphere of purpose – the sheer survival of human
civilization. This is why he appreciates Eco-philosophy both as an alarming
forecast – a wise estimate of bad tendencies – and a choice of values which
will transform the “ethics of immediacy” into the attitude of long-term
thinking in the name of an deteriorated existence of future generations.
According to Targowski, the main components of wisdom are good
judgment of the situation in small and big picture, both short- and long-term,
local and global, stressing the possible effects on the economy, environment,
climate and society, as well as a prudent, tolerant and practical choice, not
only aware of decision-making strategies but of universal contexts, too; a
choice that comes to fruition in effective action, but in the context of the art of
living since man is no computer they are guided by numerous influences, such
as emotions, which can distort the best judgment and choice. I would distance
myself from the “pragmatic-only” wisdom of behavior (ex. Hitler, who could
have won if he had been wiser), when it is not subjected to a universalistic
judgment of goals by a universal mind, identified by the author alongside such
minds as basic, understanding and global.
In his rendition of the issue of wisdom, the author makes references to
psychology (including the theory of decision-making), anthropology,
philosophy, history, political science, business, medicine and even sports, but
it is the sphere of social action that is the most important for the author,
anyway. The totality of the comprehensive discussion I am recommending to
the readers adds up to form a civilizational synthesis – an evaluation of the
development trends of the contemporary world. The need to shape and perfect
the rationality in individual behavior at any age, as well as the behavior of
communities and nations, civilizations and humanity as a whole is treated as
an indispensable condition of survival – a universal human necessity.
In Targowski's view, wisdom is not a theory but a program of educational
action, a concept of academic teaching, and a way to become a satisfied
entrepreneurial individual. Also, wisdom is a way in which humanity,
 Preface xi

civilizations, nations and states operate, with the USA and Poland in close-up.
The candid and passionate discourse results from something more than pain
and a lack of consent to the world as it is; it also stems from an engineer's
passion for exploration and treating the world as a fabric that lends itself to
modification and an ever more creative design. As Vice-President (and
founder, 2003+) of the Council of Polish-American Engineers in North
America, he is as far as possible removed from a contemplative perception of
spirituality, which he sees as a Promethean civilizational mission of the
extravert and entrepreneurial personality.
Therefore, the reader, too, will be stimulated to a critical appraisal of the
author’s views, but to one's own judgments, attitudes and choices, as well; no
one can remain indifferent. Targowski favors dialogue and has been a theorist
of communication, so he even expects such reactions – he is in no way into
soliloquies; what he means is actively participate in the co-creation of the
collective wisdom of action. To refer to Husserl again, one can feel wise only
in so much as one belongs to a wise community. This is not a confession made
by a recluse, a frustrated individual, an anarchist, an individualist or a liberal;
rather, it is a voice coming from someone who is in agreement with the idea of
the Greek community of philosophers, universalistically called by Husserl the
“functionaries of humanity,” and whom I would dub the vestals (guards of the
cult) of reason and universal human culture. Thus, too, speaks the President of
the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (2007-
2013), aspiring to the role of the co-founder of Wise Civilization.

Józef Leszek Krakowiak

Dialogue and Universalism
Société Européenne de Culture-Polish Section
 INTRODUCTION

Life is a puzzle, and this book is its missing part.

This publication continues my discussion of some issues that are key to

the current state of civilization. In 1971 I had a book published on Information
Technology (IT) as key to prosperity, Informatyka – klucz do dobrobytu
(Warsaw: PIW) because I thought that people, if better informed, could live
prosperous lives. In the Polish People's Republic, the word prosperity was
much more appealing than “Information Technology.” Incidentally, thanks to
the book, the term “informatics” made it into public circulation.
Over the 41 years following the publication of this book, IT has led the
Western-Atlantic Civilization to prosperity. At the moment, the richest people
in the world are those involved in info-business, such as the American Bill
Gates (1955-Present), or those in charge of tele-information enterprises, such
as the Mexican Carlos Slim Helù (1940-Present), who is considered the richest
person in the world. The value of the IT company Apple was in 2012 estimated
at $500 billion, this being the sum of the value of the company's shares as per
the NY stock exchange, which is bigger than the GDP of Poland (38 million
citizens).
Whereas it was the 500,000 Apple employees who generated this money,
Poland gets its GDP from the work of 12 million people. It follows that in
doing IT an employee is 24 times more efficient than someone working in
traditional sectors of the economy. IT is one of the most well-paid professions
in the world, so my thesis that IT is key to prosperity has proved true.
Now that IT is commonplace in the world, particularly in business, and the
standard of living in the Western Civilization and beyond has increased, it has
xiv Andrew Targowski

become evident that man is unable to live in prosperity. Something is lacking –

wisdom.
Therefore, this book is a discussion of the theory of wisdom, which
today's civilization is lacking; civilization will not survive without wisdom.
Unwise people can count on no good things in their lives. Information
Technology has globalized our civilization thanks to the Internet; globalization
has led to the severe crisis of 2008, which goes beyond cyclical crises of
Capitalism: it is structural and requires a new economic theory and wisdom on
the part of scientists, specialists, the leaders of societies but, above all, regular
people. A wise civilization can only be organized by wise people in their
majority, rather than by “experts.”
Wisdom is man's most serious intellectual (informational) virtue, which
since time immemorial people have surprisingly failed to place at the heart of
science, education and practice. Science and education have emphasized the
sole expansion of knowledge, claiming that one cannot be taught wisdom. One
allegedly attains wisdom late in life by having faced life's practical tasks. In
this book, I have endeavored to prove this belief wrong as it stems from the
false Aristotelian view that only God can be wise and people are stupid.
Philosophers believed him and abandoned the study of wisdom.
It was only in the second part of the 20th century when philosophers
undertook the empirical study of wisdom, but they concluded that wisdom is
expert knowledge that is characteristic of someone's life at its zenith. And
again, being wise is apparently tantamount to being an expert. I disagree with
the view. I believe that any sane individual, including youths and even
children, is capable of taking wise action and can think wisely. Certainly this
depends on the context of situation and time.
Also, I will be polemical to the widely accepted belief that wisdom cannot
be taught (which is testified to by the Google search results, demonstrating
that there is no such course/subject as “Wisdom” in the curricula of American
universities, except for Wisdom University, which treats wisdom as a spiritual
value rather than an interdisciplinary subject) and that wisdom is acquired in
practice. There is obvious confusion in the distinction between defining
wisdom and the process of arriving at wisdom. It is as is someone said
medicine cannot be defined and it only needs practicing in order to know what
medication and procedures are good and recommendable. This may have been
the case in the times of witchcraft, but it definitely has not been so over the
last several hundred years; throughout the time physicians have been trained.
Alas, wisdom has lost at least 2400 years for its intellectual perfection – that
is, since the time of Aristotle – but it is never too late for wisdom.
 Introduction xv

The book sets out to present my scholarly publication Cognitive

Informatics and Wisdom Development (2011) to a wider readership. In the
USA scholarly books are usually published for university libraries as their
usual price is $200. An average reader cannot afford to buy such books. Mass
circulation is the case with school and academic textbooks as well as prose
fiction, popular literature and popular science. This is why I resolved to have
this book published as popular science to make a wider readership interested.
A question can be asked why an IT specialist tackles wisdom. The answer
is simple: IT people deal with information and, semantically, wisdom is the
highest form of information. Please note that IT deals with the processing of
data, information, conceptions, knowledge and wisdom. So, an IT specialist
must follow through with “their” data as far as wisdom. Thus this book will
lead the reader from data to wisdom.
In defining the processes of wisdom, I make use of graphical models
because, on account of the great complication of these processes, they cannot
be presented with a degree of clarity in another way.
I think that, in the 21st century, wisdom is badly needed to save
civilization and mankind from the imminent degradation, caused by such
developments as overpopulation, destruction of the natural environment and
the exhaustion of strategic resources, such as oil, natural gas, uranium and
non-ferrous metals.
It follows that the fast growth of civilization might be arrested and stifled
by the lack of clean air and energy still in this century. Then, the smartest
people – possibly the wisest, too – will resume wars for resources. Possibly
even for survival. It will be too late for the wisdom of those who were able to
live in poverty but were too stupid to live in prosperity.
Can wisdom be learned? Of course it can, but it is far from obvious that
people who have been taught wisdom will by default be wise. Just like no one
promises wealth to a student of the theory of finances.
I am grateful to the Polish philosophers from the University of Warsaw –
Janusz Kuczyński, Małgorzata Czarnocka, and Leszek Krakowiak – for
making it possible to debate the various approaches to the theory of wisdom in
the journal Dialogue and Universalism. This has helped me to develop the
theory I am trying to bring closer to the readers herein. Also, I am grateful to
Wiesław Kawalec and Tyler J. Graham for their help in improving my English
manuscript.
xvi Andrew Targowski

This book has been written in a columnist style so as to popularize the

most important ideas of wisdom. The considerations of space make it
impossible to make more in-depth deliberations of a scholarly nature. The
readers who find the subject matter interesting and wish to learn more are
advised to get acquainted with my theoretical publications in English1,2,3.

Andrew Targowski
Informatician-Civilizationist-Philosopher
Western Michigan University (USA)
PART I. INTRODUCTION TO WISDOM
Chapter 1

FROM INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

TO WISDOM
Information technology (IT) is a field of human activity dealing with
automated data processing. In a more general definition, it is a discipline
connected with the application of computing devices for information
processing. The first devices of this sort include abacuses, and the most recent
ones – computers. The history of information technology spans several
millennia, but the history of modern IT covers just several dozen years as this
is when man devised the modern computer (1940s).
Information technology helps man in data processing by means of
computers, in the first place by analyzing routine flows of data. Currently,
though, it aims at information processing with a view to making man wiser. Is
it not an ambitious goal of IT? This will be discussed later.
Wisdom, however, has existed since mankind entered the scene, i.e.
several million years, or only 200,000 years if we restrict the species to homo
sapiens, that is, the people in some way resembling us. Man is a thinking
animal that makes judgments, options for action and reasoning independently.
To put it succinctly, wisdom is judgment and choice. Biological and social
history of man is studied by anthropology, whereas philosophy deals with the
history of human thought. These branches of science undoubtedly speak
volumes about the wisdom of man, but for various reasons their output in this
respect does not function in people’s consciousness, educated people’s
consciousness included. This will be the focus of attention in the subsequent
chapter.
Notably, the famous Encyclopedia Britannica does not include a definition
of wisdom. Thus the thesis put forward by the present author has been
validated. Most evidently, wisdom awaits its theory and the state of there
4 Andrew Targowski

being no knowledge on wisdom is unsustainable, particularly because wisdom

is the most essential virtue of man; also, it is the most important intellectual
resource, determining the earthly success of the human species.
The development of IT over the last sixty years has taken it from the phase
of technical and scientific automation and routine administrative computer
data processing, to artificial intelligence, which makes it possible to
automatize well-defined decision making. If these are to be ‘wise’ decisions,
IT specialists ask what wisdom is.
An information specialist not only wonders what this wisdom is but also
dwells upon the meaning of information. Information is the main raw material
processed by the computer. Apparently, they do not really know what they get
their computers to process. But when you ask a mechanical engineer what
steel or plastic is, they will know. An electrical engineer knows they deal with
electricity. Likewise, any chemist, physicist, but also a sociologist and
physician knows what they are working with.
This sort of situation in IT results from the fact that the biggest emphasis
is placed on the syntax of programming languages, databases, operating
systems and software. The term “Syntagmatic2” in the IT world deals with the
‘grammar,’ as it were, of IT solutions. It answers the questions “How is it to be
done? How is it to be programmed? How is information to be found?” rather
than what information is.
It is information semantics3 that seeks to explain what information is. It is
utilized in IT applications in assisting vocational work, organization
administration and control systems. Information semantics deals with
answering the question of what exactly information is, such as what
information is necessary for the monitoring of the implementation of the
production plan. The point here is the substance of this monitoring. Semantics
in IT do require the knowledge of syntagmatic, in the same way as the speaker
of a foreign language ought to know the grammar of the foreign language in
order to be well understood.
In the USA there are 600,000 teachers of English, who know the grammar
of the language very well and this is what they live off, but they may not be as
good in putting the language to use in writing. The specialists who are
excellent in that respect are writers, columnists and journalists. They know
what to write about, and this is why they are read and can make a living out of
writing. How many are there? Several thousand? There are up to several
hundred writers at a time whose sole means of subsistence is writing,
depending on period and stage of their creative life.
 From Information Technology to Wisdom 5

This is so with IT, too. Complex IT system consultants in the corporate

world earn several times the money made by programmers just because they
know what kind of information to process and what for (and this is dealing
with IT pragmatics). Also, they know how the information needs to be
processed.
The issue of what information “is” has long been investigated by
information theory. It dates back to the early 20th century. One of its pioneers4
even provided a formula to define information: I = -Log2 p(α). What it implies
is that if it is Tuesday today, the information that tomorrow will be Wednesday
p(α) equals 0. Since the fact has a probability p=1, Log21 = 0, since 20 = 1,
which is to say that a 100% certain fact is not information. So, what is
information?
Like in the structure of matter, in its atom there are many elementary
particles, such as a proton and an electron, so it holds true in IT, where
information is a notion that generalizes all elementary particles of cognition,
processed by the human brain and computers. These include data, information,
concept, knowledge and wisdom, as illustrated by the Semantic Ladder (a
flowchart) model in Figure 1.1.
Now on to a definition of the individual units of human cognition, as
illustrated by a decision-making situation in a securities investment portfolio
of equities traded on the New York stock exchange.
 Data. Dow Jones index, of say 10,000 points on a Monday of a given
month and year, will be the data.
 Information. The fact that on the following Tuesday Dow Jones was
8,000 points, that is, 20% less than the day before, will be
information. This is a rather unpleasant kind of information, which
characterizes the change of the index by minus 20%. This information
demands that the investor conceptualizes a new solution.
 Concept may be about the choice of one of three option-concepts.
Because the stocks fell in price and are cheap, a new package of
shares can be bought (C1); in other words, having slumped so much,
they cannot keep falling; another option (C2) will be the sale of one’s
stocks in order not to make bigger losses. Finally, the third solution
(C3) will be neither selling nor buying stocks. Now, having three
concepts/options of a solution, a judgment needs to be made as to
which solution is the best.
6 Andrew Targowski

Paradigm

WISDOM choice

Universal
Knowledge

Global
Knowledge
judgment
Communication Frame

Theoretical
Knowledge

Basic
Knowledge

Concept direction

Information change

Data measurement

event
Existence

Figure 1.1. The Model of Semantic Ladder (Targowski 19011).

 Knowledge is a set of principles, rules and research data which the

investor will make use of in the assessment of each of these options.
Basic knowledge indicates: buy shares when they are cheap and sell
when they are expensive. Theoretical knowledge might indicate that a
decline in the prices of stocks may result from the economy entering a
recession. Global knowledge suggests that a war with state X is
imminent and this fact will increase the needs for the sake of war.
What universal knowledge implies is that when the economy enters a
recession, profits from trading stocks dwindle but money can be made
on trading bills of exchange (bonds).
 From Information Technology to Wisdom 7

 Wisdom. The investor has received an assessment of the situation in

the four categories of knowledge and now has to make a choice
between three options/solutions. Since he would lose by selling the
stocks, he rejects the option C1. As war is coming, and stocks might
increase in value, he does not buy but, rather, decides to keep his
shares and waits. So, they selected the option C3 and time will tell
whether this was a good, and hence wise, choice.

The Semantic Model explains that wisdom is not knowledge; neither is it

information nor data. It is judgment, and the choice of concepts of thinking
and action. Moreover, in order that the concept would be properly formulated,
one needs to be well-informed; that is, one has to have verifiable data. In order
to make a wise assessment, one needs to have good knowledge: basic,
theoretical, global and universal. Not all have such kinds of knowledge, and
therefore their judgments are not wise within a range of knowledge a decision-
making subject has. This is not to say that if one has a wide the range of
knowledge at their disposal, one has a guarantee of a wise judgment. There are
other factors, such as emotions, intuition, luck or a will to implement a wise
action, etc. All that is an art of living. The word ‘art’ used here refers to an
intuitive and innovative approach to the known and right principles of
judgment and an ability to create new principles and breaking the rules,
outdated for the case.
The Theory of Semantic Ladder is a contemporary approach of the 21st
century. It clearly distinguishes wisdom from the remaining units of cognition.
In approaches from centuries ago, wisdom was a concept of the totality of the
wisdom of mankind, which an individual man was incapable of attaining, and
therefore was not wise. In a contemporary psychological approach, wisdom is
an expert attitude, inaccessible to the rank and file. In a cognitive IT approach,
wisdom can be possessed by any sane individual.
An interdisciplinary approach of cognitive informatics to wisdom gives
the contemporary theory of wisdom a reference to the theory of wisdom from
the past, when wisdom was synonymous to all the units of cognition and
resembled, as it were, the medical science from the period when the
microscope was unknown, or it could be compared to physics when an atom
was a homogenous content of matter, rather than made up of elements such as
a proton, electron, etc.
This analytical and complex approach to the theory of wisdom will be
dealt with in the following chapters of this book.
Chapter 2

HISTORY OF RESEARCH ON WISDOM

The history of man’s wisdom is as long as the homo sapiens human race
has been around. Man evolved as a thinking animal thanks to their wisdom, as
they made wise choices that helped them realize the power of mind over the
millions of years (and the recent 6,000 in particular), which enabled the
development of various forms of knowledge and wisdom.
The conscious development of wisdom as a human tool which needs to be
explored and improved initially occurred in religion. It was first the Egyptian
priests, and then the Jewish, Christian, Mayan and now Muslim clergy who
have sought to prove that they have had the monopoly for wisdom because it
originates from divine direction (dogmas). God knows best what is wise for
man.
The wise divine dogmas are available for man in the Talmud, the Bible
and the Quran, only to stick to the earliest monistic Judeo-Christian religion.
The Bible has been understood by many to be an essential, if not the most
important, source of comprehending the role of man on Earth in this life. This
understanding involves man’s wisdom to act upon the moral choice between
good and evil. But this is no human wisdom – it is the kind recommended by
god.
This wisdom of God ought not to be investigated but applied as God
knows better. This is the wisdom of Jerusalem (1,000 BCE) rather than Athens
(750 BCE), which went on to be developed by humans, and Greeks in
particular, on their quest for the truth and beauty. The search for the truth,
initiated by the Greeks, dominated philosophy over nearly the next 2,600
years. The Greeks partly agreed with priests that only God is wise (gods are
wise), with people only able to seek wisdom and love it. This is why they
concluded that what is most important for man is the quest for the absolute
truth and making use of it – a moral determinant of right actions. This
10 Andrew Targowski

contemplative signpost for 2,400 years (since Aristotle) halted human

investigation of applied wisdom, to a great detriment for us, although the
Greek philosophy, with Stoicism and Epicurean thought in particular, took up
(in a passive, adaptive manner) the issue of practical, though inner, freedom:
how to live in the times of a loss of sovereignty. The Greek perspective at
large leans towards abstract neo-Platonic contemplationism from its initial
practical social activism of polis.
In the historical sense, the beginning of an applied wisdom of God dates
back to the Egyptian civilization, i.e. about 3,000 BCE. The Egyptians created
a structural society based on the dynasty of the pharaohs, the power of the
military, administration and writing, for the consolidation of administrative
rules. It was the priests who recorded, and in a way created, these rules. Since
the pharaoh was a demi-god, recommending that these rules be applied came
easy. These recommendations, also called the ma’a system, reflected a set of
truths and righteous conduct, which in all can be said to be the wisdom of a
given pharaoh. Since the priests had knowledge that was theoretical, as it
were, about the cycles of the Nile floods and could predict those, the simple
people were convinced, in their obscurantism, that the priests were middlemen
between them and God. Thanks to this wisdom, Egyptian civilizations
continued for hundreds of years and secured stability for the people.
With time, the adages of the Egyptian civilization were recorded by
specialists such as Ptahotep or Ka-gemini. These maxims gave rise to the so-
called wisdoms of the East, studied by priesthood and administration hopefuls.
These later developed parallel to the Hebraic wisdom, which was a set of
proverbs and responses to typical questions by simple people. The beginnings
of Jewish wisdom ought to be identified with the region of Edan, situated
between the Dead Sea and the Aqaba Peninsula (today’s Jordan), a major
trading center between the peoples living along the Mediterranean and the
East. Trade fostered interpersonal contacts based on attaining economic gains -
- on the right judgment and the right choice, that is, on wisdom. At that time
Edan was inhabited by Kanaanites, a proto-Israelite people. This is where
Israelites settled and apparently adapted much of the wisdom of the people
living there before. This is where King Solomon, famous for his wisdom, lived
about 1,000 BCE.
Wise people were, however, dangerous for the prophets, who sought to
maintain a monopoly on wisdom. When Israelites had to leave their lands in
the first century of the contemporary era, the Jewish wisdom readopted a
religious character and broke with the pragmatism of the books of wisdom,
which provided pragmatic answers to such questions as when one can lie,
 History of Research on Wisdom 11

whether someone selling arms is also responsible for their use, whether a
slandered man can be cleared of infamy or what is fetus if it is not life.
If Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China constituted a coherent Eastern
civilizational region, the Greeks and Romans, living in an essentially mild
Mediterranean climate, were a different, Western civilizational region. The
many Greek islands encouraged sailing and perfecting the relevant sills. The
people travelling between the islands appreciated the right judgments and
choices that led to efficient and good lives: ones sometimes made more
pleasant by poetry and sculpture (i.e. noticing not only wisdom but also
beauty). This is why the Greek heroes, as of approximation, the sixth century
BCE, were philosophers rather than saints, artists or wealthy people. Greeks
singled out Seven Sages: Thales of Miletus, Chilion of Sparta, Bias of Priene,
Periander of Corinth, Solon of Athens, Pittacus of Mytilene and Cleobulus of
Lindos. Plato added two more: Anacharsis – a Scythian philosopher, and
Myson of Chenae. Their sayings were even inscribed on the temple of Apollo
in Delphi. The wise man Bias was reported as saying that “wisdom ought to be
appreciated as a means of travelling from youth to old age as it is more
enduring than any other commodity” (Durant, 1966:141)1.
It is highly probable that the wisdom of the East was taken over by the
travelling Greeks, who were willing to develop it further. Thus, they created
philosophy, which in Greek means the “love of wisdom.” What the Greeks
meant was that, in the accomplishment of life, man should attain wisdom. It
was Thales of Miletus (624-547 BCE) who expressed this hope. He sought to
transform mythos into logos (i.e. myth into science), and pursued universal
knowledge founded upon practical qualifications of people doing various jobs.
He argued that “anything made of water, comes from water and consists of
water.” He was the first to pose the questions, in the classical civilization that
were later to become philosophers’, most important tasks, lasting even until
now.
From Thales onwards, the progress of philosophy – the only science at
that time – has been about gradual development of knowledge on human
thinking. Its first millennium in antiquity (6 century BCE to 4 century CE)
consisted in searching for order in the universe. The philosophers pursuing that
included Thales, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The grand triad of
Greek philosophers – Socrates (470-399 BCE), Plato (427-347 BCE) and
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) – still dominate the world’s philosophy. Socrates was
a master in looking for the truth2, and Plato was an outspoken champion for
the power of ideas, whereas Aristotle was a genius who theoretically
integrated morality, aesthetics, logic, politics, science and metaphysics into
12 Andrew Targowski

one system3. It was Aristotle who called wisdom a virtue, but he only
considered god to be wise; he saw people as stupid, for they do not know the
goal of life, and therefore their choices are not good and, hence, unwise. He
thought that wisdom was a prescription for action and an intellectual virtue
alongside others, such as friendship, justice and understanding. Unlike moral
virtues -- courage, temperance and freedom – he associated human wisdom
with the rational part of the soul, with the latter linked to god, who was the
only truly wise one.
However, the much appreciated wisdom climax, highly esteemed until the
present day, consists of the works of Roman neo-Stoics of 1st and 2nd century
CE: Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, while leaving aside the broad
philosophical issues, highlight man’s negligible role in the world permeated by
the divine order and providence. Still, man is akin to a rational deity, and so
obliged to perfection. The evening-time compunction is somewhat related to
the contemporary of ‘self-management’ theorists’ reflection on whether they
have done all that they planned, without a sense of guilt and sin. So, as Polish
Rev. Jan Maria Bocheński (1992) said in his Podręcznik mądrości tego świata
(Manual of Wisdom of this World), the essence of the wisdom of this world is
a rule of self-governance and sensible planned action, applied to the totality of
man’s life, rather than the sheer fear of god. He had it published even though,
as a Christian, he does not recommend the wisdom of this world “since just
because you profess one faith does not imply that you should not know the
others,” which is in no disagreement with Janusz Kuczyński’s universalistic
principle of multi-level identification and my Spirituality 2.0 [see chapter 13].
In the Middle Ages (6th to 14th centuries CE), philosophers applied
themselves to eternal happiness, i.e. the role of religion in the attainment of
this goal. The Greek science of philosophy turned into scholastics. The fall of
Rome (476 CE) ushered in the dark ages and until the Renaissance (1453)
people, living in the poverty and constant looting prevalent in the nascent
lands of Europe, reached out to God. People massively joined Christian orders
so they could survive in the safety provided by the group. As the adage goes
“fear makes you turn to God.” The leading philosophers of the period include
Gilbert, Roger Bacon and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Modern philosophy (15th to 20th centuries) engrossed itself in the methods
of reasoning, and the passage from existence to cognition, and from religion to
science. However, the issue of wisdom was in a way eliminated from
philosophical research in the last 500 years. This topic seems to be too banal to
philosophers, who chose to close themselves behind the doors of their ivory
towers and ceased to take any interest in day-to-day living. The dominant
 History of Research on Wisdom 13

theme in their studies is the definition of the so-called world outlook. Notably,
any major philosopher does have their worldview. By no means, whatsoever,
can they ever mention another worldview, as if those were not significant any
longer. This might account for philosophy being so different from sciences
such as physics, biology or chemistry, where discoveries and improvements
are built on the preceding achievements. The contemporary physics does not
deny the achievements of Newton, Bohr or Skłodowska-Curie, even though it
has upgraded or outright changed those. The recent 500 years of philosophy
were marked by the ideas of sages such as Giordano Bruno, Copernicus,
Descartes, Galileo, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx,
Kirkegaard, Nietzsche, Bergson, Russel, Whitehead, Carnap, Wittgenstein,
Heidegger, Sartre, Popper, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Kuhn, Derrida, Habermas
and others.
In 1912, the research on wisdom was being conducted by the German
psychologist William Stern, who investigated the Intelligence Quotient in
children and then in adults, especially military recruits. IQ is seen by many as
wisdom, whereas what it really does is assess an individual’s capability of
doing some more complex tasks. It could then be seen as a wisdom ability
index.
In the end of the 20th century, the American psychologist Vivian Clayton
distinguished between three activities determining wisdom: obtaining
cognitive knowledge, reflective analysis of the knowledge and its filtering
with one’s emotions. When she retired, further psychological research was
undertaken in Germany.
In 1980 the German Max Planck Institute started a project on wisdom
research (which can be understood as “taking wisdom down to the lab”) under
the guidance of the German-American psychologist Paul Baltes (1939-2006).
In this Berlin Project, wisdom was recognized as “expert knowledge having a
pragmatic influence on fullness of life4.” The further part of the definition
regarded wisdom as right judgment, refined advice, analysis of psychological
depth, emotion control and committed understanding. However, to the benefit
of the cause, a group of psychologists from that institute was polemic with
philosophers’ perception of wisdom as utopian. They saw wisdom as
unpopular because, having studied 700 people, they did not find anyone wise
among them. They concluded that the development of wisdom reaches its
climax around age 65, while around age 75 the human mind loses its
intellectual capabilities, with a number of exceptions, obviously. The German-
American psychologist Monica Ardelt is in disagreement with the Max Planck
psychologists’ proposition that wisdom is a unique privilege of experts. She
14 Andrew Targowski

thinks that regular people can be wise, too. She continued V. Clayton’s
research in a 3D model that integrated ‘cognition, reflection and emotions.’
To the detriment of the cause, though, the Berlin Project did not launch
any broader empirical research on wisdom in the world. It was only the
American psychologist Robert J. Stenberg from Yale University who
undertook research on wisdom, proving that the investigation of the human
potential cannot conclude with the IQ; it must also reckon with wisdom5.
Wisdom is understood as a successful application of intelligence for the sake
of attaining common good by means of balanced personal, inter-personal and
supra-personal interest, in both short and long term, taking into account
adaptation to the environment, changing, or even selecting a new environment.
Wisdom, he believes, can thus be equated with prudence. This is a lengthy
definition of wisdom, a very complex, and apparently complete one as well. It
is, however, difficult in application and seemingly applies to vital life
situations only.
One of the most recent researchers of wisdom is the American publicist
Stephen Hall, who made a review of wisdom research for the New York Times6
in 2007. He concluded that young people are more pessimistic than the older
ones in expressing their opinions, the reason for that being that the individuals
more advanced in age have encountered more negative situations than the
young, and so they have developed more emotional composure and tend to
regain a balance in their psyche after a negative experience. Still, the author
proposes no definition of wisdom, which he sees as a mystery; the way
wisdom is developed remains a mystery to him, as well. It is hardly surprising
that the most famous Encyclopedia Britannica offers no definition of wisdom,
either.
It is puzzling that neither philosophers nor psychologists should have
taken any notice of the fact that, since the end of World War II (1939-1945),
economic decision-making theorists have developed research on making
optimal decisions, that is, essentially wise ones. A number of pioneers such as
Koompans (1975), Kantorowicz (1975), Simon (1978), and Kahneman (2002)
were even given Nobel Prizes in Economics precisely for elaborating a method
of making best possible decisions. Robert McNamara (2016-2009) devised a
method of deploying various categories of loads among the ships sailing in
Land Lease supply convoys to the UK and Russia. Since these were attacked
by German U-boats, usually several of them sank. The method was about
ensuring that the mix of goods should reach its destination and about avoiding
the same category of items being shipped on one vessel. Was this method not a
wise solution? This is how a discipline of operational research was initiated in
 History of Research on Wisdom 15

industry that e.g. served the purpose of devising such a section of metal sheets
as was necessary to make some parts so that the loss of the raw material would
be minimal. Was this optimal section of sheets not a reflection of the
designer’s wisdom? What about their calculations leading to planning a best
possible timetable of production in order to minimize machine idleness? This,
too, betrays wisdom in decision-making.
As far as calculating optimal decisions in corporate management,
management science has tackled this problem. Methods of linear programming
have been in operation until today for the best possible planning of a
production program so as to manufacture the necessary number of cars of
various models to a maximum company profit or to minimum company
expenditure (but never both at the same time). This is the so-called diet
problem: how many specific kinds of food need to be eaten to secure the
necessary number of proteins and vitamins at the lowest possible cost. Optimal
diet is an expression of wise eating, is it not? Another method of linear
programming, the so-called transportation method, computes the best possible
route of a truck’s journey in shipping goods to shops so that the sum total of
the route will be most cost-effective in terms of labor and fuel, and shortest in
time.
The development of IT in computer architecture is about building ever-
faster computers that would process information as fast as people do.
According to some estimates, such a computer is supposed to be available
around 2025. A question can be asked, though, whether a computer like this
would think wisely, if there is no consensus as to what exactly knowledge is.
Another branch of IT deals with automating decisions by means of artificial
intelligence. AI can automate a well-defined concept of decision, but its
wisdom will never be greater than the wisdom of the designer of such a
computer system. More importantly, it won’t be a wisdom independently
generated by a computer without it being influenced by a human designer.
At the beginning of the 1990s informatics offered data mining from large
databases, which a company such as Walmart collects every day in their
several thousand shops scattered all over the world. This provides a wealth of
information, and even knowledge, about the clients of the company. It appears
that the goods in the highest demand on Monday are nappies and beer because
when, after the weekend, the wife asks her man to replenish the stock of the
disposables that have run out over the weekend, he also makes a point of
buying some beer, which he drank over the same period watching some
sporting events. On the basis of the rules regarding the most popular goods on
Monday, the store manager is ready to make the best decisions – and wise
16 Andrew Targowski

ones at that – concerning these goods. First of all, he must secure their
sufficient stock on Monday; second, he could place those in the same shelves
if he liked to facilitate the job to the customers. However, if he wished to
maximize the company’s turnover, he would place those along aisles far away
from each other to provoke the customers to buy other stuff upon an impulse,
too, on their way from the nappies shelf to the one with beers, or the other way
round. Aren’t the decisions of that manager wise?
At the beginning of the 21st century an IT discipline began to emerge,
called cognitive informatics7. Until then, the science dealt with vocational
applications, such as computerizing engineering jobs, process control systems
(air traffic or production control) and organizations (administration, business,
university, etc.). Cognitive informatics, in turn, investigates the effect of IT on
the cognition of the increasing knowledge (i.e. generally speaking on the
informed behavior) of man. On the basis of his model of Semantic Ladder
(1990), which defines the data-information-concept-knowledge-wisdom
hierarchy, the present author has set out to formulate the interdisciplinary
theory of wisdom (2011), probably the most important virtue of man, resulting
from the ever improving cognition of the world and life situations.
The undersigned has founded his theory of wisdom on the following
assumptions:
1. Any sane person can make wise decisions throughout their lifetime,
from childhood to old age. Surely, the quality of such wisdom
changes over the individual’s life and the historical time of the
civilization, such as what was wise in the 19th century need not be
wise in the 21st century.
2. Wise decisions need not be expert in nature – they are wise in a
specific situation, not necessarily the wisest ever.
3. Wisdom ought to be defined in such terms as to be understood not
only by experts but by an average man. Seen from this standpoint,
wisdom is good judgment and choice in the context of the art of
living. One can imagine someone very knowledgeable but unwise.
The reverse can be true, too. Right judgment alone is insufficient,
then, for the right choice to be made: emotions, intuition, will, the
historical time of the civilization, and many other factors come into
play, that is, the factors that can be universally characterized as the art
of living, which stem not only from well-defined principles but also
from vaguely seen rules or outright new principles, necessary for the
situation and time.
 History of Research on Wisdom 17

4. Wisdom is not synonymous to intelligence. Intelligence is a capacity

for wisdom, whereas wisdom is the final quality of a decision-making
situation, whether it should control action or the subsequent mental
processes.
5. The wisdom of a given human being decides between two systems
controlling man: the biological evolution (by the cross-generational
chain of genes) and spirituality, whose acquired system of virtues and
values influences the actions of man (the idea was put forward by the
psychologist Marek Celiński of Toronto).
6. Wisdom has a range of bandwidth and properties. From the simplest
to the highest: practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, global wisdom
and universal wisdom. Someone who has these wisdoms has a greater
range of possibilities to come out with good judgment and choice. But
this is a potential range rather than a conditio sine qua non of
demonstrating absolute wisdom in a specific situation. A farmer
usually knows that there is “silence before a storm” and can find the
time to drive a tractor into the garage. He need not have any
theoretical knowledge on climate warming or cooling either locally
(say, in Poland) or in the Antarctic; neither will they know how that
could affect floods in Australia.
7. Knowledge on what constitutes wisdom is not the same as the process
of becoming a wise man. Without good life practices, one cannot be a
truly wise man. This does not mean that man cannot make wise
decisions at a young age or even in childhood. One will be called wise
when the balance of their life is positive and results from a number of
wisely taken decisions over their lifespan, since even people
considered wise can happen to make unwise decisions at times.
8. Wisdom ought to be taught in schools and at colleges, since if one
waits until old age to become wise, it is commonly too late to redirect
ones unwise behavior into a wise life, particularly that wisdom, to
quote Aristotle, is an intellectual virtue, i.e. a cognitive one rather than
something innate, as is the case with courage, which you either have
or have not.
9. Wisdom is a certain kind of information.
10. Wisdom is the most important civilizational resource and should be
monitored in a way that is similar or even better than the way you
18 Andrew Targowski

monitor the use of energy, the development of population or other

resources.

Further deliberations in the subsequent chapters of this book will develop

the above premises of human wisdom in their civilized life. Therefore you too,
dear Reader, are wise, since I assume that you, too, have made a number of
wise decisions in your life. If this is not really so, you should hope you can be
wise as long as you are capable of good judgments and choices in the context
of your art of living, even if the contemporary readers are under the influence
of the civilization in which they live. The problem is that the contemporary
civilization, particularly the Western variety, is not faring very well in this 21st
century, which will be discussed in the next chapter, and the wisdom of
civilization has considerably eroded.
Chapter 3

APPLIED WISDOM
If man is a rational being (rationale animal), it is only insofar as his
whole civilization is a rational civilization,(…),and which now of necessity
consciously directs human becoming.

Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences

Although the theory of wisdom was not taken up by science, it is not to

say that people and their domains are not wise. The success of civilization
results exactly from people’s wisdom, however one must admit that not all
people are wise. Wise people tend not to realize they are wise. This kind of
people are usually said to have achieved success. Does it not take wisdom to
be successful? The following is to analyze the manifestations of wisdom
demonstrated in civilization;

 Societal specializations that have a powerful impact on people’s

behavior: religion, justice and medicine,
 Intellectuals, writers and philosophers who lead civilization,
 Scientific methods that are studied at universities,
 Prominent politicians, businessmen, scientists, engineers, doctors,
artists and others.

There appears to be no civilized man who did not encounter religion. Even
unbelievers made a decision in terms of faith after having some deeper insights
into it. Since we broke with pagan religions and, for as long as we have been
20 Andrew Targowski

dealing with monistic religions, we have known that they teach that the path to
good action leads through prudence and telling right from wrong -- morality.
The wisdom of the spiritual man is then about moral judgment and a prudent
choice of comportment.
The administration of justice is a civil set of rules of how to avoid conflict
and crime in society. Every member of society must reckon with the law if
they cherish freedom. In the Western Civilization it was assumed that a wise
law should be administered prudently in order to attain the same effect when
applied in like situations. The law in the USA is guided by nearly Solomon-
like wisdom when it prefers a possible culprit to avoid conviction (due to
doubts surfacing over trials) rather than allowing an innocent one to be
convicted.
In medicine, it was as long ago as at the time of the Greek Hippocrates (5th
century BC) that an oath for physicians was introduced that held “primum non
nocere,” that is, “first, do no harm.” The progress of medicine in the 20th and
21st centuries had doctors facing extremely difficult decisions to be taken in
order to save a patient’s life, such as salvaging the life of a mother at the
expense of the life of the baby, or the application of chemotherapy, which can
destroy cancer but can also damage other organs. Other decisions can be
mentioned, such as those related to a termination of life support, genetic
engineering, transplantations or cloning. These require wisdom guided by
morality – a choice between saving or harming a patient. In other words, a
doctor ought to be moral and prudent, applying some treatment protocols
rather than innovations, particularly those untested. It is also known from
practice that a good doctor (read: a wise one), in order to arouse trust in their
treatment methods, ought to be well-mannered at the patient’s bed or, to put it
more universally, must be polite when examining the patient.
Summing up, one can assume that the wisdom of religion, administration
of justice and medicine (healthcare) consists in morality and prudence. It
follows that a priest, lawyer or physician ought to make moral and prudent
decisions if they want to be wise. At least this is what society expects of them.
It is known from the practice of contemporary life that priests of organized
religion often act neither morally nor prudently. Their excuse tends to be that
they are the same sorts of citizens as others in the society. They thus imply that
the rest of society is immoral and reckless, so they form no exception to the
rule. They tend to forget that their mission and calling to priesthood is
supposed to be precisely about preaching morality and prudence to their
faithful, who earn them a living by contributing to the collection tray.
 Applied Wisdom 21

The immorality of the priests of organized religion can be illustrated by

the example of a certain district in the State of Michigan where the author
lives. At the turn of the century, there were four priests from Poland working
there. Several years later, four of them lost their jobs, one of them having been
convicted to one year’s imprisonment, one was expelled from the Church and
two others were simply denied entry to their workplace in the district. In
Chicago in 2012; a very popular Polish priest gathered several candidates to
sainthood and, incidentally, took over their homes, only to disappear from
Chicago “like a stone thrown into water.” Even the American press wrote
volumes on the unexpected end to the Church career of that very popular
priest.
These are, arguably, uncommon cases, but their sum total makes the
Western Civilization collapse because the Christian values have disappeared
from it. They have been replaced by the values of the Global Civilization,
constituted by the global business and its drive to money at all cost. Statistics
testify to that. Only 19.6% in France and 28.2% in Germany admit believing in
God. In Poland there are as many as 72.9% of Roman Catholics but only
26.7% go to church regularly on the days typical for that religion. Only 7.5%
in France and 13.6% in Germany are church-goers (data from 1999-2002)1. In
some parishes in Ireland, only 2% of registered Catholics go to church, since it
is a protest to some covered up sexual scandals of high-profile Catholic
clerics2.
The situation is similar among the American Protestants, which is best
illustrated in the book by the Episcopalian bishop of Newark, John Shelby
Spong Why Christianity Must Change or Die (1998). This church has changed
in a way the Roman Catholic Church could have changed if Pope Benedict
XVI had followed the advice of his progressive theologians. The Episcopalian
Church has slackened its belief in dogmas, is friendly towards unions of
various sexes, is open to the possible convergence of ideas with other churches
and faiths and does not have a rigid stance on theology in confrontation with
the challenges of social policies, such as birth control. Despite the radical
changes, there is a slump in the attendance in the holy mass (comparative data
in 2000-2010). No diocese demonstrated a rise in church attendance2.
The reason is not only the growing consumerism but also materialism and
multiculturalism, which are responsible for the collapse of churches in the
USA. The believers, both Catholics and Protestants, are usually politically
conservative but very shallow in theology. They tend to embrace the gospel of
‘health and wealth’ rather than the message of the New Testament. Despite
22 Andrew Targowski

Protestant and, to a certain extent, Catholic willingness to adapt to the social

challenge, this has no bearing to the level of interest in faith.
Progressive Catholicism in the USA is incapable of securing an influx of
candidates to female orders, which adversely affects hospitals, as an increasing
number of Catholic hospitals are taken over by lay administrators, to the
detriment of the hosts of poor patients.
Do the examples of promoting a liberal faith and its collapse seem to
demonstrate that there should be some return to traditional dogmas, quite often
unintelligible to well-educated people? As implied by this synthetizing
analysis, the issue is a rather complex one. There is no doubt that the
civilization of spirituality is falling, as the aggressive consumerism and
materialism kills noble and moral bonds between people and leads to
bombings, population growth, ecological problems and the exhaustion of
strategic resources.
In this process of the moral collapse of the West, the supreme authorities
of the Roman Catholic Church are extremely slow in the correction of the
deviations and immorality among priests. Its effects are so serious outside of
the Church that its pontiffs probably hardly realize the scale of the problem.
The church that has survived 2,000 years thanks to its wisdom (prudence), but
is unable to keep demonstrating it. Welfare not only morally destroys the lay
partakers of the Western Civilization, but it also makes many priests and their
superiors mindless, which hardly anyone might have expected.
The issue of morality is particularly arguable among lawyers, that is,
prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys. Surely, making sweeping
statements on morality judgments within that profession is hardly
recommendable and might fail to do lawyers justice. None the less, a long list
of cases and sentences can be put forward that were motivated politically or
biased by money, and were far from moral and prudent solutions. The dodgy
nature of the profession of a defense attorney, who is capable of arguing both
ways, if profitable for them, is well-known in society.
The issue of morality and prudence is best practiced among physicians,
particularly in the Western Civilization. The fact that these professionals have
to do with the life and death of patients makes them do the job well, because
the judgment of the state of health is carried out on the basis of solid
theoretical and practical knowledge, which will have been obtained not only as
part of their own practice, but learned in rigorous internships following
medical studies, and mandatory life education, or else they risk their license
being withheld, as is the case in the USA. The choice of treatment or its
termination is made in liaison with other specialists and the family. There are
 Applied Wisdom 23

in fact exceptions, and felonious ones at that, such as the notorious German
doctor Mengele, who experimented on the prisoners of the Auschwitz Nazi
death camp, or those who kill terminally sick patients stealthily in hospitals
(known cases in the USA). These include the paramedics of the Lodz
emergency service who, instead of saving the sick, killed them with lethal
injections to increase the turnover of certain undertakers who were paying
them commissions. Sure, these exceptions appear insignificant, when seen
against the background of well or even perfectly treated patients, who are
cured by wise doctors.
Praise is to medics for when immoral and imprudent priest and lawyer
fail, at least one can statistically count on wise doctors. This kind of optimism
may be corroborated by the fact that thanks to the wisdom of medical science
and physicians, the last millennium has seen life expectancy in the Western
Civilization treble whereas in the Islamic Civilization – say, in Afghanistan –
where healthcare is low quality, the average life expectancy is only 38 years,
that is, 50% longer that it used to be 1,000 years ago.
The wisdom of intellectuals, writers and philosophers is of vital
significance to the population at large, as these prominent thinkers lead
societies, nations, states and civilizations. The products of their wisdom
include informing their societies on their state, development of global trends
and concepts, that is, usually the ideas that should emend the existing state of
affairs. They present their ideas in writing in the examples of wise reasoning,
which justifies the solutions being offered.
The role of the intellectuals (including writers and philosophers) is a new
one in the new societies. So far, it was the priests, scribes and even court
jesters who stimulated people’s consciousness. The intellectuals as the social
avant guarde dates back to the French Revolution (1789). This was when the
French philosophers, such as Jean-Jacque Rousseau (1712-1778) educated the
French elite in Parisian salons as to the need to overthrow monarchy and make
the king’s subjects turn independent citizens. Their American friends (Thomas
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and others) learned the new ideas
in France and set the scene for the American Revolution (1776) or provided its
rationale in the post-revolutionary period. In the next age, that is, in the 19th
century, Karl Marx (1818-1883) laid the intellectual foundations for the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 with his Capital (1867) and the Communist
Manifesto, written together with Frederic Engels.
In the Polish People’s Republic (1945-1989), the regime took excellent
care of intellectuals (poets and writers in particular) in order that they would
glorify the dictatorship of the proletariat. The authorities made perfect use of
24 Andrew Targowski

the national sentiment of disillusionment, with Poland having been betrayed in

Yalta (6 Feb., 1945) by the West, which was the price the West paid the
Soviets for their help in defeating Japan. The ideological sway the Soviet
regime long held on its people ended upon Nikita Khrushchev’s speech, made
at the General Assembly of the Party in 1956, when he subjected the Stalinist
regime to stinging criticism. In the same year in Poland, the criticism of the
system was undertaken by the intellectuals gathered round the student journal
Po prostu. The following riots by the Warsaw Politechnique students in
October, 1956, led to the overthrow of the Stalinist regime. The ground for the
abolition of Stalinism had been made in the publications and riots in Poznan in
the June of 1956, but the Warsaw Politechnique unrest provided the catalyst
that gave rise to the VIII Plenum of the Party, which chose Władysław
Gomułka as its I Secretary, until then considered a liberal and kept in home
detention. Alas, in the course of the time spent in power, Gomułka changed
from a liberal into a ‘policeman.’
Since then the role of the intellectuals in the fighting of the Soviet rule in
Poland substantially increased. It turned out that the biggest enemy of the
Communist idea was the idea of democracy and its promoters. In the USSR,
such promoters included B. Pasternak, A. Solzhenitsyn, prof. A. Sakharov and
others.
In the Polish People’s Republic, before the Solidarity Revolution came
about (1980-1989), and especially after the overthrow of Gomułka in the
aftermath of the events of the December of 1970 and the takeover by Edward
Gierek (a re-emigrant from Belgium and France, and so pro-Western), the
process of continual intellectualizing of the Polish society continued. There
was a conviction that “we are capable of more” and that the mongolization of
the Polish society needed to be broken; rather, the society needed intense
westernizing, which would be simply a comeback to the state of affairs in
1939. This was expressed with the publications in Życie i Nowoczesność, a
weekly supplement to Życie Warszawy, (The Life of Warsaw), under Stefan
Bratkowski, the editor-in-chief, whose roots were in the weekly Po prostu and
its role in 1956. Also, the present author, who signed his texts with MAT
(from check-mate in chess), had his column “My worker -- computer” there. A
number of wise intellectual code texts were at that time written by Andrzej
Bober.
Those days there were no prospects of the downfall of the USSR, which
fared well enough to plan an all-out Warsaw Pact’s assault of Western Europe.
There was none of this idea that ‘the worse it is, the better’ as today’s young
Polish revolutionaries would have it, criticizing everything and everyone in the
 Applied Wisdom 25

Third Republic, for which they risk no consequences. At that time the intra-
regime opposition was made up of intellectuals who wanted better living
conditions for Poland. Two books promoted such ideas Gra o jutro (A Game
for Tomorrow) by Stefan and Andrzej Bratkowski and Informatyka klucz do
dobrobytu (Information Technology: the Key to Prosperity) by Andrzej
Targowski. The wisdom of the intellectuals of that time was about smuggling
the ideas of western democracy and technology in undercover, in such ways as
to make it possible for society to suspect something written between the lines
of texts which, if straightforward about things, would never have been allowed
through by censorship. Further actions by intellectuals got complicated once
the regime became successful in breaking them up and limiting their influence
on society in the official media with the manipulation of truth, typical for
totalitarian authorities.
However, the role of intellectuals in society grew by means of launching
the so-called underground circulation of printed media since the regime was
unable to meet the buoyant aspirations of the Poles of the 1970s. The wisdom
of the then intellectuals, such as Leszek Moczulski, Adam Michnik,
Broniosław Geremek and others, was that they knew that intelligentsia alone
could not change the dictatorship of the Polish People’s Republic.
The industrial working class had to be made more activist. The KOR
committee for the defense of workers was a challenge to the dictatorship of the
proletariat in Poland. Workers exploited by the dictatorial power -- allegedly
in their own name and on their behalf -- gained in the intellectuals of the day
effective and wise allies. This resulted in the Revolution of Solidarity (Polish
Revolution) in 1980-1989 and the abolition of the dictatorship of the Polish
People’s Republic. The wisdom of intellectuals and their disciples – workers –
won the day. This was a rare example of applied wisdom in the history of
practicing politics in the 1000+ years of complicated Polish history.
The role of intellectuals on the other side of the Iron Curtain, that is, in the
United States, was about maintaining the status quo – in the defense of
democracy and Capitalism against any form of penetration by Communism.
After the victory of the allied forces and the USSR over Germany, Italy and
Japan in 1945, there were fears that the popular Uncle Joe, i.e. Joseph Stalin
would want to expand his influence outside of the Soviet Union, which did
happen first in relation to Eastern Europe and then China, Korea, Vietnam and
Cuba. The West was most fearful that Communism might take root in the USA
and Western Europe, where there were communist parties.
The response to the Communist threat was the doctrine of containing
Communism, formulated by G. Kennan in 1946. The doctrine was a
26 Andrew Targowski

modification, as it were, of the ‘cordon sanitaire’ which the USSR was

surrounded with in 1920. The doctrine gave Pres. Harry Truman the
motivation to create NATO, whereas it gave Presidents J. F. Kennedy and L.
Johnson premises to deploy the USA troops in Vietnam. Only President D.
Eisenhower broke off with it, when he denied support to the Hungarian Rising
of 1956, whereas Pres. R. Nixon sought Détente in order to stop the Warsaw
Pact invading Western Europe. This policy was suggested by the intellectual
H. Kissinger, a former university professor.
The sum total of wise intellectualist endeavor in the East and the West had
led to the commitment of a broad spectrum of workers, forming the Solidarity
free trade unions, for the sake of contesting the totalitarian dictatorship in
Poland in the 1980s, with the resulting demolition of Communism in Eastern
Europe and the USSR in 1981-1991.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain in 1991,
President George Bush Sr. declared the New World Order, but neither he nor
anyone else could explain what it was about at the moment. The help of the
intellectual Fukuyama was about publishing the popular The End of History…5
in 1992, which erroneously promised a return to the ideals of the French
Revolution, and a triumph of democracy in the world, for there being no better
ideology. The sequence of events in global history that followed did not prove
the book right; rather, it led to the development of terrorism and chaos. It was
only the Harvard professor and intellectual S. Huntington4 who, in his famous
1993 Foreign Affairs paper, declared that the world was descending into a
Clash of Civilizations, i.e. the conflict of value systems.
The example of Fukuyama shows that intellectuals can be wrong. They
sometimes write their books too fast. Fukuyama published his book a year
after the Iron Curtain was brought down, so he could not have had the right
time perspective to go on with such optimistic forecasts.
Similarly doubtful is the part Th. Friedman played when – impressed by
the great success of the Internet in the globalization of the world in the early
21st century -- he published The World Is Flat in 20053. He argued that every
American can, and even ought to, give their job to someone in China or India
because it would be done more cheaply and quickly. What he did not explain
was what the American would then do. He did not clarify what advantage
being jobless would bring to that American or the United States.
The author did not cease to write his column to the New York Times, nor
did he go touring the world to relax after the effort of writing the book. He
could afford that as he is married to a billionaire. This book speeded up the
 Applied Wisdom 27

‘outsourcing’ of jobs to Asia, which caused violent degradation of the

American middle class and the crisis of the turbo-Capitalism in 2008-2012.
Impressed by this crisis, the same intellectual, as if driven by a sense of
guilt (though never confessed) published another book in 2011, That Used To
Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can
Come Back3, where he sets out to prove that there is a lot of work in the USA;
it is only that the candidates have to excel in education.
The American society must indeed excel in education if 27.5% of
employees or potential employees have completed higher education7 (say, in
Poland the proportion is 18%) and, according to Friedman, when each
American completes college, they will be employed. If that were about a small
country, one could consider the proposition potentially true, but the workforce
in the USA is 150 million and most of those people will never graduate from a
university, at least not in the present times. This bestselling author fools his
readership, including politicians, with a lack of analytical knowledge. He
probably should supplement his education in order to stop writing nonsense.
The example of Fukuyama demonstrates that intellectuals need not be
uncritically trusted. Sometimes they write too fast to make it to the Top Ten
TV Guests, or their concepts are otherwise under-researched in terms of
judgment and the choice of solutions. These two authors cannot be charged
with being badly informed, but one could say they are lacking in theoretical,
global and universal knowledge in the elaboration of wise judgment and
choices, and prove unable to use the method of critical thinking. Although F.
Fukuyama is a highly-esteemed professor and an inquisitive scientific author,
the end-of-time prophecy simply failed. Just 20 years after, instead of the
predicted dominance of the Western Civilization, it forsakes Christian values
and becomes transformed into a Global Civilization. And history starts anew
instead of finishing.
Writers usually take more time to pen their books than do intellectuals –
sometimes years -- with some exceptions such as Balzac. Global literature is
vast, the majority is mediocre books, but each country usually has a wise
author who has inspired his broad readership. England, and the rest of the
world, too, is proud of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), whose wisdom has
survived to the present day in the masterly analysis of human characters and
their participation in the struggle between good and evil. This strife was
possibly most fully rendered by the French author Victor Hugo (1802-1883) in
his masterpiece Les Miserables, where the policeman Javert is chasing the
convict Jean Valjean.
28 Andrew Targowski

The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), living in a period of

extreme hardship in Ireland, where poverty led to the so-called potato famine,
was a wise moralist. He claimed that one cannot be happy if one has not
caused happiness, in the same way as you cannot use riches if you have not
created those. The American Mark Twain (1835-1910) was a wise observer of
the nascent United States of America, and made judgments on human behavior
in crisis situations – and there indeed was more crisis than stability in those
days -- through the spectacles of humor. He thought that it was better to keep
your mouth shut and keep people uncertain whether you are an idiot, rather
than open your mouth and deprive people of this uncertainty. Twain’s wisdom
and cleverness gave rise to a book (Ayres 1987) 8. His rich experience in the
many jobs he did yielded plenty of his wise and universally quoted adages.
Russia is proudest of Leo Tolstoy (1829-1910), who created wonderful
works of art, such as War and Peace or Anna Karenina. His heroes struggled
with amorality and a sense of guilt in the context of social situations. The
writer regarded himself as a successor of the mission of the Christ, and thought
his calling was to make Russians repent and live moral lives. He considered
himself a teacher of wisdom and published a book on his wisdom, A Calendar
of Wisdom, in 1908. Some believe that his writing output, which emphasized
his compatriots’ (and, more generally, human) immorality, contributed to the
outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Although the author was an
aristocrat and behaved like one, he died in poverty and loneliness.
Poland, which out of more than a millennium of its history had just about
two centuries that were relatively crisis-free, produced great, wise poets and
writers, four of whom were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: Henryk
Sienkiewicz, 1905, Władysław Reymont, 1924, Czesław Miłosz, 1980, and
Wisława Szymborska, 1996. These authors did have topics to write about, as
human misery (such as Poles’) is more dramatic than the life in prosperity, and
possibly boredom, as is the case with, say, the Swiss. The wisdom of these
people was about motivating their Compatriots to greater efforts for a better
life. Sienkiewicz wrote “To Raise the Spirit.” Miłosz developed the theme of
the enslavement of mind in Communism. The national bards, such as Adam
Mickiewicz (1798-1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849), Zygmunt Krasiński
(1812-1859) sought to raise their fellow countrymen’s spirit and reminded
them that freedom must be fought for. When Adam Mickiewicz called upon
the Compatriots to “make their strength match their intentions rather than
make intentions match the strength,” though, his ideas -- as seen from a
contemporary perspective -- not only seemed unwise, but also caused great
harm to the Polish people.
 Applied Wisdom 29

In conclusion, the wisdom of intellectuals, writers and philosophers has

been about novel or deeper argument leading from crisis to success, featuring
the struggle between good (success) and evil (crisis).
The wisdom of great intellectuals and writers is of an utmost significance,
as it marks new avenues for social life, and therefore unwise intellectuals (and
there are such and have been included in this text) are extremely dangerous for
society as they lead it astray.
Scientific methods leading to wisdom are still nascent. Indeed, it can be
reiterated that philosophical wisdom is chiefly a privilege of philosophers
themselves, who can sometimes quote some sage or another in what they think
of wisdom. However, a university student taking a general course in
philosophy will not be told what wisdom is. Philosophy may have devoted the
20th century for the development of logical thinking, but it is not tantamount to
wise thinking. It is, for sure, its basis.
The theory of making economic decisions has dealt with optimal decision-
making (close to wise) since World War II, that is, for the most part of its
existence. Yet, the focus has been mainly quantitative, which means that its
applications for everyday and social life (such as politics) are limited. Since
the initiation of the Berlin Project in the early 1980s, psychologists set about
approaching wisdom in a scholarly manner. One can hope that they will move
from the temporary vertical investigation of wisdom, to horizontal,
transdisciplinary research. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, cognitive
informatics commenced research on wisdom. None of these studies went
beyond the ‘laboratory’ and preliminary publications. There has been a tiny
breakthrough, though, as the first interdisciplinary course – Wisdom – was
offered by the Western Michigan University in the spring of 2012 for the
students of Lee Honors College. It was the first time a formal course on
wisdom had been offered in that university, and probably in the whole of the
USA. At least this is what Google searches say. The present author was a
lecturer.
Recapitulating this attempt to answer the question of how research
methods of investigating wisdom and university practices influence the
development of wisdom among students and alumni, it can be said that the
influence is minimal, if not outright negligible. Also, it ought to be borne in
mind that in business schools and MBA programs, a lecture in the theory of
optimal decision-making is an elective since colleges do not mean to
discourage students from taking their courses – these are heavily loaded
mathematics already, and today’s students dislike the subject and the mental
effort it involves. In the failing Western Civilization, a student nourishes an
30 Andrew Targowski

expectation that college will be “fun, no logic and instructor will be nice.”
Whatever can be said about scientific methods taught in colleges – particularly
business colleges – they do teach balancing various interests because business
and (especially) administrative management is about satisfactory decision-
making at best, and is constrained by a number of conditions and resources.
Be that as it may, the spectacular progress of the Western Civilization
results from the fact that it was developed by wise people. So, people do
practice wisdom, with prominent businessmen, scholars, engineers, physicians,
artists, politicians, generals in particular, but not only. Indeed, these great
individuals are successful people, who succeeded thanks to their wisdom. It is
often claimed that they achieved success thanks to their being sly; this is a
simplification, though. Being clever is not enough to make one a great
engineer or artist – you also need to have some proven concepts of solving
problems. Without those, judgment and choice (i.e. wisdom) cannot be
successfully applied.
The next chapter will set out to analyze some prominent individuals in
terms of their wisdom. At this point it will merely be stated that the wisdom of
each of the categories of prominent people is about a creative concept of
action that leads to good judgment and a choice of behavior. A great
businessman will thus be an individual who spotted a market niche – a demand
for a new product or service. In 2012, the list of top global business people
featured a young woman who introduced the spandex fiber to stockings and
clothes, which make the people who wear those garments, look more
attractive. She started from investing all her savings ($5,000) several years
ago.
The wisdom of the IT mega-tycoon Bill Gates was about knowing that an
easy operating system would be applied in millions of computers. And so it
happened. He preferred to develop his small company – Microsoft – rather
than accept the offer to head the great and prestigious IBM Corporation, which
found itself in crisis in the 1980s.
The examples of applied wisdom – at least in the Western Civilization –
reach the consciousness of those within its bounds in a number of forms.
These include schools, colleges, media, books, discussions, the home, where
youths are brought up, and where various conversations take place. In this
way, examples of applied wisdom reach regular people and make wisdom
practiced in society, perhaps more intuitively than consciously, though. This
process is illustrated by the model of applying wisdom in the Western
Civilization, shown in Figure 3.1.
 Applied Wisdom 31

Religion

Justice Morality
Medicine
and
Prudence
Balancing Interests

Methods
Intelectuals Outstanding
and Factors

Writers People

Reasoning Conceptualization

Applied Wisdom in Western Civilization

Morality Prudence Reasoning Conceptualization
Balancing Interests and Factors
Good Judgment and Choice

Figure 3.1. Applied Wisdom in Western Civilization.

In conclusion of the discussion of wisdom as practiced in society, the

situation can be likened to the burgess Jourdain in the play by Molière, who
did not realize that he spoke in verse. A great many people act wisely without
knowing what wisdom is.
Chapter 4

WISE PEOPLE
In the chapter on applied wisdom I concluded that wise people are marked
by their capability of powerful conceptualization and their choice of
appropriate solutions. Allow me to trace their concepts and the impact they
made upon the society. An analysis will follow of some examples of wise
intellectuals, writers, politicians, generals, businessmen, engineers, scientists
and artists.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a philosopher of politics, and
presented his creed in The Social Contract (Du contract social, 1762), where
he defined the subsequent motto of the French Revolution (1789): “Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity.” He claimed that man is born free and only later they
get “shackled” by life. He even thought that the 18th century progress in
science and arts brings man into servitude rather than freedom (A Discourse on
the Arts and Sciences, 1750), which to a degree proves true 250 years after, in
the 21st century. He was the first intellectual to attack the right to own an
estate, which was a criticism of the achievements of the English Revolution of
1688. He undermined the proposition that the majority is always right. His
wisdom was about an in-depth comprehension of the limitations of the
principles that characterized the development of the French society at that
time. He himself was able to promote the idea which led to the Great French
Revolution that made man free rather than a subject of a ruler. He also
authored the bill of the Polish Constitution that was adopted by the Sejm on
May 3, 1791, and which was so progressive for the day that it led to the
partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1795.
Samuel Huntington (1927-2008), a sociologist and political scientist
who – upon the downfall of Communism and the emergence of the New
World Order (NWO) – defined this situation in a way that astonished everyone
34 Andrew Targowski

by holding true years after. The term was introduced by the optimistic
president George Bush, Sr.; however, the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers
questioned this optimistic attitude by the senior of the Presidents Bush. The
world lost a sense of security. The cause of the attack on New York and the
growing global turmoil was not understood. As things were, S. Huntington
published the famous paper The Clash of Civilizations in the prestigious
bimonthly journal Foreign Affairs in 1993, followed by the book of the same
title in 1996. His wisdom is about defining the essence of the New World
Order, where there is no war on terror but, rather, a conflict between the
civilizations of Islam, the West and the East (in the South of Russia). It is a
religious war of sorts, because it involves a clash of different value systems.
Stefan Bratkowski (1934--). Since 1956 he worked on the editorial board
of Po prostu, which provoked the student revolt at the Warsaw University of
Technology in 1956, putting an end to Stalinism in the Polish People’s
republic in the late 1960s. His book Księga wróżb prawdziwych [a Book of
True Fortune Telling] became widely popular as it predicted the future created
by the progress of science and technology. With his brother, Andrzej, he wrote
the book Gra o jutro [a Game Played for Tomorrow], which questioned the
way in which the economy of the Polish People’s Republic functioned,
popularized western experience in management and called for the
reinstatement of money as a measure of efficiency in place of the
implementation of plans. As of May, 1970, he was the editor of the Thursday
supplement to Życie Warszawy – Życie i Nowoczesność – which turned into an
almost symbolic organ of common sense and “opposition through constructive
criticism,” only to be disbanded in 1973. Together with Bogdan Gotowski and
Andrzej Wielowiejski, he subsequently organized a seminar called
“Experience and Future” [Doświadczenie i Przyszłość, DiP]. Upon the ban on
public discussions imposed on it, the caucus – now deprived of leadership,
statute and membership list – carried out surveys, and on this basis prepared
influencial reports. The first report – On the Plight of the Republic and the
ways of its emendation – came out in 1979. The independent publishing house
NOWA undertook to publish the book with massive circulation; it also
published the other reports by DiP, which were subsequently broadcast by the
Polish Section of Radio Free Europe. DiP played an important role in shaping
the public opinion in the period immediately preceding the formation of
“Solidarity,” as well as in establishing the theoretical and political foundation
for the systemic transformations in Poland.
Following the introduction of the martial law in Poland on 13 Dec.,
1981, he actively supported the illegal anti-Communist opposition. In 1987 he
 Wise People 35

co-organized the so-called Group of Sixty, consisting of Polish intellectuals,

members of “Solidarity” governing bodies and disbanded scholarly and artistic
associations and also co-authored their appeal, signed before the subsequent
pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to Poland. He then played an active part in the
Lech Wałęsa Civic Committee and in the Round Table talks on associations.
Stefan Bratkowski is the Polish J. J. Rousseau and his wisdom is about
constructive criticism of the authorities in the name of the truth and freedom,
backed by courageous and uncompromising attitude.

The wisdom of prominent intellectuals surfaces in times of hardship and

is about proposing ideas that change the old social paradigm into a new one.
Ideas of this kind originate from the ability to see the situation in big picture
– wise intellectuals aspire to spiritual leadership of society and providing
relevant admonition; this result in lasting intellectual achievement and a
permanent influence on the people.

Unwise intellectuals must be mentioned, as well. These usually propose

extremist ideas, which stem from once-applied fundamentalism which is no
longer suitable. Their understanding stems from a small-picture approach and
a limited comprehension of the situation, which usually make dangerous
advice.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a writer, after 400 years perceived
to be the most prominent author of civilization, who offers perfect judgment of
human character. His wisdom is about excellent grasp of social dynamics and
human struggle with good and evil.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) is considered a humorist and novelist who based
the wisdom of his literary protagonists on his own rich experience: he would
do the jobs of a typesetter, riverboat pilot and even a miner. He expresses
people's wisdom in adages, such as “report of my death was an exaggeration.”
He is among the few people (coupled by Tolstoy) on whom wisdom books
have been written1.

The wisdom of prominent writers is about making their readership

interested in their own understanding of the conflict between good and evil as
well as between the aspirations and the tragedy of his heroes. It is motivated
by a desire to communicate a necessary message – at a time when such a
message is necessary – to the readers and the broader society in particular.
36 Andrew Targowski

Unwise writers are guided by a short-term financial success, bloated ego

and shrewdness. They write literature rid of value and have an adverse effect
on the readers.
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was the 40th President of the USA in 1981-
1989. An actor by profession, specializing in playing the parts of lovers and
adorers, he was also an activist and president of an actors' trade union, and the
Governor of California (1967-1975). He was no novice in matters of politics
and management, and neither was he regarded as an intellectual or erudite, but
he was excellent in communicating his ideas. The ideas were defined in plain
terms and communicated to the people with a superb gift of performance. He
did so in a manner that was extremely pleasant to the listeners – they
immediately liked him and apparently agreed with the arguments by default.
In his adult life, he witnessed the spread of Communism, and as a
politician participated in the Cold War (1947-1989/91). So, as a president of a
superpower, he had resolved to defeat Communism. His policies were
basically about “limited government and a world without Communism.” He
applied to it his masterly rhetoric and started the confrontation by dubbing the
USSR the “Evil Empire.” This term traversed the world in an instant and made
the Soviets quite embarrassed because by that time they had enjoyed an
advantage in the global propaganda, which portrayed them as the “defenders
of peace.” He later stood by the Berlin Wall, dividing the city's eastern part
from its west, and exclaimed “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” His
wisdom was that he knew what he wanted and was able to present it clearly
and succinctly to the society. He did not like compromises but, rather, made
communications and exerted pressure on the enemy until they were defeated.
He was a likeable leader on this account. Obviously, John Paul II, Mikhail
Gorbachev and Lech Wałęsa helped him defeat Communism.
Lech Wałęsa (1943--) was an anti-Lenin. As a rank-and-file electrician of
the Gdansk Shipyards, he assumed leadership of the “Solidarity” free trade
union in Poland and following 9 years of struggle, he led to the collapse of the
Polish People's Republic dictatorship in 1989. Like R. Reagan, he was a highly
communicative and revolutionary politician. He expressed ideas with clear and
intelligible language, as illustrated in his memorable “I am for and even
against!” On the face of it, it is illogical but, in fact, it does have logic – one
that emerges in the practice of a revolution. He firmly held on to the objective
for the trade union to be an official and independent one.
As a result, he managed to see this objective materialize, thus initiating an
anti-Soviet revolution in Eastern Europe, which proved successful. Lech
 Wise People 37

Wałęsa himself went on to become the President of Poland (1990-1994). He

was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.
Lech Wałęsa's wisdom was that he was able to follow the
recommendations by his advisers, prominent Polish intellectuals and
dissidents. He did not take risks in the trade union's confrontation with the
regime. He applied Gandhi's policies of peaceful opposition, which the regime
could hardly cope with, as it had always declared it represented the working
classes and loved peace and the law. His great effort and sacrifice was
appreciated by the Polish society, who elected him President of Poland,
whereas the international community rewarded his contribution to the
development of the democratic world with the Nobel Peace Prize. In Poland,
some begrudging activists cannot forget some of his failings when he was a
very young worker, caught up in a lonely strife between a need to survive and
a criticism of reality. It must be understood that revolutionaries are no saints –
they do make numerous mistakes on their way to the truth. Deep inside, they
certainly regret those. However, others – righteous ones – did not take risks
and usually kept quiet only to surface on the barricades after the revolution,
though lagging well behind.

The wisdom of great statesmen is about a clear concept of an idea and a

will to enforce it. It takes charisma, sensitivity and a conviction of being right
in their stance and actions. These result in successful, great politics, which
serves as a signpost for generations to come.

Unwise politicians aim at interim solutions, such as a desire to remain in

power or come to it, they betray immorality, including financial and ethical
corruption. As a result, their actions are irrelevant and even harmful.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) is considered the master of battle in the
19th century. He would typically disperse his forces only to unexpectedly press
on the enemy. He would then attack the enemy communications and isolate
those from the rest of the troops. Then he used to attack the enemy's main
body frontally, encircling them from the side with broken communications and
would throw in all his force against the flank. Then he would assault the
weakest enemy troops with a most heavy thrust. He could do so as he made
use of small but very mobile units. In the last battle – Waterloo – he seemed to
have forgotten his military tactics. Napoleon's wisdom consisted in fighting
like a boxer – he would avoid blows and hit them himself whenever an
opportunity arose.
38 Andrew Targowski

George Marshall (1880-1958) was a general with 5 stars (corresponding

to the European rank of marshal). In the all-time list of top military
commanders he is second (8 pts; alongside Napoleon) only to Alexander the
Great 12 (pts)2. W. Churchill called him the “organizer of victory.” He
commanded millions of soldiers in Europe, Africa and Asia against the
millions of troops fielded by the Berlin-Tokyo-Rome Axis. He called the shots
from Washington, D.C., in close liaison with FDR and the Congress, which
politically controlled the executive, and did so quite meticulously at that.
Particularly cumbersome was the opposition from the Republican Party, who
was getting ready for a presidential take-over. To make matters worse, the
American generals had to reckon with the English marshals with inflated
ambitions, who saw themselves as better strategists. These marshals were
supported by the British PM Winston Churchill in international politics and
intellectual duels.
The group of rivaling allies included Joseph Stalin and the many millions'
strong Soviet Army in Europe and Asia. The enemy was the perfect German
war machine as well as the equally excellent Japanese Navy and the ruthless
army featuring the many kamikaze suicide pilots.
In the periphery were the exile governments of Poland, France and
Czechoslovakia, which enjoyed considerable support from American citizens
coming from these countries. Marshall's wisdom was about appointing right
commanders to the most important posts and their subsequent motivation and
emotional support. Marshal was anxious that D. Eisenhower might not cope
well with the difficult English marshals in Europe and kept writing letters to
him to cheer him up. Likewise, he corresponded with Gen. MacArthur in the
Pacific.
Gen. Marshall's relations with Gen. MacArthur were vital as the latter was
taken into consideration as Vice-president by the Republicans and was already
behaving like one. Marshall acted wisely when he sent MacArthur letters full
of praise and assurances of his military genius. The point was to avoid
alienating him from the Democrat President and prevent his overt criticism in
the press, which the latter was on excellent terms with despite his command
leaving plenty of doubt as regards the wisdom of his military decisions. The
following illustrates the appreciation of Gen. Marshall: in 1952 he was invited
as a private guest to the coronation ceremony of Queen Elisabeth and when he
was approaching his place at the front of the cathedral, all the congregation
stood up to greet him. When he was sitting in the first row of a special tribune,
the UK PM W. Churchill (1951-1955) greeted him by an extremely courteous
bow, very untypical of this proud politician. In 1953 he was awarded the
 Wise People 39

Nobel Peace Prize for the Marshall Plan, which allowed for the reconstruction
of Western Europe after the war-time destruction. He was such a modest man
that he even declined a million-dollar proposal to write memoirs – an
exorbitant sum for the time. He was a true soldier, entirely devoted to winning
that Great War, so vital for mankind. He won it only to do his best to avoid
glory afterward.

The wisdom of great generals is about deceiving the enemy and

performing an unexpected maneuver in big-picture and in the context of a
mental game they play with enemy commanders. Charisma and intelligence
help, as does military talent. What follows is a great and lasting victory.

There are few generals like this. Most generals are mediocre and even bad
commanders. Bad generals have a propensity for either risky or no
maneuverings. They have poor personalities, questionable mind formats and
suffer from the lack of erudition. In effect, they lose battles and wars.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) is thought of as the most prominent business
person in the 20th century, who laid the foundations for the American
manufacturing. At the beginning of that century, there were 2700 companies
that were in the business of producing automobiles, each releasing several
dozen vehicles yearly and those were works of art. Such a car cost several
thousand dollars and only a very tiny fraction of the elite could afford one.
Ford resolved to produce autos at $300 or below with a view to selling those to
ordinary customers, including his own workers. He even increased their wages
to make them able to afford to buy a Model T car. In order to produce such
cheap automobiles, he used assembly lines and scientific management that
made creative use of the investigation of time motion, first introduced by
Frederic Taylor. These methods came to be called 'Fordism,' with the
industrial development based on it – Americanism = Fordism + Taylorism.
Low cost was possible thanks to the introduction of extensive standardization
of parts and sub-assemblies. Therefore, a saying by Ford has gained fame
“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is
black.”
Along with the manufacturing success, Ford's cheap cars, smaller
companies started to go bankrupt. Now there are only 3 domestic car
manufacturers: GM, Ford and Chrysler(owned by Fiat). Ford's wisdom was
about excellent conceptualization of the market and its potential for certain
goods, fostered by the employment of gifted managers who developed the
40 Andrew Targowski

methods of industrial engineering in order to bring down the costs of mass

production.
Samuel Moore Walton (1918-1992) developed the chain of Walmart
shops, which as of 2005 has been the world's biggest corporation. The
American market was already replete with bigger and smaller chains selling
goods at various price ranges, but they all catered to city dwellers. Walton
noticed that provincial shops sold shoddy goods. His chain targeted provincial
customers, but the shops would sell goods well known from TV commercials,
thanks to which the country shopper felt pleased. To bring costs down, there
were just several well-known goods (sometimes just one or two) but the mere
fact they were there kept that kind of shoppers satisfied. When these goods had
been sold out, their stocks were replenished and new shipments being
delivered from company warehouses, optimally allocated across the country.
As its reputation grew, the corporation started to open its outlets in city
outskirts. The low prices meant the business had a competitive edge over the
other chains, but above all it meant bankruptcies of small shops from the main
street. A number of US regions (such as New England or Chicago) still oppose
the issuance of licenses to open Walmart in their areas. The same holds true
for France with its petit burgeoisie. The low prices are achieved thanks to
placing orders with Asian manufacturers, by way of which it devastates
domestic production. There is no jeans manufacturing – an American symbol –
in the USA any longer. W. Walton's wisdom was about his great
conceptualization of the market of the US provincial areas, and this is where
he started his business by saturating the countryside with good-quality goods.

The wisdom of great businessmen is about their profound familiarity

with market needs and their self-perception as the ones who satisfy those
needs by providing the customers with good-quality goods, services and
shopping satisfaction; this accounts for their competitive advantage over
other businesses. They are great problem-solvers and liaise with high-quality
specialists. As a result they create great and lasting businesses.

Unwise businessmen are guided by short-term success, satisfy their egos

and greed, act aggressively, which results in unstable businesses.
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is considered the father of modern physics,
the author of the universal law of terrestrial gravity, three laws of motion and
others, laying the foundations for the development of classical mechanics. His
wisdom was about his idea that people are able to understand the laws that
control the world and it is no privilege of some whimsical gods. He supported
 Wise People 41

it with his mathematical calculations, and hence he was not afraid of criticism,
sure of his mathematical proofs. Also, he was able to draw upon the
achievements of other scholars (Robert Hook, 1653-1703) whom he would
give due credit. He thus broke with the tradition of philosophers who limit
themselves to presenting their own outlook only. This is how he demonstrated
what the progress of science – seen as an additive process – ought to be like.
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) authored the theory of evolution by
natural and sexual selection. Now the theory is the basic paradigm of biology.
His wisdom sprang from his 5-year observation of Nature and travels around
the world. He investigated various animals, plants, fossils and talked to many
different people. He collected a great number of (examples - data) from natural
solutions, observed slight variations in the same domain of fauna and flora and
reached his generalizations in that manner. He simultaneously arrived at
similar conclusions as Alfred Wallace (1823-1913), but he was smarter than
Wallace as he published the results of his work first.

The wisdom of great scholars is about original, inventive

conceptualization of laws of a domain of life and ensuring these are true. It
stems from their powerful curiosity and a motivation engendered by
discovery. The helpful asset is their intelligence, perseverance and luck.
These result in a great and lasting discovery.

Unwise researchers count on a short-term success and satisfying their

egos. They hope for fame and try to attain it through their aggressive attitude.
The effect is a bad scientific solution.
The Wright Brothers, Orville (1871-1948) and Wilbur (1867-1912)
constructed the first plane which remained in the air, though lighter than air, in
a manner controlled by man, on December 17, 1903.They invented the
technique of sustained and controlled 3D flight, which laid the foundations for
the future development of aviation. They received a patent for that. Their
technical wisdom was about focusing an engineering effort on improving the
system of flight control rather than designing an ever more powerful engine,
which others did at the time. They experimented at home in a purpose-made
wind tunnel, where they investigated the relationship between wing structure
and engine power. They tested their solutions on gliders and drew upon their
engineering experience of their own printing business and bicycle workshop.
Paul Baran (1926-2011) invented the Internet, coming up with a concept
of package telecommunications network having no central point. Thus it was
not in danger of destruction the moment the central point was to be
42 Andrew Targowski

annihilated. This was the time of the Cuban Crisis, when a nuclear attack on
the USA was being expected from Cuba. The network was first used in the
military as the so-called ARPANET. In 1983, upon the motion of Paul Baran,
the network was divided into the Milinet and the Internet. Baran's engineering
wisdom was about using the advice from a neurosurgeon to structure the
network in the likeness of the human brain. As we know, our brain has no
central point and its parts function autonomously. It occurred to Baran that in
order that for a communication to move around such a network, it must have
an addressed electronic envelope, which would control its movement along the
multiple pathways of the net; something like the Cruise missiles, which thanks
to the GPS guide themselves onto the target on their own. The Internet
communicated the world and set in motion an intensive globalization of
business, media and flow of people. Its significance can be compared to the
invention of print3,4.

The wisdom of prominent engineers is about an innovative

conceptualization of original solutions. The motivation is a desire to make a
breakthrough in science as well as gaining fame (typical for architects) and a
sense of social responsibility, when an important and difficult civilizational
problem can be solved by technology. It is assisted by intelligence, curiosity
and talent. The effect is a great and lasting work of technology.

Bad engineers aim at short-term benefits, they lack knowledge and

engineering qualifications and are characterized by little self-criticism. The
result is an unstable solution, calling for a replacement with a better one.
If deliberations on the wisdom of artists were to be limited to the wisdom
of painters, these were best put by the famous surrealist Salvadore Dali, who
claimed that the success of a painter is determined by the fulfillment of the
following criteria: technique, inspiration, color, design, genius, composition,
originality, mystery and authenticity. This is how he classified the most
prominent painters in the 1-20 scale: 1. Vermeer, 19.9; 2. Rafael, 19.6; 3.
Velazquez, 19.2; 4. Leonardo da Vinci, 18.4; 5. Dali, 16.4; 6. Picasso, 11,9; 7.
Ingres, 10,5; 8. Meisonier, 5,2; 9. Manet, 4,1; 10. Boguereau, 3,2. Surely, this
is just one of the many ranking lists of painters; this one has the benefit of
having been drafted by a very famous painter and with the use of highly
persuasive criteria. The drawback is the author having ranked himself on it,
and quite highly at that. He may well deserve it, but – illustrative as the list
may be – it remains subjective.
 Wise People 43

The French painter Jean Debuffet (1901-1985) was wondering whether art
can be wise and answered that “it is an unwise idea.” Art is as necessary for
life as bread. Without bread, man dies of hunger; without art, one dies of
boredom.” Stanisław I. Witkiewicz [Witkacy] (1885-1935) said that “art is a
discipline where a lie never produces good effects.” This is corroborated by
the crisis of art in the USSR where socialist realism was being promoted, or a
similar crisis in Germany at the time when a “beautiful German” was being
publicized.
How do artists attain wisdom in their profession? Pablo Picasso made
over 70,000 sketches for his paintings. It implies that he made several hundred
sketches for any one of his final artistic outcomes, meaning that, other than his
great talent, what contributed to his wisdom/success was also hard work.

The wisdom of an artist is about original conceptualization of the subject

matter and its implementation, guided by the idea that art does not lie. It takes
motivation, intelligence, hard work and talent. The result is an established
work of art, endorsed by experts and regular viewers.

Bad artists are motivated by short-term success, satisfaction of their egos,

and a desire for fame, which they try to gain by adopting an aggressive
attitude, sometimes manifesting it through scandalizing acts. It all results in
bad art.
The synthesis of wisdom of great people does not take into account the
environment and the period when they lived. These conditions will be
discussed further on in this book.
PART II. WISDOM CONCEPT
Chapter 5

PHILOSOPHICAL WISDOM
Philosophy evolved from a mission to investigate wisdom but, in the
course of its 2,600-year-long history, it has forgotten about wisdom1.
Philosophers have been propagating their own wisdom by way of declaring
their world-view. Philosophy gave rise to the progress of science, but it has not
become science itself since philosophers do not take into account the output of
others in the field and do not integrate it with their own achievements. The
principle seems to be relating one's own views to the Grand Trio (Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle, i.e. the context of approx. 2,400 years ago). We are
familiar with Aristotle referring back to Plato, Voltaire to Newton, Marx to
Hegel, but these are just the most popular exceptions. The practice of non-
additive development of philosophy is unimaginable in science. Science
develops in a ladder fashion, where every staff missing results in difficulty in
moving up or down a field of science.
Philosophers have become specialists in posing great questions on the
point of our lives. Take the questions asked by the English philosopher B.
Russell2:

1. Can man survive death? Is this survival temporary or permanent?

2. Does mind come over matter? Does matter possibly dominate mind?
Or, perhaps, are these independent?
3. Does the world have a purpose?
4. Is the world controlled by sheer necessity?
5. Does the world function as chaos, with natural laws we discover
merely springing from our fantasy and a love for order?
6. Is there a pattern in the world and is life so important in it as
cosmologists and priests would have us believe?
48 Andrew Targowski

7. Is the emphasis on the significance of life something other than a

reflection of our self-adoration and insularity?

These are very wise questions by the English philosopher, ones that have
not been answered yet. It does not even seem that anyone has set about trying
to answer those yet. All Nobel Prize physicists are convicted that the world is
ruled by chaos. A Nobel laureate and a physicist, too, Albert Einstein had an
illusion that he could reconcile science with faith as he was curious about what
laws that man does not know were in Gods basket. However, the English
cosmologist Stephen Hawking claims that he knows God's way of thinking.
He thinks that the black holes in space originate from a divine plan to
manipulate the energy of the universe. Yet, aware of the consecutive
enunciations on the revelations by this scholar, one may suspect that his
discovery of the divine way of thinking is self-publicity rather than the truth.
The discovery of Higgs boson, sometimes called the “God particle” on July 4,
2012, makes physicists a little embarrassed as it seems that the Big Bang was
caused by the energy coming from an invisible Higgs boson that would have
come from a different world, which brings down the theory that the Big Bang
was an independent explosion.
Doubt as to the significance of human life on Earth is foreign only to
monotheistic religions. According to the Christian religion, man exists in order
to praise God. If it were so, it would mean that God is an egomaniac. This is
no noble trait. Worse, according to this religion God is omniscient and
almighty; why, then, does God allow an uncontrollable population expansion,
which can bring civilization to a halt. Does God do that so as to have more
people who praise him? The Christian Church is cautious and does not voice
its views on human discoveries related to the way in which the world operates.
It does not want to make a mistake that was once made when it preached the
geocentric dogma of Aristotle and punished dissenters with stakes. Polish
scientist-priest Nicolaus Copernicus was so afraid of the punishment that he
revealed the fact of having written the tract De Revolutionibus Orbium
Coelestium only when he was sure he was dying. Its point was – contrary to
what the Church was preaching – that it was the Earth that revolved round the
Sun, not conversely.
Since then, the Church has stuck to some subject matter and has tied God
to a specialization of dealing with the values of man's behavior only. Praise is
to the Church for that. In the opinion of this author, were there no religion, it
would have to be invented. Who else would teach virtues and values? Religion
is a component part of a civilized man's culture, and if properly realized, it
 Philosophical Wisdom 49

should serve man well. The problem, as usual, lies in details – in the right
implementation of organized religion. In the 21st century, religion is perceived
as one of the best organized corporations with great marketing and the market
being divided into specialized consumer areas.
The Polish Pope John Paul II claimed there was no contradiction between
science and religion, but he must have been overly optimistic. If he did say so,
though, let us benefit and let the Polish-American author, his great enthusiast,
voice his opinion on that issue. If God created this world because he is
almighty, it means that God is not only a master-moralist, but – above all – he
is a supreme cosmologist, astronomer, geologist, biologist, physician,
engineer, scholar, artist, sociologist and another specialist in the construction
of the world, life and all the interrelations involved.
God is an almighty super-creator, then. If so, there is a question if he
could have created this universe alone. Given the volume of the jobs to do, he
should have had experts, devices and organizations. Where are they, then? In
the blazes of fire and smoke and asteroids that hover around in space. If those
questions are an outcome of my sick imagination, then God needs no helpers
or computers to direct the progress of the world and so can he create the world
with one magic word?
In the same context it could be observed that from the standpoint of
science, the Holy Spirit is simply a “telephone” over which God
communicates with us, except that we do not know his communication system.
If it is not so, it would mean for me that God is a conjurer, of the kind of
David Copperfield.
One is for sure: God must be wise. The supreme deity arranged for Project
Man on a planet called Earth, where he gave man autonomy of determining
their own fate on the basis of their own morality, knowledge and wisdom. In
this design, the research task is about whether the homo sapiens species can
function for a long time; probably not forever, as in such a case the choice of
the planet was wrong, but man will come to an end anyway once the Sun
expires in several billion years and the energy that powers human biology has
run out. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why did he not foresee the
temporary quality of Planet Earth?
God is certainly wise, though, as is evident in the foresight of man's
propensity for evil. This is why God made us mortals: evil immortal man
could threaten the very God. And then it is far from uncertain what would
happen to God and the world? For a while I have allowed theological and
philosophical fantasy to run wild; it needs elaboration if man seeks education
and wisdom, or perhaps man wishes to know too much?
50 Andrew Targowski

As implied by the preceding deliberations, man still has several billion

years of life on Earth. Even if mankind cannot move to a different life-
supporting planet, the time is none the less such a long period for us that it can
be compared to infinity.
Another question for philosophy is how to live, and how to live wisely, in
particular. If one wanted to exploit the achievements of philosophy, one would
have to synthesize it. A solution like this is unknown to the present author.
This is an attempt at such a synthesis with a view to salvaging the output of the
discipline for the sake of regular people's progress in wisdom, not just for the
wisdom of philosophers, regarding which the author has no doubt.
If man wanted to be wise in a philosophical sense, they should be able to
apply in their actions the following reasoning trends detected (as limited to
those formulated in 15-20th centuries)3:

1. Problem-solving methodology (Rene Descartes, 1596-1650)

2. Empiricism, reliance on experience (John Locke, 1632-1704)
3. Subjectivism, uncertainty and intuition in experimentation (David
Hume, 1711-1776)
4. Usefulness as presented by democracy (William Paley, 1743-1805)
5. Rationalism, naturalism, justice (Voltaire, 1694-1778)
6. Materialism (Julien Offray de La Mettrie, 1709-1751)
7. Sensualism (Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, 1715-1780)
8. Positivism (Jean le Rond d’Alembert, 1717-1783)
9. Criticism and apriorism (Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804)
10. Idealism and evolutionary dialectics (George H. Hegel, 1770-1831)
11. Spiritualism and inner experience (Marie de Biran, 1766-1824)
12. Messianism (Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, 1768-1853)
13. Realism (Johann F. Herbart, 1776-1841)
14. Radicalism and pleasure (Jeremy Bentham, 1784-1832)
15. Naturalism (Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-1872)
16. Dialectical materialism (Karl Marx, 1818-1883, Frederic Engels,
1820-1881)
17. Individualism and elitism (Max Striner, 1806-1856 and Thomas
Carlyle, 1795-1881)
18. Theistic existentialism (Soren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855)
19. The philosophy of utilitarian ethic (John Stuart Mill, 1806 – 1873)
20. Evolutionism (Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903)
21. Skepticism (Ernest Renan, 1823-1892)
 Philosophical Wisdom 51

22. Perspectivism (Fryderyk Nietzsche, 1844-1900)

23. Pragmatism (William James, 1842-1910)
24. Formalism (Vilfredo Pareto, 1848-1923)
25. Scientism (Karl Pearson, 1857-1936)
26. Intuitism (Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
27. Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl, 1859-1938)
28. Sociologism (Emil Durkheim, 1858-1917))
29. Natural process philosophy (Alfred N. Whitehead, 1861-1947)
30. Logicism (Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970, Rudolf Carnap, 1891-
1970, Jan Łukasiewicz, 1878-1956)
31. Functionalism and formism (William McDougla, 1871-1938)
32. Behaviorism (John B. Watson, 1878-1958)
33. Psychoanalysis (Sigismund Freud, 1856-1939, Erich Fromm, 1900-
1980)
34. Symbolic culture philosophy (Ernst Cassirer, 1874-1945)
35. Praxiology (Tadeusz Kotarbiński, 1886-1981)
36. Philosophy of science (Karl Popper, 1902-1994, Thomas Kuhn,
1922-1996)
37. Existentialism (Jean Paul Sartre, 1905-1980)
38. Feminist philosophy (Simone de Beauvoir, 1908-1986, Judith
Butler, 1956-)
39. Hermeneutics (Martin Heidegger, 1889-1976)
40. Committed personalism (Emanuel Mounier, 1905-1950)
41. Action philosophy (Donald Herbert Davidson, 1917-2003)
42. Postmodernism (Jacques Derrida, 1930-2004)
43. Metaphilosophical universalism (Janusz Kuczyński, 1930-)
44. Eco-philosophy (Henryk Skolimowski, 1930-)
45. Critical theory (Jurgen Habermas, 1929-)
46. Philosophy of mind (John R. Searl, 1932-)
47. Political philosophy (Plato, 427-347 p.n.e., John Rawls, 1921-
2002, Robert Nozick, 1938-2002)
48. Comparative philosophy (Walter Benesch, 1930-)
49. Interdisciplinary theory of wisdom (Andrew Targowski, 1937-)
50. Wise civilization (Universal, Complementary) (Andrew Targowski,
1937-)
52 Andrew Targowski

The main world outlooks have been mentioned above; there may well be
more of those, albeit less popular. Sure enough, no regular person without any
philosophical background has any clue about these, and it is a great loss for
philosophy that it has lost touch with people, and possibly with reality, as well.
So that those philosophical approaches to the wisdom of life could occur,
they need to be sorted out and redacted to form a functional whole. Sorting
will be about grouping the approaches affecting general reasoning methods
and individual reasoning. Also, the approaches will be classified in terms of
their logical (logos) and mythological (mythos) character; philosophy is proud
to be founded upon all approaches rather than one. Sets of so diverse
approaches of the Western Civilization will be divided upon the author's gut
feeling as follows:

A. Approaches affecting other methods and reasoning

approaches:
a. Logos: methodologism, rationalism, empiricism,
naturalism, materialism, logicism, evolutionism,
dialectism, functionalism, sociologism, fromalism,
behaviorism, nature philosophy, praxiology, positivism,
universalism, eco-philosophy, critical theory, philosophy
of reason, philosophy of science, postmodernism,
comparative philosophy, wise civilization, etc.
b. Mythos: radicalism, existentialism, scientism, skepticism,
relativism, psychoanalysis, action philosophy, ethics, etc.
B. Approaches affecting individual reasoning:
a. Logos: utilitarianism, pragmatism, criticism, licicism,
positivism, apriorism, wisdom theory, etc.
b. Mythos: subjectivism, sensualism, idealism, messianism,
spiritualism, individualism-elitism, realism, intuitism,
etc.

The above classification implies that the philosophy of method has

progressed the most. 62% of the above approaches (as many as 31 in all) fall
into this category. The philosophy of possible individual wisdom has 16
approaches, which makes up 32% of the total world outlooks. Logicism and
ethics have been counted into two categories. This data corroborate the
proposition that philosophy to certain degree got detached from the life of an
individual. It is arguable whether some approaches oriented at general
 Philosophical Wisdom 53

methods possibly affect individuals, as well, such as nature philosophy, eco-

philosophy4 or existentialism. What is known about these approaches is that
they are known in the inner circle of philosophers. And even if something got
disseminated into common knowledge, it was the case with existentialism
when Jean Paul Sartre, a follower of this philosophy, refused to collect the
Nobel Prize.
This is the case, too, with praxiology, founded by T. Kotarbiński in the
famous tract Traktat of dobrej robocie3 published in the Stalinist times of the
1950s in the Polish People's Republic. In those days, the quality of
workmanship was low in state run enterprises, and the Polish philosopher
deemed it right to remind the readership that once you are involved in work,
you need to do your job well.
Obviously, praxiology made no impact on Poles' work quality in that
period as the philosopher's wise thoughts could not be any motivation for good
workmanship when the workers were so badly paid. Therefore, no effort was
made to familiarize workers with the tract. In the West, prospering upon the
WWII victory, workers labored efficiently and they needed no tract. In the
21st century, though, when turbo-Capitalism is in crisis, and companies merge
to form ever bigger entities, corporations stop being loyal to their workers and
workers cease to identify with their corporations. This results in a decline in
work quality. Kotarbiński's praxiology could be an answer in support of the
contemporary action philosophy, but it remains doubtful whether it was to
prove effective.
In order that these approaches will be used for practical solutions and for
the sake of wisdom theory, they need merging as follows:

a. Logos (3): pragmatism (utilitarianism, criticism, logicism), apriorism

and the interdisciplinary theory of wisdom, as well as others,
b. Mythos (4): idealism (sensualism, spiritualism, subjectivism,
messianism, intuitism, positivism), realism, elitism, ethics, etc.

These world outlooks teach one that a wise man is one who is pragmatic,
can anticipate situations (apriorism) and knows what wisdom is about (knows
its theory). They should also be idealistic and down-to-earth, realistic, too, and
understand that elitism reflects natural diversity and determines progress; but a
wise man is ethical, as well. All these virtues stem from the progress of
philosophy. However, the pragmatism indicated is New Pragmatism, which

3
[English translation: Praxiology. An introduction to the science of efficient action],
54 Andrew Targowski

must be updated with sensualist, subjectivist, messianic, intuitive and positivist

concepts.
The output of philosophy has thus been utilized in determining who is
wise although philosophy itself cannot make a decision to start working on
wisdom.
Chapter 6

PURPOSES OF LIFE
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was perhaps right in saying that if people do not
know the purpose of their life, they cannot make wise decisions. Indeed, in his
day human life was much less complicated then it is now in the Western
Civilization. 2,400 years ago, the purpose of life was to survive until the
following day, have something to eat, avoid getting killed or being held
captive and thus becoming a slave. The average life expectancy was 25 years
of age.
Aristotle lived longer (he died at 62) and did have a very efficient life. He
was a son of a physician working at the court of the emperor Alexander the
Great (356-323), whom he would teach and advise. Upon his resignation from
this role, he set up a school in Athens and prospered. Upon the death of
Alexander the Great, who lived fast and furious but over an extremely short
lifespan (33 years), the public opinion of Athens turned against the great
leader and Aristotle had to move away to Chalcis, where he devoted his life to
a selfless pursuit of philosophical truth about the world and life.
The literature of management research knows a hierarchy that
characterizes the life of man – Maslow’s Hierarchy (1943) – classifying man's
needs from those of physiology (air, water, food, sleep, procreative sex), safety
(of the body, family, employment, resources), love/belonging (friendship,
family, sexual intimacy), esteem (confidence, achievement, respect), and self-
actualization (morality, creativity, problem solving). Although Abraham
Maslow investigated the needs of such people as FDR or Einstein, self-
actualization does not appear to have been the main goal of their lives.
56 Andrew Targowski

Therefore, I have proposed another model of life purposes hierarchy,

Figure 6.1.

Unhappy LIfe Degree of Fulfilment Happy Life

8- Acomplished Life

7- Meaningful Life

s ed
6- Interesting Life

rea
inc
5- Virtuous Life

m
do
wis
4- Healthy Life
nd
ea
3- Peaceful Life
if
of l

2- Surviving
ity

Life
lex
mp

1- Wise
co

Life

Figure 6.1. The Hierarchy of the Purpose of Life in Western Civilization as they are
Perceived in the 21st Century (The Targowski Model)

This life purposes hierarchy has been built upon an assumption that a wise
life is essential for life advancement and meeting ever higher targets. This
model does not contain the proposition by Aristotle that fulfilled man is a
happy individual since human life can be happy if it has a positive balance.
Happiness is so elusive and transient that it cannot be imagined to be attained
for good1. There are few exceptions and therefore any goal of life can be
 Purposes of Life 57

reached only with a partial attainment of happiness. Not infrequently, a life's

purpose can be attained at the expense of happiness, that is, by paying a high
price. Most revolutionaries who fulfilled their lives' purposes – social and
political achievements – have had to cope with existential adversities, making
them unhappy.
Take the UK PM Winston Churchill, who won World War II for Britain in
1945, only to lose post-war elections to a little known politician; the voters
thought that their hero needed to relax and for the time of peace they needed a
politician of a different format. One of the leaders of the French Revolution
(and the Great Terror in particular), M. Robespierre, had achieved so much,
but he ended his life on a guillotine. This cannot be considered happiness. The
Bolshevik leader, V.I. Lenin won the revolution but paid for it with his own
life as most probably he was poisoned. Hitler, who did so much for Germany
in 1939-1943, poisoned himself in order not to see his defeat. This, too, can
hardly be called happiness. But each of those leaders, when attaining their
goal, could feel happy to some extent. Copernicus felt happy on his deathbed,
when he could pass his manuscript on heliocentrism to an envoy of a German
cardinal, who later put to its publication. Copernicus was not enjoying his
happiness for very long, though.
Contemporary research2 on happiness brings it down to satisfaction,
whose hierarchy is as presented below:

1. Work satisfaction, 7. Free-time satisfaction,

2. Financial satisfaction, 8. Environmental satisfaction,
3. Home satisfaction, 9. Childhood satisfaction,
4. Health satisfaction, 10. Family satisfaction,
5. Marital satisfaction, 11. Political satisfaction,
6. Satisfaction with one's own society, 12. Educational satisfaction.

Everyone can determine their satisfaction by way of judging each of the

kinds of satisfaction, assigning to it a band 1 to 5. Absolute satisfaction is 60
points (5x12). It is very hard to attain, but even if you score 31 points (50+%)
of all the kinds of satisfaction, the balance is positive and the person can feel
satisfied, that is, along with the old terminology – happy.
There is an interrelationship between a satisfied person and their
attainment of subsequent goals. Satisfied people usually aspire to ever more
and attain their life objectives more easily than others3,4. This hypothesis is
negated by Marcel Proust, the French writer, who thought that misery
58 Andrew Targowski

engenders a human reaction that may be about a mobilization to overcome the

crisis. This is also true.
Take the example of an objective to attain prominence in life and let us
dwell a while upon the lives of Socrates, Lincoln, King or Wałęsa: their lives
stand as a mix of happiness and misery. The first three paid for their successes
with their lives while the fourth one has to defend his life against the never-
ending accusations concerning his past.
Attaining life's purposes depends on a number of conditions, both
dependent and independent on man. In totalitarian systems, man has very
limited capability of fulfilling the purposes of their life. In democracy, the
goals are conditioned by inspiration and the art of living.
If we take one of the most supreme goals – a meaningful life, which
appears to be almost everyone's goal – it seems to be attainable by following
the strategies listed below:

A. It takes a spiritual attitude, whether in religious or civic terms, as

the resulting system of virtues guides man.
B. One needs to be good rather than right, practice dialog and solve
problems without harming others.
C. It is necessary to share one's spiritual, intellectual and material
resources with one's family and society.

Sure enough, in order to apply these recommendations, one should above

all be a wise man, as a good man is a wise man. Good people usually have
meaningful lives, even if they do not lead revolutions but only support their
environment with their energies and a will of “good work,” to apply the term
form Kotarbiński's praxiology.
Chapter 7

FOUR MINDS OF WISDOM

The key to the understanding of the wisdom of today's man is insight into
the development of man's mind. This will be the subject matter of this chapter.
The concepts of wisdom investigated to date, frequently encountered in
popular literature, concern pseudo-wisdom rather than wisdom. Sure enough,
nobody has pan-wisdom, nor is it obvious how it should be arrived at. Even if
someone managed to get it somehow and have it published, it is far from
certain whether it would still be up-to-date some centuries after.
Wisdom is dependent on time. Today, in the 21st century America, the
populist Tea Party has come to tip the political balance. Its name makes a clear
reference to the Boston sea-dumping of the tea brought over on British ships,
for which the British king ordered extremely high tariffs paid. Today's Tea
Party seeks to draw upon the wisdom that lay at the foundation of the historic
success of the USA in the 18th century. The country numbered 3 million
farmers at that time and they developed it with their pioneering effort. The
needs of the state were minimal, and therefore there were no taxes since the
federal administration was financed from the duties levied on goods imported
from Europe.
Today, 200+ years following those days, the Tea Party would wish to
bring taxes dawn as much as possible. It has skipped their attention that the
USA has become a superpower in the meantime and needs to sponsor its
operations from taxes. Also, as a result of human and civil rights advancement,
the American state has sought to support its vulnerable citizens with food
vouchers, medical care or other social benefits, such as free education and
low-tuition state universities.
What adds a pinch of zest to the issue is that most of this party’s members
are elderly people, who for the most part benefit from this welfare policy, such
60 Andrew Targowski

as social security, which is a kind of state pension, but without which 50

million Americans would not survive. Most of those party members, though,
are in favor of abolishing these social benefits. It is hard to notice any wisdom
in that. What they really mean to achieve is support the Republican Party as
the Tea Party does not field candidates for elections to the legislative power.
The movement only strives to be the grassroots supply base for the GOP. It
goes without saying that the representatives and senators brought to power by
their Tea Party supply network will fail to do away with social security, which
has been doing just fine for 77 years, thanks to which Americans got over the
1930s crisis.
The Tea Party espouses policies that proved right 200 years ago but today
have no premise to exist anymore. The reason why such wisdom is in short
supply is that most Tea Party members only graduated from high school and
only have Basic Minds, but this is not enough to preach to the rest of the
society on what is wise and what is stupid. They are still lacking in three
higher minds, which will be discussed later on.
Another example of one-mind policies can be seen in the activities of the
some Polish populist parties, which prefers to continue conflicts with such
neighbors as Russia or Germany. Poland's defeat in 1939 resulted from the
country having had 7 neighbors, with all of whom it was at loggerheads. If
Poland had joined forces with Czechoslovakia at that time, the total number of
military divisions would have been 80 – the same as Germany's, except that
their divisions were then skeletal and needed reinforcements. It would be wise
to mention that Czechoslovakia had a well-advanced military industry, which
would have been a great supply base for the Polish and Czechoslovak armies.
Germans would not have decided to attack us in 1939 and nobody knows what
course the history of Europe would have taken. What is obvious is that 50
million lives would not have been lost.
After 1989, Poland chose to live in harmony with its neighbors, just like
France, which in the 1960s resolved to live in peace with Germany despite
having been attacked three times by that country within less than 70 years
(1871, 1914 and 1940). Why does Poland, weaker than Germany and Russia,
need to live in conflict with those two? Is this wise? True, Germany and
Russia exterminated millions of Polish citizens in World War II and the
memory of those days is still very vivid among us4. Cultivating and heating up

4. The present author remembers this war very well, as he himself, as a 7-year-old got out from
under dead bodies of those shot dead during the Warsaw Rising in August 1944 at the
corner of ul. Madalińskiego i Kazimierzowska, with his mother, Halina Targowska nee
 Four Minds of Wisdom 61

vengeful sentiments among the people might lead to the success of that party,
but is it wise from the perspective of the national interest? Like in the case of
the Tea Party, we are dealing here with the domination of the Basic Mind,
which can generate this kind of policy. Yet, three other minds are missing.
The Basic Mind had evolved in man by 200,000 years ago, when homo
sapiens had developed an intuitive manner of communicating on the basis of
body language and facial expression. This led to the development of learning
and remembering the language of mimicry and also the expansion of brain:
memory and associative circuits. In the course of time, this was replaced by
the spoken language and symbols; it was possible to remember stories and
myths. As a result, it was made possible to get organized into families, tribes
and society, which led to an even bigger expansion of the brain. Practicing this
info-communication led to the development of external forms of
communication: written language, depictions, papyri and books. In this way,
societies became increasingly organized and evolved moral virtues and values
(within religion) so as to control the desirable comportment of the members of
society. Notions of crime and punishment were powerfully ingrained and
enforced in those societies and this has continued to date. The Basic Mind is
still there and is most commonly applied in the practice of “everyday life.”
The Basic Mind generates knowledge and wisdom of the common-sense
kind. Is it only at the level of junior high school? Knowledge and wisdom is
applied by a vast majority of people around the globe. Examples of this kind
of knowledge include: you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it
drink; there is none so deaf as those who won't hear; wisdom makes wise
people wiser; there is a silence before the storm, and the like. Americans know
Murphy's law, which says that if anything can go wrong it will. Law II says
that a new system generates new problems.
The Understanding (Theoretical) Mind began to develop with high
intensity 500 years ago, when the invention of print made theoretical
knowledge disseminated. Universities may have been around in Europe since
1200: in Paris (1200), Naples (1229), Cambridge (1243), Sorbonne (1257),
Lisbon (1290), Cracow (1364), Vienna (1365), Heidelberg (1386), but it was
the invention of print (1453) which made knowledge spread instantly. First it
was navigation knowledge, which led to great geographic discoveries
(America – 1492), followed by algebra (1494), applied in commercial

Krzyżańska 14 times wouded in this rising and his father Stanislaw hanged in March, 1945,
as a saboteur of V2 missiles manufacturing in the Mittelbau-Dora camp in Nordhousen in
the Harz Mountains, Germany.
62 Andrew Targowski

accountancy in Venice, the knowledge of anatomy (1514), zoology (1516),

ballistic science (1537), the knowledge on the Earth's place in the solar system
(1543). Mineralogy was on the rise (1556), as well as modern astronomy
(1571). The French Academy was opened (1635), analytical geometry was
formulated (1637), probability theory defined (1654), Newtonian physics
created (1663), with theoretical physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences
and technologies following in leaps and bounds.
Thanks to theoretical knowledge, the new mind of man began to emerge,
which tends to be called the Understanding Mind. In the Middle Ages,
sometimes called the Dark Ages, which set in after the fall of Rome (5th
century CE) and lasted until the Italian Renaissance (1453-1600), man drew
their wisdom from religion, which prepared them for eternal bliss – attainable
only after death. Man was controlled by the clergy to some extent, but could at
least dream of happiness. Theoretical science and the Understanding Mind,
which went along with it, freed man from the obscurity of ignorance. Man
began to evolve from existence to cognition, from religion to science: their
reasoning was independent and logical, understanding the cause-effect
relationship.
The emergence of the Understanding Mind did not come easy to man. The
monopoly for knowledge and wisdom in Western Civilization was with the
Catholic Church, which controlled human lives tightly and rather effectually.
The ideas it found inconvenient were called heresies, and these were
prosecuted in inquisition tribunals as of 1231 by as late as 1834 (i.e. between
the first decrees of inquisition tribunals and the last decree abolishing the
institution), that is, for more than 600 years. Initially, it was mostly Jews and
Muslims, who were tried in Spain, but then Protestants and free-thinkers were
prosecuted there. Hundreds of thousands of hapless individuals were
prosecuted by these tribunals, with tens of thousands having been burned on
stakes. Those who confessed to heresies were shown mercy and were
decapitated with axes and their dead bodies were burned, in doing which the
merciful Church saved the victims from torment. Women were in particular
demand for stake burning for merely daring to think and act independently – it
was called witchcraft.
The Church did not even spare its own priest Giordano Bruno (1548-
1600), who was burned at stake at the age of 51, as he thought that Jesus was
just a man and the Mother of God was no virgin; also he did have
considerable doubt as for the Trinity. It was believed he was executed for these
beliefs rather than his support for the Copernican model of the world1. Other
scholars, dealing with issues that were inconvenient, were simply forbidden to
 Four Minds of Wisdom 63

practice science. Such was the plight of the most prominent scholar of the
16th century – Galileo (1564-1642). He was a great Italian astronomer,
physicist and philosopher, who put to question the new physical and
mathematical concept of Nature, but in order to survive, Galileo recanted on
his ideas and lived in home detention, even though in private he was said to
admit: “and yet it moves.” He meant the Copernican model, which had it that
the Earth revolves round the Sun.
When men sensed the power of the mind, they began developing
numerous world outlooks, which as of then became the subject matter of
philosophy. Renaissance (1453-1600) made man reborn from the darkness of
the Middle Ages and brought back the enjoyment of creating beauty and being
in close intimacy with it. Those who excelled in it included Michelangelo
(1475–1564) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) as well as the many great
Italian architects. English philosophers such as John Locke (1632-1704), who
spoke for the importance of experience in life (empiricism) and David Hume
(1711-1776), who developed the theory of skepticism and uncertainty in
action, and also the French encyclopedists: Denis Diderot (1713–1784),
Montesquieu (1689–1755), Voltaire (1694-1778), the famous opponent of
organized religion, intolerance, fanaticism and superstition, as well as Jean-
Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), whose essays, replete with social protest
became the yeasts for the Great French Revolution of 1789, and Isaac Newton
(1642-1727) laid the foundations for the Enlightenment (17th-18th cc.), also
called the Age of Reason, which is still on and is taking on ever new tasks.
As the enlightenment of man progressed in the 18th century, the
significance of reason in man's life was most fully realized by then philosopher
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). He thought that man's reason is capable of
independent judgment of situation, unaffected by “facts.” He also thought that
man's reason is able to anticipate the situation and “facts,” too. Therefore,
reason is capable of conceptualizing the future situations (a priori) and
predicts their consequences before they are empirically known, as argued for
by the skeptic David Hume. Kant's philosophy influenced the German
idealism, represented by Hegel and Schelling.
In philosophy, G.F.W. Hegel (1770-1831) broke with the static
investigation of life, history and civilization in favor of the dynamics
controlled by dialectic; that is, drawing a resolution from thesis and antithesis,
action and counter-action.
On the basis of dialectic, Karl Marx (1818-1883) defined Communism,
whereas the 20th and 21st century progress of democracy is founded upon
control and equilibrium (dialectic) between the three pillars of state power:
64 Andrew Targowski

legislative, executive and judicial. In science, Kant's apriorism introduced the

lasting principle that on top of the inductive (empirical) method, a deductive
method ought to be applied, too, which anticipates new paradigms and their
effects. Although the deductive method was known to medieval logicians, it
was not a popular method, particularly in mathematics, which underwent
powerful development along with the progress of the Industrial Revolution.
These methods evaluating the reasoning of man constituted great progress
in liberating man from superstition. They brought man closer to the cognition
of the truth as regards nature and life; man began to understood, including why
and how to live – live well, even if not happily2.
As a result of the ongoing enlightenment of man, the Understanding Mind
of man invented the engine, telegraph, telephone, microscope, automobile,
airplane, antibiotics, computer and internet – all that within 200 years. Thanks
to these inventions, the civilization of muscles (also called the Agricultural
Wave of 4000 BCE to 1850 CE) was in the 19th century reinforced by the
Information Civilization (Wave) in the end 20th century, leading to the
expansion of knowledge and wisdom, and to their dissemination, also by
affording on-demand communication access to and from hand-held devices.
The number of people with the Understanding Mind was low in the 19th
century as university-level education was limited to a narrow elite, usually
males and children of well-to-do parents or future priests, who would usually
study theology, though. The number of people going to school for 10,000
residents were 1,800 in the USA, 1,600 in Germany, 1,045 in the UK, 930 in
France, 463 in Italy and 98 in Russia. By 1900 those figures3,4 had grown by
30 per cent. At school, learning is only primed with the Basic Mind as the
Understanding Mind needs theoretical knowledge of a university or poly-
technical variety. The number of people with university education, including
poly-technical training (engineering) was pretty small in the 19th century. It
can be estimated that in the biggest European countries it was just several
thousand at best. If the percentage of adults who could read and write was 5-
10 per cent in Russia in 1850, as compared to 80 per cent in Prussia, 60 per
cent in Austria and 90 per cent in the USA, the levels for Poland could rather
be comparable to those of Russia – approx. 5-10 per cent3,4.
In the 19th century, Poland was under three partitioning powers and the
Polish elites had for the most part emigrated from the country in the aftermath
of the lost uprisings (1830, 1848 and 1863), including about 400 great road,
rail and bridge engineers, educated in the excellent St. Petersburg
Transportation Institute; they went on to develop transportation networks in
Canada, North America (bridges), Latin and South America and Europe –
 Four Minds of Wisdom 65

Russia, France and Greece – and even in China. The development of railways
in that period could be compared to the development of the Internet today
since it was the railway that decided the pace of the Industrial Revolution, just
as today the Internet determines the global civilization. The few Polish
scientists left the country, too, as was the case with Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
Alas, the bourgeois revolution, founded upon the premises of the Great French
Revolution, only reached Poland in 1918; industrial revolution, despite
showing some signs of arrival in the inter-war period with the Central Poland's
Industrial Hub and the port of Gdynia, truly set off only after 1945.
The two revolutions, so vital for the formation of the Understanding
Mind, could not have occurred in Poland for political reasons, but also due to
there being so few people with the Understanding Mind in Poland. The Polish
elites were then very patriotic, but they were too emotional. They did not think
rationally. They had one mind and no patience to develop Poland as an
example for Russia, as Tsar Nicholas would have liked it; they preferred to
fight him in spite of the opposition from the generals in 1830. The Polish
patriots behaved in a completely different way than did the Czech elites, which
used their presence in the Austro-Hungarian Empire very wisely.
Margrave Aleksander Wielopolski, the Polish administrator of the Russian
Partition said that “you can die for Poland but cannot co-operate with the
Poles.” This syndrome of a lack of the Understanding Mind could be painfully
felt in the parliamentary chaos of 1919-1926, the situation which had led to the
German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939 and in the decision to start the
rising in Warsaw in 1944, in particular.
The Polish elites of those days did not understand the complexity of the
Polish situation and had wrong judgment of the situation; they made wrong
choices of the solution options, that is, they acted unwisely, causing calamities
for individuals, the people and the state. These unwise decisions will be
discussed in Chapter 14 – Wisdom, Truth, and Responsibility.
In analyzing the development of the Understanding Mind one may realize
why some countries developed faster than others. Those countries that had
evolved understanding minds earlier and better than others, also made faster
and better progress. Take the USA in the 20th and the 21st centuries, where
the percentage of people with higher education is 30 per cent, against Poland's
18 per cent in 20115. There are 1,7 times fewer Poles with this mind than in
America, which is considered one of those best developed in terms of this
mind.
The Understanding Mind makes judgment on the basis of common sense
(Basic Mind) and theoretical knowledge. A nurse with 2-year specialist
66 Andrew Targowski

education knows a dozen or so of medical principles and rules, whereas a

doctor with a 5-year education and 3-year apprenticeship knows several
hundred of those. Therefore their judgments and choices of treatment options
are so different. Take a technician with 2-year specialist education, knowing a
score or so of technical procedures and an engineer with a six-year poly-
technical education, who knows several hundred such procedures. They will
know that a two-span bridge cannot be propped on two rigid supports or it will
collapse; also they can calculate, in a rather complicated mathematical
algorithm, the durability of the structure being designed.
The difference between the knowledge and wisdom of the Basic Mind and
the Understanding Mind can best be seen as illustrated by the strategy of
nutrition. One-mind people like fast food because it is tasty (salty, spicy, fatty
or sweet, depending on the kind), but double-minded people realize that such
food is unhealthy. The former are obese, suffer from diabetes and are
dissatisfied with their appearance. The latter are more healthy and unashamed
of their looks as they have better judgment and make better nutritional choices.
Simply, they are wiser.
The Global Mind is powerfully emerging in the 21st century, when thanks
to the Internet, economic globalization is on the rise and the developed
countries are entering a structural crisis on this account. Specialists are
learning foreign languages at an accelerated rate and universities are launching
studies on globalization. Notably, this is the fifth wave of globalization in the
last half of the millennium and this fact has implications for the emerging third
mind.
Leaving aside the first migrations of people from Africa about 150,000
years ago, and their subsequent settlement in the most distant parts of the
world, such as Australia, the 15th century Portuguese geographical discoveries
ought to be credited with being the I Wave of Globalization.
It was hardly accidental that Christopher Columbus set sail from Lisbon
on his voyage to West Indies in 1492 as it was the Portuguese who had the
first navigation school organized by Prince Henri de Navigateur in Sagres in
1418 and had the best sailors in Europe – skilled and trained ones. The
Portuguese began to develop their global minds thanks to their voyages to Asia
around Africa.
Thanks to the many far-reaching voyages as far as Africa, India, Brazil
and China, they built the Portuguese Empire, which would survive 500 years –
until 1974 – when the Carnation Revolution introduced the democratic system.
The Portuguese then had the Global Mind and enjoyed supremacy over other
Europeans. They even provoked the Spanish to conquer Mexico and other
 Four Minds of Wisdom 67

countries of Latin America. There was even a moment in the history of the two
empires when they divided the globe into two spheres of influence, with the
Western hemisphere belonging to Spain and the East – to Portugal. The Global
Mind, which the Spaniards developed too, did not help them in functioning
wisely, the effects of which can be felt even today, because when they got hold
of a lot of gold and silver in the countries of South America, they brought it
over to their own country and financed their extravagant lives by importing
almost everything from abroad. They even caused inflation in Europe due to
the excessive surplus of legal tender for payments in Europe. To make matters
worse, the Spanish Armada was defeated in the English Channel in 1588. Of
the 130 ships, 50 did not come back to their ports, which could be compared to
the defeat Napoleon suffered at Moscow in 1812. The lack of a well-
developed industrial infrastructure in Spain makes the country one of the most
crisis-stricken economies in Europe, as reflected by the 20 per cent
unemployment, which among the Spanish young people is about 40 per cent
today.
The II Wave of Globalization started under Queen Victoria in 1837 and
lasted until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The English Empire survived
until 1949. The British conquered several dozen countries thanks to their
navigation and the great navy; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, large lands in
Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as India,
Ceylon, Burma and China.
To be able to rule nearly half of the world, the British developed the
Global Mind and made excellent use of it. After 1949, most countries of the
Commonwealth became independent, only to return, as independent countries,
to a union (club) of countries that recognize the Queen as the head of their
state. The Global Mind of the British developed its knowledge in ship-
building, communications, weapons and industrial goods. Their wisdom was
about selling their products in the colonies and at the same time importing
from them very cheap natural resources. The British needed to be particularly
wise in ruling such great countries as India and China. In the vast India, they
had only 1000 state officials and some military; they ruled this country using
the effectual strategy of “divide and rule” and they proved extremely
successful in keeping the Chinese down by way of feeding them opiates: not
by themselves, of course, but by using the Indian neighbors, who made good
money on that. In any event, the British put their Global Mind to good use
during World War II, when they were not disheartened by the battles lost to
Germans in 1940. Their PM W. Churchill played the war excellently to the
68 Andrew Targowski

advantage of the British even though at the beginning of the war he did not
have enough resources to beat Germany.
The III and IV Waves of Globalization began after the drawing of the Iron
Curtain in 1947. The Political West (including Japan) began to integrate and
globalize itself under the leadership of the USA whereas the Political East was
becoming integrated under coercion from the communist ideology from the
USSR. The sphere of influence of the Political East extended not only over
Eastern Europe but also included Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and to a degree
China, too, but also Cuba and countries in Africa, such as Egypt, which
sympathized with it.
The two waves of globalization competed with each other ideologically to
the degree that they endangered the world with a nuclear war. It never
occurred simply because these waves were managed by wise people on both
sides of the Curtain. The two waves of globalization ended their activities as a
result of the 1989 Polish Revolution and the collapse of the Berlin Wall in
19916. Regarding the development of the American Global Mind during the
Cold War, the following data testify to its extent and complication. In 1970,
the USA maintained a million soldiers in 30 countries, organized 5 regional
pacts, signed treaties of military co-operation with 42 countries, confronted the
USSR in 53 international organizations and provided economic and military
assistance to 100 countries7.
The present V Wave of Globalization has been around since the turn of the
20th and 21st centuries and was caused by the remarkable expansion of the
Internet. It resulted in a concept of distance having died, which made it
possible to transfer 40,000 factories from the USA to China and other
countries with cheap labor.
It proved a major financial success for global corporations and the soaring
of unemployment in the USA and a number of European countries,
particularly West European ones. This gave rise to the financial crisis of 2008
which, rather than a cyclical crisis of capitalism, proved to be a structural one.
In the Asian countries that had been notorious for poverty, living standards
went up and an ambition surfaced to overtake the Western Civilization in
economic development. The Western Global Mind, driven by short-term greed
of amassing great profits is losing to the Asian Global Mind, which is winning
an economic war without a battle. In the confrontation of the two minds, the
Internet is of more service to the Asian rather than Western Global Mind.
Thanks to the Internet, the V Wave of Virtual Globalization is surfacing; it
is founded on community networks, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter,
Linked In and others. In the 2010s the number of virtual “internauts” reached
 Four Minds of Wisdom 69

1.2 billion. These people get organized in virtual communities and even a
global virtual society.
They demonstrated their power in 2011 when the so-called Indignant
protested in Wall Street (Occupy Wall Street) at the same time in 1,000 cities
across America and Europe. It is probable that in the November elections of
2016 the American Virtual Society can put forward its candidates for President
and Vice-President and can have its virtual members vote in real polling
stations.
Since Americans are equally disaffected with the Democratic and the
Republican candidate, the voting for a candidate representing the virtual
society will be an expression of mistrust for both the Democrats and the GOP.
If one of those candidates wins, it will be a revolution comparable with the
French and American Revolutions.
The Global Mind is guided by the principle “think globally, act locally.”
In practice, the power of global corporations destroys the local effort, which is
too weak to face the challenges posed by the global capital. To a degree, this
principle works well only in France, where petit bourgeoisie defends its small
businesses against the invasion of global chains, such as Walmart. The Global
Mind operates in cyberspace and reaches all the places which function in the
Internet. The paradox of this mind is its neighborhood bonds diminished in
favor of acquaintances with people who are thousands of miles away. The
Global Mind is still developing and its development constantly fails to reach a
saturation point; it always “expands and becomes ever more in-depth,” thus
becoming ever greater in terms of being informed and regarding its knowledge
and wisdom. People who are not equipped with the Global Mind, and there are
still lots of those, and maybe even the majority in the world, that is, single-
(with the Basic Mind only) or double-minded ones (those who have Basic and
Understanding Minds) cannot compete in information, knowledge and wisdom
with those who have three minds (Basic, Understanding and Global), but one
can imagine people with the basic and global minds but without the
understanding variety. A number of mariners, soldiers and civil servants on
foreign missions, as well as couriers and salesmen (self-starters and self-made
men) seem to have developed this combination.
The Universal Mind develops over an additive process as an evolution of
humanism, driven by morality, with virtues and values in particular (Figure
7.1). The evolution of humanism has been ongoing for 4,000 years, that is,
since the emergence of Judaism, which believed that life was to be in service
of people in the name of God. The guiding principle of the service was the
70 Andrew Targowski

idea of justice, understood as giving everyone their share. The Ten

Commandments, given to Moses by God, occupy the focal place in it.
Around mid-8th century BCE the Greek culture gave us the need to
develop art, literature, philosophy and science, aggregating these values in the
triad of truth, goodness and beauty. The Greek philosopher and scholar
Aristotle (4th century BCE) is a great example of the Universal Mind. With his
classifications and definitions of mindsets he founded contemporary
reasoning. The Greek ideal of truth carried in it elements of knowledge and
wisdom. The Polish civilization scientist Feliks Koneczny added the values of
prosperity and health to this Greek triad. Centuries after the Greek domination
in the area of the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean and after the self-
destructive wars between city-states, there came the time for Roman
supremacy.

Business is always right, super-consumerism, stronger takes all,

XXI GLOBALISATION vulgarization of culture
XX-XXI POST MODERNISM Love, relative truth, autonomy, responsibility, self-accomplishment

Equality, human & civil rights, self-determination of nation, open society,

XX DEMOCRACY private property, free press, free elections
Free market, free competition, and social democracy
XIX CAPITALISM
Patriotism and cult of feelings
XVIII-XIX ROMANTICISM
Liberty, equality, and fraternity

Additve development
1789 FRENCH REVOLUTION
Individualism and liberalism
1776 AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Parliamentarism and pluralism
1688 ENGLISH REVOLUTION
Knowledge, rationalism, freedom of ideas,
XVIII ENLIGHTENMENT tolerance and pluralism

XV-XVI RENAISSANCE Fulness of human development

I CE CHRISTIANITY Faith, hope, and love

Law
I BCE-V CE ANCIENT ROME

V-III BCE ANCIENT GREECE Truth, goodness, and beuty

Servicing to God and people

XX-I BCE JUDAISM justice and dialogue

Figure 7.1. The Kawczak-Targowski Model of the Additive Development of Values

within Western Civilization8.

On the basis of their powerful military, the Romans managed to order the
lives of civilians, that is, their citizens, in this “law-based polity.” Since then,
the word “civilization” has been in circulation, with the Roman law studies to
this day providing an example of universal thinking. However, after the
excesses of the Romans in conducting wars, the 1st-century Christianity
 Four Minds of Wisdom 71

introduced the values of faith, hope and the love of fellow human beings. The
love for fellow human beings came as a total surprise to the Roman society
and those who were at war with it, and which were guided by ruthlessness in
their deadly struggle. People were surprised by this value, but after about three
centuries of oppression by the supreme authorities of Rome, the emperor
Constantine the Great (272-337) felt he had to recognize the Christian values
as the supreme principles of the Roman Empire (313 CE).
The fall of Rome (476 CE) submerged Europe in darkness for close to 324
years (the name Europe was not yet in use at that time) until the Franks came
to organize their empire (800) with a powerful, positive part played by
Christianity.
The process took Europe 650 years and was and found a climax in the
flourishing of the Renaissance (1453-1600), proclaiming the complete
development of man by ways such as the sponsored beauty of art (the Medicis;
sculpture and painting, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, Titian) and
the grand architecture, best exemplified by St. Paul's Cathedral in the Vatican.
The financial excesses connected with the cathedral led to the Reformation,
that is, the split of the Roman Catholic Church into Catholicism and
Protestantism (banning Luter in 1521).
Soon afterward, a series of religious wars and the inquisition plunged
Europe in hatred and religious persecution for two centuries (16th and 17th).
Soon after those ceased, the era of the Enlightenment emerged towards the end
of the 17th century, which stressed tolerance in response to religious wars and
the inquisition. The Enlightenment not only emphasizes the validity of the
values of rational thinking, replacing superstitions and dogmas, but demands
that the freedom of thinking, speech and gatherings be respected, which is still
a challenge for countries with authoritarian systems (e.g. in China, the Middle
East, Cuba and Venezuela, not to mention North Korea). The US Declaration
of Independence of 1776 recognizes equality, freedom and the law, albeit only
for the whites. It was only after 190 years that black citizens were granted
equal rights with the whites. The declaration promises the individual citizen a
right to pursue happiness. The United States were such a vast country, rich in
natural resources, that happiness seemed within close reach for the lucky ones
who had emigrated from the overpopulated Europe, still engulfed in wars and
conflicts. This document is still considered the best definition of modern
liberalism and individualist philosophy. It is these values that the Tea Party
keeps drawing upon in the 21st century.
The Great French Revolution (1789) proclaimed liberty, equality and
fraternity and transformed the subject of the French king into a citizen of
72 Andrew Targowski

France. These ideals would determine social progress in Europe, America,

Australia-New Zealand, i.e. the Western Civilization, for the next 200 years
until the Polish Revolution of 1989, sealing the fall of the Polish People's
Republic dictatorship. The Era of Romanticism (1790-1840) affirmed in music
(Chopin, Liszt), painting (von Gogh, impressionism, leaving atelier), literature
and poetry (Goethe, Mickiewicz, Hugo) or philosophy (Schelling) is a reaction
to the English (1688), American (1776) and French (1789) Revolutions, where
the fate of man was subordinated to the common weal, and individual life did
not matter much in this process because the better tomorrow was better than
the evils of today. Therefore, any sacrifice was justified. Romanticism
introduced the values of the worship of the nation (several countries were
created in Europe, such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania) as well as of human
feelings. It was Romanticism that made a particular impact on the minds of the
Polish elite in the 19th century when Poland was partitioned in three.
The 19th-century Industrial Revolution in Britain, Germany, France,
Holland, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Northern Italy gave entrepreneurial
individuals a chance for success in business and for high earnings. On the
other hand, the nascent working class began to seek a fair distribution of
wealth, and hence two new values entered the treasury of the Western
Civilization: art/creative design (engineering in particular) and the value of
Socialism.
The great progress of the English, German and American economy in the
20th century established the dominance of liberal capitalism. It contributed
equal rights for women, human and civil rights, national self-determination,
open society, and it also consolidated the value of private property. Not all
these values are being observed in the practice of the Western Civilization in
the 21st century.
The assault of technology, with IT in particular (generated by the
Information-Networking Wave), on the system in which the society operates
(automation, robotization, digitization, virtualization, exporting jobs,
unemployment) has given rise to a reaction against this “advanced” microchip
manner people functioned.
Just as Romanticism appeared as a reaction to the revolutions, the later
stages of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of Postmodernism – a
criticism of the technological modernization of societies. This period
contributes the values of love, knowledge, wisdom, autonomy, responsibility,
self-realization, the relativity of truth and the validity of individual mindset
and experience.
 Four Minds of Wisdom 73

People tend to reject received ideas and theories and affirm their own, as if
contrary to science and facts, as Hegel wrote more than 200 years ago. Man
again reaches out for their own logic so they can resist the impact of the media
and prevent themselves being brainwashed by politicians, businessmen,
technologists, who place their own business over the common good.
Alas, Postmodernism is losing to the economic globalization of the 21st
century, which transforms the Western Civilization into Global Civilization,
with business ever more clearly becoming its “religion.” The chief value of the
global business is maximizing profits within a short time span. Whatever
business does is best, you cannot criticize it in the media or parliaments as
politicians and the media then face losing financial support. Universities start
talking about a need for sustainable development, i.e. the vitality of business,
responsibility for the environment and social responsibility. The theory of
economics begins to contrast “shallow economics” (accounting with business
costs only) with „deep economics” where social and environmental costs are
taken into account, including the effects of unemployment and transfer of jobs
to Asia, generated by business.
The paradox of the liberal economy is that as a result of the principle it
embraces, when it attains success, it stops being liberal and democratic as its
everyday activity is de facto controlled by lobbyists. Every 2-4 years voters
elect representatives, who then do as the lobbyists please, that is, they become
subordinated to the will, money and objectives of CEOs and financiers.
Liberal economy resembles a snake that eats its tail and reminds one of the
“Lenin rope,” the purchase of which a banker will borrow money for to make
money, even if they know they will be hanged on this rope.
In the modern social development of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries,
four conflicting value systems competed: the idea of nationalism and
imperialism (Russia, Prussia, Austria), the ideas of communism and
totalitarianism (Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela), the idea of absolutist-
theological monarchies (Middle East) and the ideas of liberal democracy (the
Political West). Social progress is constantly on the move and its result might
boil down to wars over resources, as their fast exhaustion by the overpopulated
earth will probably take place in the mid-21st century. What will happen then
is the de-evolution of humanism as man might return to the cave stage.
The Universal Mind can be found in judges and constitutional lawyers,
doctors, priests, intellectuals and various humanists. This mind has been
making great progress over the last 4,000 years. Over that period, civilization
has developed about 44 values that make us noble creatures as long as we
apply these in lives. Unfortunately, this is not the case and man espouses these
74 Andrew Targowski

values only in hardship; in times of prosperity, man becomes stupid. When it

seemed that the Internet would lead to the progress of knowledge and
information, in reality it led to the economic globalization, which destroyed
the values of the Western Civilization, based on Christianity.
The emerging Global Civilization halted the evolution of humanism in the
most developed countries and brought these back to the 17th and 18th
centuries, dominated by religious wars, intolerance and ruthlessness.
In the 21st century, the Universal Mind has found itself in a major crisis
because the humanism of the enlightened people is extinguished by the
approach of the global business which has dominated the minds of politicians
and media specialists with its narrow-minded interest. An average citizen is
confused and overwhelmed by the “religion” of business. This is a heavy
defeat of man, who – rather than getting wiser – has gone dumb, blinded by
the idea of monstrous accumulation of wealth by 1% out of 100% at the
expense of the remaining 99 % of the people.
We have discussed the four minds, which ought to be used by man so that
in the 21st century they can be called knowing and wise. Figure 7.2
demonstrates the model of the closely interdependent four minds of man.

UNIVERSAL MIND
complete

GLOBAL MIND
extensive

UNDERSTANDING
MIND
self- depended
THEORETICAL

BASIC
MIND
dependable
 Four Minds of Wisdom 75

Figure 7.2. Four Minds of a Contemporary Man.

A really wise man is a four-minded individual who thus has a complete

mind. Three-minded people, who have the global, broad mind, and an
independent understanding mind are potentially less wise. They obviously
have the basic mind. However, their problem is that with the lack of the
universal mind their decisions are not filtered by a value system, so they can
be pragmatic but cannot be truly humanistic. Such an intellectual and decision-
making system is very true of the contemporary global businessmen and
financiers.
Two-minded people, usually having the basic and understanding minds,
are educated, but they are narrow-minded. They can be good specialists,
parents, spouses and children, but their path of social and professional
advancement is rather short. One-minded people with the Basic Mind are the
majority of the populations of individual countries and the whole globe. They
are common-sense people, which may well take them smoothly throughout
their lifetimes. Still, their knowledge and wisdom cannot be compared with
those who have multiple minds. In the understanding of some more complex
life situations, they are dependent on the opinions of those who at least think
independently. Polish mountain people consider themselves to be wise. They
are wise organizers of households, who successfully do various kinds of
business in the hard conditions of their mountainous region and their families
are well-off. But their decisions are still merely no-nonsense, unless they have
worked in America, where they developed their global minds and have seen
issues with some “breadth” since.
Here we reach a situation where combinations of various minds need not
be hierarchical, as demonstrated by the model in Figure 7.2. One can imagine
people with the basic and universal minds. Priests and nuns, as well as a
number of healthcare and justice administration personnel certainly belong
here. One can imagine people with the basic and global minds: those mariners,
soldiers and civil servants on foreign missions.
As regards examples of famous people, particularly politicians, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was certainly one. He won elections four times as well as a
war against such superpowers as Germany and Japan in a situation where the
USA was unprepared for war. He also took the country out of the Great
Depression of the 1930s. Last but not least, he completed two Ivy League
universities: Harvard and Columbia, which equipped him in an understanding
(independent) mind. The application of the universal mind was demonstrated
at the meeting with the British Prime Minister W. Churchill on USS Augusta
76 Andrew Targowski

off the coast of the Newfoundland (Canada) on 14-17 August, 1941. PM W.

Churchill insisted that the USA should enter World War II. FDR consented
provided that the UK green-light national self-determination, lead to
decolonization, agree to seafaring freedom and make sure the living conditions
of the working class improve. These conditions were included in the Atlantic
Charter, signed by both leaders. In terms of his global mind, despite there
being no Internet, the President oversaw (Gen. G. Marshall was in command)
the course of the victorious war in Europe, the Atlantic and the Pacific.
FDR was opposed by Adolf Hitler, who badly lost the war. Why? Hitler
had just one, basic mind. He lacked in the understanding, global and universal
minds. It turned out that the one-mind leader of Germany had no chance to
beat the four-minded president of the West. One could make a simplification
and say that FDR was 3 times wiser (assuming equality of their basic minds)
than Hitler, and that was why he won the war.
Now, on to facts. Had Hitler had an understanding mind, he would have
attacked the USSR, rather than France or Britain, first. Because the Polish
government had refused to join Hitler in the assault on the USSR in the April
of 1939, Hitler could not have reached Russia through the territory of Poland.
Gen. Edwin Rommel suggested that Russia should be attacked from the south,
going from Africa through Egypt. He needed 5 divisions to do that. Hitler
refused and re-enacted the war in trenches using millions of soldiers, as he
knew it from World War I, which he fought as a corporal. When he did launch
the offensive against the USSR in 1941, he attacked the country in three
directions simultaneously: Moscow, Leningrad and the Caucasus. He
dispersed his forces and lost. The generals who protested were dismissed,
including his best general – Heinz Guderian.
When he attacked Ukraine, Germans were welcomed with bread and wine.
Ukrainians deemed the Germans to be their liberators, particularly that they
remembered the genocide which Stalin had committed on their people, when
he deprived them of food, including the grains for sowing cereals. Instead of
thanking them for the nice welcome, Hitler started to murder them. He lacked
the universal mind – his value system was at the level of the emperor Nero,
known for cruelty. How could he have known about the values introduced by
the French Revolution and the Enlightenment?
In June, 1944, when Germany was expecting the allied invasion of the
French coast along the English Channel, a dispute broke out between the
generals Rommel and Guderian (brought back to favors) how to deploy an
armored division. Rommel wanted to dislocate it close to the well-developed
port of Calais (situated closest to Britain), but Guderian was not sure where the
 Four Minds of Wisdom 77

allied would land and this is why he wanted to deploy it 100-200 km away
from the Channel, more or less in the heart of Normandy so that, once the
place of landing was known, it would be possible to reach any place in the
east, west or center of the coast. Notified of the dispute, Hitler chose a
Solomon-like solution. He divided the division into three parts and placed
those in the west, east and south of the French coast. Obviously, Guderian was
right, but Hitler, with his wisdom at the basic level, could not resolve the issue
wisely.
There were 160,000 Jewish soldiers in the German army9. They were
good soldiers and considered themselves patriotic Germans; their families had
lived in Germany for hundreds of years. But in the cities where they came
from their families were being persecuted. When they visited the families on a
leave, they heard complaints of mistreatment. The soldiers then would put on
their official uniforms, attach the many distinctions and medals, visit the local
offices of the SS and file complaints. There, the non-commissioned soldiers
needed to report to these front-line officers and they made excuses for the
persecutions the families were being subjected to. These situations were
sometimes quite grotesque. To meet the needs of their officers, Admiral Karl
Dȍnitz (commander-in-chief of the Navy) and Marshal Herman Gȍring
(commander-in-chief of the air force) approached Hitler to resolve the problem
in a positive manner. Hitler did not side with the soldiers and ordered that all
those be dismissed from service. No leader with higher education, leading
such a devastating war, would have gotten rid of so many thousands of good
soldiers.
Lacking in the understanding mind, Hitler allowed just 6 months for the
German physicists to make the atom bomb. He thought that physics was a
Jewish science and felt deep reluctance to it. With no higher education and,
consequently, no respect for scientific knowledge, he caused the V1, V2 and
V3 projects to fail. After their production plants near Szczecin were bombed,
the manufacturing of the missiles was moved to dungeons in the Harz
Mountains and for the sake of their production, the Nordhousen Mittelbau-
Dora concentration camp was organized.
Any logically thinking commander-in-chief would have created wonderful
conditions for the manufacturing of these missiles. They were to have been the
Wunderwaffe that would decide the course of the war. One would have
imagined that the commander of the camp ought to have been Werner von
Braun, the constructor of the missiles. However, a Gestapo officer was put on
charge of the camp and he had 50,000 camp prisoners killed, to the obvious
detriment of the camp and the chances for the Germans to win the war.
78 Andrew Targowski

In the summer of 1944, Germany was on the retreat from the Eastern
Front, receiving a heavy beating from the Soviet Army. The high command of
the Polish resistance AK Home Army began to contemplate a rising in
Warsaw. There were a number of opponents, including Count Adam F.
Ronikier (1881-1952), President of the RGO Economic and Welfare Council.
Ronikier lived in Cracow, and it was here where he suggested it to the Gestapo
commander Miller that Germans should consent to a Polish brigade being
brought over from London to Warsaw. The idea was that the London
Government, supported by the Polish military, would officially receive the
Soviets in Warsaw. This would in a way slow down the army's west-bound
drive and make it easier for the Germans to arrange for an effective retreat
from the Eastern Front. Germans would need to have some benefits from the
situation, too. The governor Hans Frank consented to the proposal but wanted
to have Hitler's consent, so he sent a colonel from Cracow to Berlin to sort out
the conception in person. Hitler would not agree, even though the plan was
logical and favorable to the German cause, though, obviously, it was most
advantageous for Poland. With his basic mind only, Hitler could not
understand the benefits of the plan in a situation that was critical for Germany.
As can be seen from the examples given here, Hitler was lacking in the
understanding mind, one of the features of which is objectivity as it is based
on judgment using theoretical criteria that lead to the evaluation of the benefits
and drawbacks of the solutions, measurable factors possibly being applied. In
his judgments, Hitler was guided by an advanced subjectivity, dominated by
racial prejudice against the allegedly lower Jewish and Slavonic races. He
simply failed to fully understand the situation and, as they say, he just would
not see.
In foreign policy, Hitler did have a good global mind, but only in the
beginnings of his diplomacy. His successes include the Munich conference of
1938, where Great Britain, France and Italy consented to the German take-
over of Western Czechoslovakia and accepted the annexation of Austria.
Another success was the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939, which facilitated
the defeat of Poland, but delayed the assault on the USSR by two years. It was
attacking Russia that was his strategic priority and it was clearly set out in his
famous idea of Drang nach Osten.
According to the reputable British geographer Helford Mackinder, Russia
is “the Heartland and whoever dominates it, dominates the world” (1904);
Hitler did want to rule the world. The Generalplan Ost (GPO) resulted from
the earlier Nazi ideas of gaining the living space (Lebensraum), which
 Four Minds of Wisdom 79

allegedly the Germanic race of lords deserved, and it was also in line with
Hitler's interpretation of concept of Drang nach Osten.
From the standpoint of long-term policies, the pact with the USSR in 1939
was a short-term success. However, due to this apparent success, he failed to
implement the most major idea of expanding the “living space” for the
“expanding Germanic culture” because he unnecessarily waited for two years,
during which time the USSR consolidated its military and not only did it
defend against the German assault of 22 June, 1941, but also defeated
Germany and destroyed Berlin in 1945.
The pact with Japan and Italy of 27 August, 1940, was a wise move by
Hitler, but declaring war on the USA on 11 Dec., 1941 – four days following
the destruction of the American Navy on the Pacific by Japan (Pearl Harbor) –
meant that Germany had a death warrant issued against it.
At that time Germany was waging a great war against the USSR and
should have focused their attention on that war; the declaration of war on the
winner of World War I only accelerated the US accession to the war in Europe
as early as November, 1942, taking over Africa in 1943, where an assault on
Europe was to come from: first from Sicily (10 July, 1943), and then France
(D-Day in Normandy, 6 June, 1944), concluded with the repeated defeat of
Germany – this time in May, 1945 (previously in 1918).
The above analysis implies that Hitler did not have an operational global
mind (no breadth). An attempt at using it ended up in defeat. Having just one
mind, Hitler had no chance to succeed in his war. He would have stood such a
chance had he first attacked the Soviets. If the West had not helped him, it
would at least have remained neutral as this would mean defeating
Communism. Hitler had a chance to beat Russia and reach India, which he had
planned. He would have thus realized his plan of securing the “living space.”
Similar conclusions can be reached on analyzing the minds of the many
political leaders of the world at that time. Napoleon came to power thanks to
the French Revolution, which he would betray and delay the enforcement of
its ideals for a hundred years. Thus he demonstrated he was lacking in the
truly universal mind. In terms of the global mind, he did have a right sense of
space, but his war with Russia in 1812 was unnecessary and not only ended up
with his political defeat but also spilled the blood of 2 million French men in
all his wars. Napoleon was two-minded and the two missing minds decided his
defeat.
The contemporary leaders of the world are usually four-minded (Obama,
Sarkozy, Hollande, Merkel, Cameron), which is no guarantee of success,
however, as what comes into play is the art of living and the art of governance,
80 Andrew Targowski

too. This will be discussed in another chapter. It is not enough to have the right
ideas and strategies – one also needs to have the skill of putting them into
societal practice. As an aside to these deliberations, the example of the Italian
PM Silvio Berlusconi (1936-) comes in handy. He had no universal mind (a
notorious scandalist) and his terms in office proved to be his personal defeat.
It is the readers who will be left to determine how many minds their
leaders, bosses or priests have, what that implies for their knowledge and
wisdom and what can be expected of them.
Chapter 8

HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION WISDOM

The story of man dates back 6-8 million years to a time when a species of
big monkeys split into humanoids and the apes we have today, such as
chimpanzees. The humanoids that emerged several million years ago, thanks
to the more profound links between their communication skills, mental
processing of information and their consciousness, had their brain increasing
from 500 cm3 to 1130 cm3 (females) and 1260 cm3 (males) in the present day1.
Thanks to the brain being almost 2.5 times bigger, people reason better
and tend to be wiser on their path of development from the pseudo-human of
the homo habilis kind to homo electronicus. The primitive man communicated
by body language whereas we are now communicating electronically along
tele-communications networks1.
If humanoids had such advanced brains, they could have been wise. They
were, in fact, as we can see in their upright posture, based on two limbs rather
than four; today's monkeys walk on four limbs. When our ancestors went
down from trees and started to roam the earth, they found the African sun to be
scorching their backs, so they assumed an upright position to limit their
exposure to sunshine. Our forefathers have become homo erectus since, and
this happened 1.8 million years ago. The posture they adopted fostered the
invention of fire and improving their menus, which resulted in the improved
communication, and the expansion of brain this entailed. 1.6 million years
after, homo erectus evolved into homo sapiens that we know today. Had it not
been for the wisdom of those humanoids, we could still be walking on four
limbs.
With the merely 800 cm3 brain, the pseudo-human had a kind of
intelligence, allowing them to adapt to the challenges of Nature wisely.
However, since man developed language, around 60,000 years ago, they
82 Andrew Targowski

started using symbols and were able to remember a number of situations and
practices, allowing them to live wisely since they remembered good solutions;
this is when man began to organize group life – tribes and society.
It was easier to live in organized groups: hunt for food, rear children,
make arrangements against the hostile forces of Nature and other people. Man
created culture – models of human behavior in groups guided by values and
symbols – as a norm for the tribe or society. When civilization had learned
how to cope with the challenges of Nature, it started to revolve round issues
that determined the success of the society.
The progress of culture was reinforced by the invention of print and books
in the 15th century in Europe as this set off and spread the development of
theoretical knowledge in chemistry, physics, biology and other disciplines.
Man began knowing more and in this way enriched their judgments and
choices. In a number of matters, they started making wiser decisions, e.g.
thanks to the Portuguese navigation techniques man set out discovering new
continents, such as America in 1492, which initiated I Globalization Wave.
Reaching out for new colonies (by the Spanish and the British, but also
Dutchmen and Frenchmen) created a need for the development of sea
transportation, and this resulted in the invention of the steam engine and then
the Diesel engine.
Replacing man's muscle work with engine caused an increase in free time,
which could be used for education. This unleashed the Industrialization Wave
and man was attracted to capital and wealth, which they could get hold of even
if they did not come from aristocracy. This is what happened in the 19th and
20th centuries, characterized by an increase in wisdom in individual decisions
of man, but these centuries also saw a rise in unwise decisions by man, who
came to want ever more and at the expense of others, including whole
societies, at that.
The challenges of Nature and organizing societies in states saw man
victorious thanks to the increments in knowledge and wisdom, but on account
of an increase in their wealth, man caused new social challenges which they
can no longer handle wisely as the degree of complication of the decision-
making situations at all levels of the society has increased manifold as
contrasted with the times when man confronted Nature.
Civilization2 began to transform from one geared at organizing societies to
one founded upon the concept of social justice. This issue is treated differently
by different ideologies, which sometimes has nothing to do with social justice.
Man has shown to have a greedy nature and, led by demagogues in leadership,
reaches out to get hold of ever new areas and resources in the name of
 History of Civilizational Wisdom 83

intellectual doctrines, such as the 20th century German and South African
varieties of racism. Man is able to exterminate millions of fellow citizens in
the name of the so-called social justice, as did Communism in Russia, China
and Cambodia in the 20th century, taking the toll of 94 million dead (65
million in China, 20 million in USSR, 2 million in Cambodia, 2 million in
North Korea, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in
Eastern Europe, 1 million in Vietnam, 150,000 in Latin America and about
10,000 as a result of the international activities of Communism in many
different countries3).
Nazism and Communism saw an enemy in the education of the oppressed
as these people might know too much and be wise, and thus possibly
dangerous in the fight against their oppressors. In Poland under the German
occupation, the Germans in the first place arrested teachers and academics,
who were then murdered in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and
Dachau. The Nazis planned that an average Pole should merely be able to
count to 100 because it was the German overlord who would be supposed to
think for them. In Germany, Hitler supported the art that glorified the beautiful
German; he also brought together the avant guarde paintings and had them
sold for a pittance in Switzerland. He supported simple art that would be easily
perceived and required no sophisticated reasoning – wisdom – in order to be
understood. It was Nazi leaders who were supposed to be wise, not their
subjects, even if those happened to be their fellow countrymen.
In the USSR, following the Bolshevik Revolution-2017, the intelligentsia
was the first to be exterminated (in that time it belonged to the world elite).
Great poets were not being granted licenses to do the job of a poet (sic!) if
their artistic work did not support Communism. In the hour of the regime's
weakness, some artists were spared – they were put into a sealed train and
expelled from the country. No wonder that the prominent poet Mayakovski – a
bard of the Bolshevik Revolution – committed a suicide.
In Cambodia of the 1970s, when following the expulsion of the Americans
from Vietnam the Khmer Rouge took over power, close to 2 million people
were murdered, making up 24 per cent of the population3. In the first place
those who were murdered wore glasses (could read) or had smooth hands,
undamaged by manual labor – they first killed the intelligentsia. These were
the potential, wise opponents of the Khmer Rouge policies. The Khmer Rouge
sought to destroy Capitalism and its tool – money – as well as the cities with
its smart entrepreneurs.
These murderers were led by Pol Pot, himself and intellectual and
graduate of the Sorbonne. The Khmer Rouge communists were appalling,
84 Andrew Targowski

blood-thirsty felons: they fed farm crocodiles with hundreds of living people
daily. If the prisoners resisted, they were pushed into the jaws of the reptiles
using high-voltage rods. Particularly ghastly treatment befell children of the
intelligentsia – they were fed to crocodiles in most barbarous ways.
Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge communists traded human organs, cut out
of the political opponents' bodies without any anesthetics; they would later put
the hapless people, thus deprived of organs, onto trucks and fetch them to
crocodiles as food. If we criticize those criminals, what can be said of the
buyers of these organs? They came from the Western Civilization and must
have known the origin of the transplants, which they bought for cash. The 21st
century China is also involved in organ trade; several thousand executions are
carried out there annually and “nothing can be wasted.”
It was not only the Political East that felt ideologically uneasy about their
conquered subjects becoming wise. The Political West made their contribution
in that respect, too. The 19th century British conquerors of China made sure
the Chinese were enslaved by the mass consumption of opiates – having been
drugged, they could hardly demonstrate wisdom. In making the Chinese high,
Indians were used to supply the Chinese with the drug.
At the other end of the Political West, in Latin America, the corrupt
political leaders and landowners kept their citizens/workers down in the state
of constant intoxication by recommending and affording them a possibility of
chewing coca leaves. These people worked the fields extremely hard from
dawn to dusk and, most importantly, they were “satisfied.”
Wars and conflicts were a stimulus for the development of computers for
military purposes in the 1940s, resulting in the Information Wave in the recent
decades; it emphasized the impact that computerized information made on
human cognitive processes and the wisdom that followed. The launch of the
Internet in 1983, in particular, caused the surge of another Wave of
Globalization, which caused the fall of the Western Civilization and the
emergence of the Global Civilization, along with the new challenges it carries
for the wisdom of man.
The Information Wave transformed the civilization that had so far been
based on their design of political concepts such as capitalism, socialism or
communism into one based on technology. The 21st century globalization
challenges make man embarrassed and have them ask a question whether they
are wise enough to prevent the civilization, created for the last six millennia,
from utter destruction. These challenges can be described in the conception of
The Death Triangle of Civilization (Figure 8.1). This triangle is formed as a
 History of Civilizational Wisdom 85

result of the synergetic impact of the Population Bomb affecting the

Ecological and Resources Bombs (exhaustion of the strategic resources).

2050

Population
Population Decreasing
Bomb Policy

2300

Death
Emigration
Triangle of from the Resources
Civilization Planet Bomb

Ecological
Bomb
Another Planet or
Galactic

Figure.8.1. The Death Triangle of Civilization.

In 2012 the population of Earth is about 7 billion people, whereas our

planet can secure an ecosystem (natural resources) for 8 billion. It is highly
probable that in 2050 the population will reach 9 or even 10 million or more.
Estimates indicate that population expansion should be halted around 2050 as
a result of better family planning along the Chinese model. In the light of the
contemporary social policies of the world's countries, though, nothing seems to
indicate that this is about to happen.
The Republican Party candidates for President in the 2012 elections not
only advocate that women be denied the right to decide whether and how
many children they will have, but they also embrace a ban on contraceptives,
86 Andrew Targowski

which is still being preached by Christian churches. So, there is no causal

power in politics that could reduce the population. Other civilizations, such as
the Eastern, Islamic, Hindu, African or Buddhist varieties are keeping a low
profile in attempting to increase their populations to the levels that matter.
Alas, there is no wise policy in terms of halting population expansion on
Earth.
The development of the global civilization makes corporations see in
China and India great markets for the sales of their products, services and
profits. That causes increased levels of production and accelerated use of
natural resources, such as oil, gas, uranium and metals. The deposits were
enough for half a century, given the pace of their use remained steady.
However, due to the globalization of the economy, the exhaustion of those
resources will come about faster. There is no way China and India – countries
having the biggest populations worldwide – can be barred from economic
development. It is unfeasible in moral terms, as well. The West cannot tell the
East “Hey! You cannot make progress and catch up with us because there are
not enough strategic resources for you on the Planet!”
Man has set the global economy in motion thanks to the human reason,
inventing the Internet, global transportation systems and the system of low
tariffs. Man can take pride in the power of their reason, but is the
uncontrollable introduction of these innovations wise from the standpoint of a
sustainable development of civilization?
It is an obvious truth that only 2 billion people can live by the Western
Civilization standards. If the remaining 5 billion want to live in the same way,
there will not be enough strategic resources for them found on Earth.
However, all the inhabitants of the Planet seek such living standards,
particularly those in East Asia. If all such ambitions were to be fulfilled, there
would need to be three such planets as ours.
In a macro-civilizational sense, people do not demonstrate wisdom and are
doomed for an inevitable civilizational degradation. The human reason is said
to have been facing up to the challenges of civilization so far, indeed, and will
therefore keep doing so. The author does not see this as a likely outcome,
particularly that politicians do not further the policies of the sustainable
development of their countries and, above all, civilization.
Politicians are interested in short-term solutions, determined by the
electoral cycle, this being usually 4 years, whereas it takes much longer than
that to see the effects of the sustainable development of a country or
civilization. NGOs may indeed be sounding an alarm and organizing one
summit after another to save the Planet, such as those in Rio de Janeiro (1992),
 History of Civilizational Wisdom 87

Kyoto (1997) or Copenhagen (2009), but these do not have a major bearing on
the state of civilization because countries like the USA and China disregard
the settlements of those summits.
A technology-based civilization should apply technology in such a way as
to facilitate life to man. But the technology that is globalizing the world
increases the role of man in the world, especially in the most developed world
– the Western Civilization. Particularly, the technology that is liaised with
business turns the rank and file into the redundant on account of their being
“too expensive” and their work easily done by an “Asian slave,” robot or an
automated expert process, such as a call center.
Is business wise in replacing people with machines? A short-term profit
from eliminating human labor causes, in the long run, the elimination of the
consumers of this business as the unemployed have no money to buy goods
and services which may be cheap (thanks to Asian slaves and machines), but
those jobless people have no money to do shopping.
The policy of exporting production and the work it involves to Asia has
caused a profound crisis of turbo-capitalism in Europe and the USA, that is, in
the Western-Atlantic Civilization (or Western-West)5 in 2008. Still, this
downturn had been caused by the haphazard financial system, that is, the depth
of this several years' crisis was caused by the outsourcing of industrial work to
Asia; the economy of services is too weak to guarantee full employment,
economic growth and the emergence of the middle class, which determines the
success of the society and the state.
Apparently it does not take rocket science to understand the dilemma of
the present-day Western Civilization, and yet the lack of knowledge and the
lack of good judgment and choices which the two entail is making the crisis of
turbo-capitalism grow deeper rather than became contained in the 2010s.
It looks like man can launch risky business deals and make huge money
on these but is not wise enough to estimate their social and ecological
consequences. The knowledge of the world and technology may be
progressing, but the collective wisdom of man is diminishing. Who knows,
perhaps the knowledge of societal issues in on the downturn, too, because after
the fall of Communism there is no longer a power that would control the
actions of Capitalism along the principle of check and balance, fundamental
for democracy.

5
Alongside the Western-Atlantic (called also Western-West) civilization, there are: Central-
Western (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic Republics, Croatia,
Slovenia), Western-Latin and Western-Jewish civilizations.
88 Andrew Targowski

Over the 6,000 years of civilizational progress, 26 individual civilizations

have been around that transformed one into another4. Each of these is
characterized by a religion, that is, a value system that drives culture,
infrastructure and society across territories going beyond the bounds of one
state. In the 21st century we are dealing with 8 individual civilizations:
Western (Catholicism and Protestantism), Eastern (Orthodox Christianity),
Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu and African (syncretistic and
mixed).
Before our very eyes, the Western Civilization is turning into a Global
Civilization, which means that the ecclesiastic religion of Christianity has been
superseded by a lay religion of business.
It so happens that in the Western societies nobody criticizes religion,
whatever it is. Therefore business, which has become the religion of
globalization cannot be criticized either at universities or in politics, and this is
why whatever business does eludes judgment, let alone criticism, particularly
if that business finances media and politicians (by lobbyists and electoral
subsidies). In the 2012 election campaign in the USA, subsidies for the
Political Action Committee are, by a Supreme Court decision, unlimited. So, a
Las Vegas businessman gave $10 m to Newt Gingrich's PAC, with another
promising to donate $100 m to another Republican candidate as long as he
guaranteed the impunity of global business. Still, are these rich sponsors of
politicians wise?
North America has been an unmatched political model of democracy and
liberal capitalism for the rest of the world, and for Europe in particular,
including Poland where about 10 million immigrants to the US and their
offspring come from. Since Europe united to form the European Union, it has
intrigued others with its integration policies because it set out to create a huge
market for 500 million customers, bigger than that of North America and
richer, though smaller, than the Chinese and Indian market. This policy betrays
the inherent wisdom of Europeans, with their 4,000-year-long civilizational
education.
As we can see, business as a religion overcame the previously wise
Europeans. In 2010 a crisis broke out in the Eurozone – the areas covered by
the new pan-European currency in circulation in about a dozen EU member
states. The crisis had been caused by several countries – Portugal, Italy,
Greece and Spain – getting heavily indebted to banks (most of them French).
The clue of the crisis is that the system of common currency requires one
government to run unified tax (revenue) and budgetary (revenue and
expenditure) policies.
 History of Civilizational Wisdom 89

However, Europe wants to be a union of countries with their own

governments rather than one country such as the USA, with its 50 states. On
account of the multiple cultures and languages, the solution of a union of
member states is right, which means that creating a common government
deciding the economic policy and, by means of a shared budget and taxes also
determining a social policy (education, health care, pensions, etc.), is
contradictory to the will of the member states that voluntarily joined the EU.
The political leaders of the EU above all seek to minimize the financial
crisis and in so doing save the French and German banks from bankruptcy.
The bailout comes by way of granting new loans to the countries affected so
that these can keep up paying interest from the debt. In this way Greece may
be paying back the interest today but is becoming increasingly insolvent. The
debt is going up and the service-based economy is unable to pay back the debt
because it is too weak (unless it sells several islands to Germany). Attempts to
save the euro lead to an ever-increasing crisis, which may be some years away
from the terms of office of the currently ruling politicians, whose decisions are
– let us be honest – unwise.
The current policies of the EU leaders (the President of France and the
Chancellor of Germany) are founded on a belief that, thanks to a common
currency, the effectiveness of the European business is good and can be very
good. True, the economic growth driven by super-consumption is occurring
and it is on the rise because the common currency and the large scale of the
market fosters that, except that the high economical efficiency needs to be
replaced with the policy of self-sufficiency, which Europeans can afford so
that they can pass civilization undamaged and ready for further sustainable
development and growth on to future generations.
The EU may have a good enough policy of environmental protection, but
in terms of sustainable development it is stuck in a dogma that business knows
better what is good for society. The EU can operate without one government
and currency – this is the case with member states such as Poland and the UK
– and therefore the policy of efficiency needs to be replaced with one of
sufficiency. This policy would be wise from the point of view of preventing
civilization from its further degradation within several decades. Alas, business
as a religion has become a dogma in its raison d'etre of seeking huge profits
today in complete disregard of the social and ecological consequences in the
long run. Wisdom has given way to stupidity, which is usually the case with
dogmas.
To sum up the history of wisdom in civilization one can reach the
following conclusions:
90 Andrew Targowski

 Civilization has made people aware that they have intelligence to

develop their selves: knowledge and wisdom in particular. This is
testified to by the (wise) people's drive to education and climbing up
the social ladder.
 Civilized people seek to expand their freedom, which is conditioned
by their being informed, knowledgeable and wise. One finds a proof
of that in the revolutions, such as these: English (1688), American
(1776), French (1789), Mexican ((1914), Bolshevik (1917), Chinese
(1934), Polish (1980-89), Arab (2011+) and others.
 People develop civilization by means of ideas, stemming from the
ever-increasing knowledge and wisdom, even though these ideas can
be extremely harmful and dangerous because these could result from
the limited knowledge and wisdom of leaders, who were able to come
to power thanks to a set of favorable coincidences, internal or
external. These ideas include capitalism, socialism, communism,
totalitarianism and democracy.
 The historical success of nations and states is made possible by the
harmony of politics, economy and society: by shared wisdom.
Harmonized states include the USA (till the end of the 20th century),
France, Czechoslovakia (until its break-down in 1993) and
Scandinavian countries. Undoubtedly, Germany in 1933-1945 was
also internally harmonized.

The social live in the 21st century, particularly in the Western Civilization
indicates the meaningful decline of the societal harmony in it, what is
exemplified by the structural and perhaps permanent financial and economic
crisis. In solving this crisis, wisdom of political leaders is not fully seen.
Chapter 9

JUDGMENT AND CHOICE

As was said at the very beginning, wisdom is good judgment and choice.
Yet for the most part, wisdom is about the right judgment. The quality of
judgment is the key to wisdom. There are a wide range of judgment methods,
though, with almost all areas of life having their own ways in that respect. Not
all will be investigated, but emphasis will be placed on universal methods, less
specialized methods and ones which are shared by most situations requiring
judgment.
Rhetoric is the oldest judgmental manner. It is about reasoning that is
based on rational argumentation for or against an idea. So, when
unemployment is on the rise and stock market indexes are going down, the
history of similar situations indicates that these are the symptoms of a
recession, that is, the economy is entering a recession. Judging by
argumentation is applied by defense attorneys, where the chief principle is
undermining the evidence collected by the police: usually to do with the
legality of evidence collection rather than its validity only, though.
In the process of choosing candidates to high offices, when it comes to
public debates between the candidates, this method of arguing for one's
position is used. As far as the very argumentative process is concerned, the
final conclusion can be drawn from individual facts. After the US Navy was
bombarded in Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec. 1941 by the Japanese air force, FDR
drew a conclusion that World War II had begun, particularly that several days
later Germany declared war on America. This kind of judgment is usually
applied in the event of disasters, particularly air crashes. Then, from a mosaic
of facts and clues, a judgment is arrived at whether the crash was an
unfortunate coincidence or was caused by deliberate actions.
92 Andrew Targowski

An investigation into the causes and factors influencing a situation is a

popular way of argumentation. The financial crisis of 2008 was caused by
powerful Wall Street financial and investment corporations going bankrupt.
But to reach the true origin of the crisis, a number of factors need to be taken
into consideration that also affected the complexity of the situation. The
hugely haphazard speculation with the capital entrusted to these corporations
by their clients or a deregulation of the financial system that maximized short-
term profits disregarding the long term consequences. The decision-makers
meant to maintain a vast pay-back “now” rather than in some indefinite future.
Argumentation is different between opponents and among friends.
Opponents argue in such a way as to win. Friends usually argue to solve a
problem. Experts argue in favor of a change within a paradigm or for a change
of the very paradigm itself.
The most popular method of judgment in business and administration is
arguing in favor of an objective adopted in advance. People tend to judge and
choose options in order to minimize losses rather than maximize
achievements. A New York or Warsaw taxi driver has a target of selling some
volume of transportation services monthly, but each day they will act in such a
way to make sure empty rides and stop-overs are reduced to a minimum,
which can sometimes contradict a possibility of getting better income, e.g. by
going to those districts of the city where the number of potential customers is
the biggest, even though the district may be far away at the moment.
This is what the tennis player Agnieszka Radwańska did when she beat
the great tennis star Maria Sharapova in the final of the Ericsson tournament in
Miami on 31 March, 2012. Generally speaking, Radwańska plays a “weaker”
tennis than the hard-hitting Sharapova. In order to beat her, she had to
minimize her mistakes and play cautiously, forcing the opponent to take risks
and make mistakes. This is how she won as the prime principle of tennis is hit
the ball over the net and onto the field this one time more than your opponent.
Golf players prefer to the par for the hole rather than risk a stroke which,
when successful, can make them score under par (such as birdie), but in this
way you do not become a champion. The excellent golfer Tiger Woods
increased his earnings by $1 m when he started to play towards birdies rather
than pars, that is, improve by 1 stroke per hole. T. Woods chose a more
aggressive strategy of play and it served him well. He not only had right
judgment, but he also could implement it with his great play, which is not so
simple and does not look attainable for other players.
In the judgment of rare situations, people tend to overestimate the
likelihood of this situation occurring. There has been a lot of talk in the US
 Judgement and Choice 93

media and politics about the potential for alternative energy (solar panels,
wind turbines, long-life batteries), but in 2012 this type of energy supply did
not even cover 15% of the demand. So is the case with the gas-electric hybrid
motors. Their advantages are known and appreciated, but their use is not
growing fast, even though it should. There are a number of reasons behind
that, but people's estimates tend to be too optimistic as compared with the
reality.
The judgments of the situation differ in that the “standpoint is determined
by where you sit.” Low-earners use their earnings to survive. They usually
have no financial reserves to complicate their judgments and choices.
However, the rich, and the very rich in particular, judge the situation as a game
with others like them, say, billionaires.
The owner of the software company Oracle, Larry Ellison, is valued at
approx. $40 bn, which is much less than the estimates for Bill Gates ($55 bn),
and therefore he is much more energetic in his undertakings as he wants to
overtake his famous rival. This kind of person makes their judgments and
choices subservient to this kind of activities, which are sometimes irrational.
At least so it seems to regular people. There are exceptions to this, though.
Warren Buffet, second only to Bill Gates (valued at $44 bn), lives on a
$100,000 annual budget in a house he bought 50 years ago and drives an old
car. He reinvests his annual income of $4 bn and distributes it among charities.
The only luxury he sticks to is the private jet and its permanent crew.
The terms of judging the economic state and trends has good grounds in
econometry – mathematized economics. It is a field excellently developed by
academics, about which thousands of books have been written and thousands
of students educated. Econometric evaluations are used by economists
employed in governmental economic centers and major banks. Alas,
politicians rarely make use of these expert judgments, particularly when those
are pessimistic or when, based on these studies, they would need to make
unpopular decisions. The 2011-2012 crisis of the euro is a handy example in
this respect. They should have allowed Greece to go bankrupt rather than have
it take out more loans to pay back the interest on the loans previously given by
German and French banks (€120+ billion w 2012). Econometric calculations
demonstrate that Greece is unable to pay off either the old or the new loans.
The German and French politicians, though, are making efforts to prevent their
banks from going bankrupt while they are in office. Is this what a new loan
should be meant for – timely repayment of the interest only?
Highly advanced is the judgment on the situation in manufacturing and
transportation; it uses optimization methods of linear programming, known
94 Andrew Targowski

since World War II. These methods can be employed to evaluate a range of
production programs, such as what goods (e.g. cars) and what numbers of
them need to be produced to maximize profits or minimize losses. Companies
make good use of these methods. In the distribution of goods from wholesale
warehouses to retailers, the point is to plan the shortest possible distances
between shops to minimize the length of the transportation route – save time
and fuel. Distribution companies – if managed by educated and wise CEOs –
employ experts in these methods; they can and do apply this kind of judgment
and choices.
PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique), also called CPM
(Critical Path Method), is a popular method of assessment in project
management. There, a computer calculates in which actions there is no spare
time and combines these into the so-called “critical path.” The project manager
has a great judgment of the situation; they know which actions, if delayed, will
also delay the implementation of the whole project. They can then shift
manpower and equipment from those actions where there is spare time to get
the actions at risk done. In the USA, every contract for the supply of weapons
and logistics for the Department of Defense must have the PERT net so that
the customer will have the right judgment of the situation as well as right
premises for decision-making regarding the implementation of the contract.
The PERT method has been known since the 1960s, when it was first used to
manage the design and production of the Polaris submarines.
Decision-making methods include decision-making simulation games,
initiated in 1947-1950 by the ingenious Hungarian mathematician John von
Neumann, who collaborated in their design with the excellent Polish
mathematician Stanisław Ulam (the Monte Carlo method). It merits a mention
that both these scientists collaborated on the design of the atom and hydrogen
bombs in the Manhattan Project, held in Los Alamos. That spectacular
application of mathematics contributed to the defeat of a dangerous
superpower – Japan – in the summer of 1945.
In the 1960s, Jay Forrester (1918-), from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, devised a simulation model called industrial dynamics, which
was later used by the team led by Dennis L. Meadows (1942-) to investigate
exhaustibility of resources, whose findings were then published in The Limits
to Growth3. This book triggered a global environmentalist movement.
In the anticipation of the assessment of future situations, simulation
methods tend to be used that are based on mathematical models and ultra-fast
computers, generating infinite options of situations, which later assess and
estimate the probability and consequences of their occurrence. These are used
 Judgement and Choice 95

by investment companies to forecast stock market developments and play the

stock market. Strategic war games used by the military, use the methods very
well, too.
High hopes were attached to the application of personal computers in
Decision Support Systems in the 1980s. When spread sheet software was
devised, it became obvious that these support systems had been brought down
to budget planning and assessment. Interest in the application of mathematical
methods in the assessment and selection of decision options abated for the
sake of making simple budgetary calculations.
It was only in the 1990s and the early 21st century, when data mining
from big companies' transaction databases became commonplace, that interest
in the application of mathematical methods in the judgment and choice of
decision-making went up considerably, and the methods came to be
successfully applied. Business knew full well that the knowledge offered by
the mining and computer-based statistical processing of data meant better
understanding of consumer behavior and a possibility also a better sales
strategy, as illustrated by the well-known example that Walmart sells nappies
and beer best on Mondays.
Nevertheless, the development of mathematical models and information
systems for better judgment and choice in business and administration is tidal
in the last two centuries. These models need high qualifications and ethical
culture on the part of decision-makers so that they will apply those effectively.
When business complication grew in the Western Civilization after World War
II, so did demand for the application of this kind of models for judgment and
choice.
Once the West began transferring businesses to Asia at the turn of the 21st
century, the complication of business in their home countries grew less.
Highly qualified specialists were laid off as they were too expensive and their
advanced judgment was no longer necessary for decision makers. Cost
calculation rested on the fact that an Asian worker did their job for $1 per hour
as opposed to $25 or more in the Western-Atlantic Civilization.
The US economy, instead of growing, came to increasingly rely on
services and, unfortunately, their automation. This process can be called the
Walmartization of America – efficient wholesalers and transporters supplying
the local consumer with imported goods within highly computerized supply
chain systems.
It was forgotten that the USA fetches these goods from China on credit,
that is, pays for them by bills of exchange (bonds), in this way increasing its
foreign debt by $900 bn yearly. Hardly anyone in the USA seriously considers
96 Andrew Targowski

a repayment of this debt, and the Chinese have come to see that too, but in this
way they have sucked America into their poor country and in so doing made it
dependent on the supply of goods from China. In other words, the Chinese are
wisely winning the economic war with America without a battle. This is just
putting to practice the policy of the great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu (5th
century BCE) and it is evident to anyone who has an understanding and global
mind.
Another effect of the Walmartization of America is the changes in the way
students are educated in business schools. Management science used to be a
mandatory subject. Now it is optional, which means that you can get an MBA
diploma without a profound familiarity with the hard subject of judgment and
choice by means of these advanced methods. In other words, we are educating
students to be more stupid rather than wiser. Why should students be
instructed in these mathematized methods if learners no longer like
mathematics? Why make them “tired” and disaffected?
The 20th/21st century business replaced its reluctance to advanced
decision-making methods with Key Performance Indicators (“KPI”). Their
idea is about focusing decision-makers' attention on 20 indexes in 4
perspectives: client, finances, innovation (incl. training) and operation. If a
company has 20 good indexes, it is assumed to be in good shape. Jack Welsh,
CEO of General Electric, used to be a master in the 20-indexes management. I
would call the approach a Red Ocean Strategy, which is about a meticulous,
step-by-step improvement of key indexes.
2005 saw the definition of the Blue Ocean Strategy2, which emphasizes
innovative approach. In the first place, it offers customers the new values that
the business contributes. This can be seen in the example of the Barnes &
Noble bookshop in the USA. The customer entering the bookshop need not
buy the book – they can read it, have a get-together with an acquaintance, have
a coffee and cake or meet the author. This way a traditional bookshop has been
transformed into a cafe and reading room, thus contributing two new functions
to the one already existing, which is an added value for the customer. The
customers got to like the new solution. Alas, Barns & Noble is fighting for
survival as the e-bookshop Amazon seeks to eliminate paper books from the
market and replace those with e-book readers, with its brand product Kindle in
particular.
The Blue Ocean Strategy puts a company's customers into three
categories: traditional (established), opponents and those never considered as
potential customers. The Coca Cola Company has some established customers
(the youth), but its opponents are wise mothers who do not want their children
 Judgement and Choice 97

to take in too much sugar and caffeine. Therefore, the company has launched
Coke Zero, to meet the requirements of the wise mothers. To face the
opponents of soft drinks, who are among beer or wine lovers, the
manufacturers of alcoholic beverages have released the co-called coolers,
containing some palpable traces of alcohol.
The Green Ocean Strategy is gaining ground; it is about recognizing the
environmental costs in business cost calculations. It means the recycling of
used products – plastics, metal or paper, etc. Some businesses even seek to
make it from Green to Gold3,4.
More broadly, there is ever more talk of the strategy of sustainable
development, the point of which is that the present generation of the users of
Earth should pass the planet on to the next generation in a condition it was
received. The judgments and choices, including the kind of development
should reckon with the solutions warranting the vitality of the
economy/business, responsibility for the environment, climate control and side
effects.
Alongside the need to work out wise judgment, one needs to know how to
make wise choices. Psychology comes in handy with its several techniques,
based on the optimistic, pessimistic and equal-chance techniques. These are
the chief techniques, but they can be further modified by their combinations.
The pessimistic decision-maker determines their choice on a maxi-mini user
approach – the best option out of the worst. A stock-market investor-pessimist
will invest in the fund stocks, having diversified portfolios, and with their
profits smaller but more certain, rather than directly in securities. An investor-
optimist will invest in the stocks of the companies that have so far been the
most profitable. As we know, growth capacity has its limits, and it is far from
certain whether they still have any potential for growth. An equal-chances
investor will invest in both funds and by buying stocks directly, choosing
securities with both high profits and those that have yet to grow.
What follows from this review is that there are a range of judgment and
choice methods for people to make, and these should secure wise thinking and
decision-making. In an individual dimension, that is, individual people, many
of us make use of these methods and think wisely, making wise decisions.
In the collective dimension of the society, state or the globe, the standards
of wisdom in judgment and choices are eroding. This is noticeable in the
decisions by politicians, affecting the quality of life in society. In the 21st
century, state politics, in democracies in particular, is highly polarized. It boils
down to power struggle, no matter how important the arguments of the
opponents are. There is hardly any consensus between rivaling parties.
98 Andrew Targowski

Introducing wise systems of healthcare, energy security, pensions, education,

taxation or even foreign policy takes some consensus between parties. Alas,
there is none and it looks like there never will be since parties are financed by
lobbyists, who have turned liberal capitalism into a dictatorship of capital.
Conservative parties are transforming into radical political groupings that only
see the benefits of business, whose well-being is equated with the common
good of society.
The rising radical business orientations are being opposed by what is best
expressed by the 99% Occupy Wall Street movement – by those Indignant at
the 1% Wall Street supporters in the USA; it was begun in the fall of 2011 and
is growing all the stronger, the more resources the tiny elite tries to take over
from the rest. An interesting illustration of this is the salary gap between the
two social groups. The main boss of Walmart is making $15,000 per hour as
opposed to his employee's $10. The difference is the 1:1500 ratio. This poorly
paid worker is under constant pressure to boost their work efficiency – become
ever cheaper. A checkout cashier at Walmart cannot sit at the check-out
station, since her efficiency can go down (?). This is a short-sighted, suicidal
policy for the 1%, and hence unwise because it risks the worst outbreak of
social anger the Western-Atlantic Civilization has ever seen.
To round up, in terms of the components of wisdom, seen as the right
judgment and choice, the following criteria can be proposed:

1. Judgment
a. competence in the understanding of the situation
b. conceptualization by means of big picture versus small
picture and vice versa
c. short-term versus long-term in the understanding of the
situation
d. localization versus globalization in the understanding of
the situation, and vice versa
e. sensitivity to economic, environmental, climatic, and
societal effects in a given situation
f. others
2. Choice
a. prudence
b. tolerance
c. practicality
d. universality
e. others
 Judgement and Choice 99

The above criteria, applied wisely in the judgment and choice of options
should secure wise thinking and decisions. Sadly, there are a number of other
criteria that affect the quality of wise thinking and decision-making since man
is not a computer and does not always act in a way which would be implied by
the judgment of the situation. These criteria will be called the art of living,
which will be discussed in the next chapter.
Chapter 10

ART OF LIVING
From the very beginning, man has been rational as this determined
survival in the inexorable natural selection. As civilization progressed and the
quality of societies increased, man was losing their instinctive rationality for
the sake of humanism, where irrational behavior matters, too. Still, as
knowledge and education grew, man evolved worldviews and defined all kinds
of ideologies.
In the name of these ideologies, man was ready to die, and in fact died in
their myriads and voluntarily, too, in revolutions: American, French,
Bolshevik, Mexican and others, as well as nationalistic wars, such as in
Germany, where millions died for the sake of expanding the space for the
“exceptional” German culture during World War II. The Soviet soldiers at the
time and same war died in millions, too; they gave their lives “for the
homeland.” Today we know that they went forward after a quart of vodka,
followed by the NKVD troops that killed the hesitant. Even now, in North
Korea, those who vote against the regime are killed. To survive, the rest have
learned to demonstrate mass hysteria following the demise of leaders.
In those cases, ideologies kill millions. In order to survive these irrational
challenges, people must demonstrate the art of living. Especially in the Global
Civilization, this approach is indispensable, too, as the Western-Atlantic
civilization behaves irrationally.
The art of living is a skill of controlling one's emotions; it is a will of
employing morality. It is also intuition and possessing an ability to be guided
by the common wealth rather than one's own benefit, and ability to focus on
important issues: the will to apply selflessness, and also a will to be either
patient and modest or energetic, depending on situation. The art of living is a
skill of functioning in unpredictable situations and reckoning with some less
102 Andrew Targowski

rational factors; it is also a skill of proper conduct when faced with a company
of people coming from a generation different than one's own. The art of living
may reinforce the wisdom of judgment and choice, but it can also weaken,
discredit and neutralize these.
The theoretical foundations indicating that man uses two decision-making
systems – emotional-intuitive and rational – were defined by the psychologist
Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, for the theory
of decision-making in the conditions of insecurity. D. Kahneman defined two
systems1; System 1 – fast thinking – acts as if automatically with little mental
effort. It will instantly detect that one object is further away from the other,
determine the source of a sound, supply the result of 2+2=, finish the adage
“There is silence ...” whereas System 2 – slow thinking – requires a bigger
mental effort, sometimes backed up with complicated calculations, such as
filling in the annual income tax form, providing information on the workplace
phone number that includes an extension or checking a logical or
mathematical proof. System 1 requires no major scan in human memory;
System 2 does.
System 1 generates impressions, feelings, inclinations, and – when
supported by System 2 – it can even generate religious beliefs, attitudes and
intentions. This system can even be programmed by System 2. System 2
operates effortlessly under normal circumstances, but when it detects a
difficult situation, it switches, as it were, to higher levels of reasoning, which
slows this reasoning down in order to remain wise.
Certainly, man employs System 1 or 2 automatically for most of their
conscious life. The theory only corroborates the validity and role of human
psychology in man's life. Psychologists even categorized major behaviors
depending on age. The Erikson (1902-1994) Model is particularly appreciated
as it allows one to predict with a high likelihood the behaviors of the person
one is dealing with, in other words, their wisdom:

 Stage I—infancy (birth-18 months) – trust, mistrust, willingness, hope

 Stage II— early childhood (18 months to 3 years) – self-control,
courage and will
 Stage III— age of play (3 to 5 years) – purpose, initiative, guilt
 Stage IV—school age (6 to 12 years) – method, competence,
resourcefulness and inferiority complex
 Stage V – adolescence (12 to 18 years) – misperception of one's role,
sacrifice and loyalty
 Art of Living 103

 Stage VI—young adulthood (18-35) – membership, love, privacy,

solidarity vs retreat
 Stage VII – middle adulthood (35 to 55/65) – productivity, care,
aging, self-interest, stagnation.
 Stage VIII – late adulthood (55 or 65 +) – wisdom integration vs
desperation.

This German-American psychologist thinks that only old people can be

wise. This goes against the theory discussed here, which holds that people can
be wise irrespective of age if they have good judgment and make good
choices. However, the eight stages and the major behaviors that can be
expected of people in various age bands provide premises on what to pay
attention to in relations with others, and this in itself is a great help in
elaborating wise judgments and making wise choices.
Man is controlled by three systems: biological (genes), spiritual and
reasoning (resulting in wisdom, stupidity, or their mix). Man has no yet
control of their biological system, even if genetic engineering promises this.
Yet man chooses their spirituality, whether religious or lay. The system of
reasoning is supposed to reconcile those two when they clash (a proposition by
the psychologist Marek Celiński).
Be philosophical. Determine your philosophy of life. Are you a believer,
an unbeliever or an agnostic? Are you a pragmatic? Can you anticipate
situations (a priori)? Do you know what wisdom is about? Do you know how
to live? Or perhaps you are an idealist who is also down-to-earth, a realist who
understands that elitism reflects natural diversity and determines progress but,
as a young man, you are also ethical and tolerant. In other words, what is your
life philosophy? What is your worldview? It can be conceptualized in a
number of ways, but what matters is that you should be aware of your life
philosophy and conform to its principles, such as moral.
Be moral and ethical. Morality depends on civilization. There are 9
civilizations now, governed by a religion and the morality it entails. The
Western Civilization is determined by the morals of Roman-Catholic and
Protestant Christianity. The Eastern Civilization is also controlled by
Christianity: its Orthodox variety. Buddhism governs the Chinese and
Japanese (Shinto-Nature) Civilizations but also Buddhist and Hindu, albeit in a
number of shades. The African Civilization is shaped by several religions,
with Islam controlling the north and Christianity – the rest, with some
exceptions.
104 Andrew Targowski

The Global Civilization is determined by a lay religion – in the 21st

century, business is one. Each of the 9 civilizations is penetrated by the Global
Civilization, which causes a fierce conflict between a purely religious morality
and the ethics of the global business, founded upon greed and making instant
profit upon super-consumerism. Most probably, for the most part in such
conflicts, it is the global business ethics that come out victorious. People are
extremely pliable to money and are capable of doing whatever it takes to get
richer, including indulgence in immoral behavior.
It is the art of living to attain satisfactory solutions in private and social
life, remaining moral in the process. This is warranted by the universal mind,
which provides value judgments on human attitudes. Table 10.1. displays the
criteria of morality that occur in today's civilizations.

Table 10.1. The criteria of morality in the main 21st century civilizations.

CIVILIZATION SPIRITUAL VALUES

AFRICAN Ancestor worship
BUDDHIST Reach spiritual purity along the eightfold path
CHINESE Understand the relationship with God
HINDUIST Practice ethical and ritual life
ISLAMIC Practice submission to God
JAPANESE Attain moral purity and respect
EASTERN Love your neighbor and share what you have
WESTERN Love your neighbor and share what you have
GLOBAL Business decides the well-being of the society

Hindu, Islamic and African civilizations are the most consistent in the
application of the values they profess. These are strictly controlled by
organized religions and their societies are poor rather than rich. Their hope for
a better life is in the afterlife, which religions secure for them. Although the
Islamic Civilization commands huge income from oil resources in the Middle
East, those who dispose of the money are unwilling to share the wealth with
the societies, as seen in the Arab Spring of 2011.
The remaining 4 civilizations: Western, Eastern, Japanese and Chinese
nurture national rather than religious traditions, with those in business guided
by the morality of business or, rather, the lack of ethics.
The wisdom of these civilizations will be discussed in more detail later.
Control emotions. Luckily for civilization, people are emotional and
emotions control our judgment and the choice of the options of decision-
 Art of Living 105

making. Undoubtedly, emotions are built into our system of making

decisions2. Those who have mastered the skill of controlling emotions stand a
chance of functioning in life wisely. The following are the emotions that need
controlling: anger, fear, disgust, sadness, excessive joy and admiration,
vengeance, rapidness, impartiality, quarrelsomeness, excessive suspicion,
arousal and others. Bad emotions can spoil the best judgment, which leads to
bad decisions.
One can give an example of Napoleon's “emotions” during the battle of
Waterloo when due to gastric disorders he spent a lot of time in a latrine.
Emotions never left him and the battle was lost, with bad fate (his countrymen,
in fact) banishing him into exile. Stalin, too, behaved emotionally as he did not
believe in the reports saying that Germans were to invade his country in 1941,
and after the invasion he hid for a week for fear of being arrested and killed, so
he left the country without command for a week. It is only after he understood
nobody meant to arrest him (all the politicians of those days were afraid of
Stalin), he came back to perform his duties.
Emotionality is about maintaining controlled objectivity so that the
emotions of vengeance or viciousness would not surface. Generally speaking,
young people manage their emotions worse than seniors. This is why they
make less wise decisions than the older ones. One tends to say about the young
that they are “on a short fuse.” Therefore they make worse decisions.
Temperament, which is otherwise an asset when you are young, in decision-
making is a weak point, and even a dangerous ingredient in the system of
thinking. Its lack in old age is perceived to be a disadvantage, but in reasoning
its lack tends to be an advantage.
Be focused on important matters. The skill of focusing attention on
important matters determines effective thinking and action – a wise life.
Human life is short, unfortunately. Once they have learned how to live, must
they pass away into eternal vigil? Therefore, a wise life is about dealing with
issues that are important for a particular human being. Would they like to live
a good and exciting life? Or, perhaps, would they want to do something
important?
Albert Einstein is an example of concentrating on important things. When
he began his first job as a rank-and-file worker of the Patent Office in Bern,
Switzerland, he complained about being snowed under with applications for
patents. This was the turn of the 19th century, characterized by the intensive
progress of the Industrial Revolution in the English-speaking world. The boss
advised him not to read everything that comes in the post: sort the applications
into those already patented, having no chance to be patented and those that
106 Andrew Targowski

could be; apply yourself to the latter. Einstein used this advice in his research.
When he first came up with his own formula of energy (E=mc2). He did not
get lost in the tangle of research in theoretical physics. He was always able to
get down to the most important work. He spent his last 20 years elaborating on
the “theory of everything,” which neither he nor others have been able to do
successfully. Incidentally, Einstein was not as wise in his private life as he was
in physics. He lacked it in his relationships with women. Yet, it was a wise
decision to leave Germany in 1933 and go to the USA. Did he do a good thing
rejecting the offer to become the first president of the State of Israel in 1948?
He wanted to devote his research to the theory of everything, but he did not
succeed. In 2000 the TIME magazine declared him the man of the 20th
century. A bad example of the skill of focusing on the most important matters
of the office is President Barack Obama in 2009-2012. This was a time of
growing unemployment, which he began to deal with selectively only in the
third year of his term. What he brought to the foreground was the obligatory
health insurance, the constitutionality of which had been questioned (in July,
2012 the Supreme Court pronounced the healthcare reform constitutional,
saying that some fees for services are a form of tax whereas the President
considers those fines for not insuring employees). On account of the problem
of unemployment that was not being solved, the president was ranked low in
the polls.
The Italian PM, the tycoon Silvio Berlusconi behaved likewise in terms of
his inability to focus on issues of state priority: he thought, contrary to facts,
that the Italy of 2011 was faring well, as indicated by the plight of seaside
guesthouses and restaurants when Italy had began to plunge into an ever
growing debt loop to the brink of insolvency. This caused his prompt
resignation.
Be reflective. Remember what is worthwhile, forget what is unworthy of
remembering and be prepared to associate facts, judgments and choices.
Develop a skill of reevaluating the events from the past, the present and those
that can happen in the future. A controlled contemplation of an event should
occur – see the event in new circumstances and time. This is particularly true
of children who made unwise decisions in the past, contrary to the advice from
their parents. Years after, in a controlled state of emotions they might wish
they had obeyed their parents.
Be selfless. The issue of altruism marks noble individuals, who guide their
judgments and choices in keeping with this value. What might seem irrational
for some, for Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela,
Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, John Paul II, Lech Wałęsa, Warren Buffet
 Art of Living 107

or Bill Gates seems an obvious and wise solution. It can be expected that
everyone should be selfless, but it is leaders in particular that should be
marked by this attitude. Regular people can apply this towards their closest
environment, such as parents, spouses, children, cousins, neighbors and other
in need in their close proximity.
Be patient. In the English military, there is a principle that important
operations should be decided the next day, after having a good night's sleep, in
order to avoid haste and making an unwise decision which could be painful in
its consequences. The English appreciate the virtue of patience. Often it is not
worth reacting immediately to a critical situation so as not to exacerbate the
crisis and find oneself in a situation with no way out. Making important life
decisions requires some time to make a judgment and a choice towards a
solution. Making haste in getting married in the USA has led to a situation in
which every other couple gets divorced. If you are in conflict with someone,
give them some time to back off, come to senses or, possibly, make another
mistake. I was once playing a game of tennis on the first Legia court in
Warsaw. There were some spectators. I began to show off with spectacular
tricks and fell behind in points. Then, the famous tennis commentator and
tennis expert Bohdan Tomaszewski advised me “let him play,” and because
tennis is a game of errors, my opponent began losing points and I won by
meticulously increasing my score. This is how Agnieszka Radwańska, an
excellent Polish tennis player, beats the best stars in the world. I apply this
tactics in my professional and social life. I give my opponents time to make
mistakes.
Communicate your solution. The wisdom of living is not only about wise
reasoning but also about implementing your wise solutions. This is achieved
by submitting your ideas to the right people and institutions at a right time.
The art of living is about: moral, ethical and intuitive balancing of
emotions, attention directed to important things, and an ability to reflect by
way of remembering significant matters and forgetting those irrelevant,
associating significant factors, with reacting to events characterized by
patience and a dose of selflessness as well as other immeasurable factors,
especially in difficult situations, so that wise judgment and choice be
reinforced. These are illustrated by the model in Figure 10.1.
108 Andrew Targowski

CHOICE

Be reflectional; remember-forget-connect

Communicate your solutions

Focus on important issues
Be moral and ethical
Control emotions
Be philosophical

Be altruistic
Be pacient
Other

JUDGMENT

Figure 10.1. Factors of the Art of Life in the Process of Becoming Wise.

Some authors3 have found it with wise people that they can be grateful,
have organized lives, are able to overcome hardship, are not surprised by
adversity – rather, they treat it as something natural in life, – are curious of
life, knowledge and seek an understanding of difficult things, have an
untypical common sense, exemplify self-sufficiency and assistance to others,
seek a balance in things, and are usually modest as they have a sense of their
value no matter what others think. These traits ought to be included under the
art of living, but they need not occur as some necessary criteria of wise
judgment and choices. Only in investigating the art of living among wise
people may it appear that some fulfill those criteria in full, while other in part.
The art of living is not a science that relies on some well-defined rules. It
is intuitive action, characterized by positive results. If judgments and choices
can sometimes be mathematically well-defined, the same cannot be applied to
 Art of Living 109

the art of living. It follows that wisdom results from the combination of logic
with mythology, which is characteristic for philosophy. No wonder philosophy
is the “love of wisdom,” except that, in studying wisdom, philosophy must
leave its Ivory Tower and enter the crowd of regular people to see what
everyday wisdom is all about.
Chapter 11

WHAT IS WISDOM?
Practical life and the discussion so far indicate the great complication of
wisdom and its kind of mythical quality. The discussion in this book indicates
that the Cognitive Model of Wisdom is attainable in steps. Surely, just as in
any model of social or even technical (physics, chemistry, and biology)
sciences is a simplification of reality, but thanks to the modeling of reality we
are able to inquire into its essence better. Take the 1913 Solar Model of Atom
by Nielsen Bohr, thanks to which there occurred a quick and directional
progress of theoretical physics even though the model itself underwent gradual
improvements and alterations to comply with new discoveries of ever more
elementary molecules and their relations with the other elements of the model,
today known as the Cloud Model – these relations are as complex and unclear
as clouds. The Bohr Model was preceded by the Dalton Model on the
indivisibility of molecules (1803), the model of Early Atom, seen as “plum
pudding" (1897), the Saturnian Model (1904), Rutherford Model, with a
positive center surrounded by emptiness (1909). The Cloud Model, which is
now in force, has been developed by a number of authors since the 1950s. It is
to be hoped that the model of wisdom presented here will undergo a similar
evolution.
It follows from the discussion1,2,3,4 so far that wisdom in its rudimentary
sense is a good judgment and a good choice of the solution concept. A number
of (mathematized) calculation and intuitive methods can be applied to judge
and choose the concept, but the scope and quality of the judgments and choice
depends on the number of minds applied. Someone who has just one mind –
basic – will only be able to use the common sense for judgment and the choice
of solution.
112 Andrew Targowski

For a number of situations this wisdom is “sufficient.” Also, in increasing

the number of the minds applied – and there are also the understanding, global
and universal minds – we decisively increase the range and quality of wisdom.
The methods of judgment and choice and the number of minds applied can
secure good JUDGMENT and the CHOICE of solution option. However, this
is how a computer rather than man would behave; man would use the art of
living in these intellectual processes. It could reinforce the range and value of
judgment and choice, but it can also diminish their value. This was subject of
deliberations in the previous chapter.
The conceptualization of the place and relations of those elementary
processes of wisdom is illustrated in the Solar-Cloud Model of Wisdom
presented in Figure 11.1. In this model, the JUDGMENT generates
cognitivity, and so it has been marked (+) whereas the CHOICE reduces
cognitivity to the best option for a solution, and so it is marked (–). In the
theory of information, information is marked (–) as it reduces chaos. In this
model, CHOICE reduces the chaos of judgments – the overflow of
information, as it were. But JUDGMENT is the fundamental process of
wisdom as, in the perspective of the four-mind solutions; it in a way suggests a
wise choice upon a comprehensive analysis.
The processes of the art of living are further elementary processes of
wisdom which, through their load of life energy, powerfully affect
JUDGMENT and CHOICE. Other elementary processes include the wisdom
of the civilization, family, trade and other kinds of wisdom man has access to
through the reflective process of the art of living. Thanks to these, man
remembers-forgets what is vital in the wisdoms in which he/she has grown and
lived.
Notably, in order for wisdom to occur, it is initiated by concepts that need
judging and making choices of. KNOWLEDGE (laws, rules, principles or
“truths”), INFORMATION and DATA are instrumental in judging
CONCEPTS.
On the basis of the model, the following will be defined:

The wisdom of man in their everyday behavior follows from rational

judgment and a choice of a right option of the solution, using the range of
knowledge of one, several or all minds: basic, understanding, global and
universal. The quality of wisdom depends on the individual's art of living,
which follows from their genotype, character, morality, education, practice,
relations, environment as well as their ability to draw upon the wisdom of the
family, trade, civilization and its other kinds. The effects of wisdom include
 What is Wisdom? 113

good: health, life, survival, and fulfillment of objectives, cognition, solution,

action, suggestion, advice, opinion, decision and the like.

WHOLE MIND

Civilizational Wisdom

UNIVERSAL
Art of Living

INFORMATION
C H O I C E (-)

Be Reflective-Remember-Forget-Connect
Be Focused on Important Issue

Communicate Your Solutions

GLOBAL MIND

Professional Wisdom

Be Moral and Ethical

Control Emotions
Be Philosophical

Be Altruistic

Be Patient

KNOWLEDGE
Other

Other Wisdom

MIND
J U D G M E N T (+)
DATA

Family Wisdom
CONCEPTS

BASIC MIND

Figure 11.1. The Solar-Cloud Model of Wisdom (The Targowski Model5,6).

All the component parts of the model are processes despite their names
indicating an apparently nominal rather than verbal nature. Take
KNOWLEDGE (nominal character of the name), used in the process of
114 Andrew Targowski

JUDGMENT (verbal nature of the name) is not only about a passive

“browsing” for the laws and principles but also about the creation of new ones.
So is the case with MIND (nominal nature of the name), but the use of the
content of mind in the process of judging and choosing is dynamic and
processive.
The model features the elementary processes, there being 22 of these. All
the elements presented have an infinite number of relationships holding
between them. For specific situations, those can be defined. The relationships
between processes are extremely complicated and therefore the model will
also be called one of a “cloud.” The model was also called solar to indicate its
original nature, as is the case with the original solar model of atom.
Civilizational practice in the military, administration, healthcare, business,
education, legislation, judiciary and other spheres of life is about reducing this
cloud as well as defining and employing new strategies and policies. There are
none other than expressions of securing wise decisions although, alas, practice
is replete with unwise policies and strategies.
Can wisdom be learned? Of course it can. The knowledge on that,
presented in this book indicates that wisdom is practical, theoretical, global
and universal. Also, within general education, the universities in the Western
Civilization teach almost all the component parts of the model. It is just only
the knowledge on that is dispersed throughout the many lectures and there is
no one that synthesizes its totality. In applying this model (or any other if
available), specialist curricula should shape their approaches to wisdom in
areas such as business, law, construction, medicine, IT, architecture, sociology
and, perhaps philosophy, too.
In the spring term of 2012, the author gave a full-term lecture at Western
Michigan University for the students of Lee Honors College: HRNS 4900
Wisdom. The students were recruited from the following majors: philosophy,
painting, music, law, literature, dancing and medicine. Alas, there was no
business or engineering students. The proceedings of this course are available
in the Waldo Library6.
Education is nowadays dominated by the paradigm of knowledge.
Wisdom is left to practice. However, without it being taught, it arrives late and
this is why the state of civilization in the 21st century is posing a threat to its
survival. As long as education will continue to educating people only in
knowledge, graduates, equipped in this form of cognition only, will be unable
to cope with the challenges of the 21st century, and beyond.
PART III. WISDOM, PEOPLE
AND CIVILIZATION
Chapter 12

THE WISDOM OF PEOPLE AND THEIR

CIVILIZATION
People do not live in a vacuum. For 6,000 years life has been going on in
civilization, characterized by a community (ethnicity or an ethnic mix), culture
(with its morals, values, symbols and behavior based on role models) and
infrastructure (urban, rural, transport, information, etc.). Since the formation of
the first civilization in Mesopotamia, 30 civilizations rose and fell. Today's
Western Civilization originated 800 years ago (the Frankish Empire) from the
Roman Civilization (31 BCE to 600 CE), the predecessor of which was the
Hellenistic Civilization (323-31 BCE). Both are jointly termed as the Greco-
Roman Civilization; the latter originated from the Micene Civilization, which,
in turn, came from the Minoan Civilization, with Minoan coming from
Egyptian and the Egyptian one from the Mesopotamian Civilization1.
In the 20th and 21st centuries there have been 8 major civilizations:
Western, Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and African,
with each being controlled by religion. In the 21st century, the Global
Civilization emerged, with business and its values as its lay religion (profit,
greed, ruthlessness, super-consumerism). Thanks to the Internet and global
shipment, the Global Civilization penetrates these civilizations to varying
degrees. This is presented in Figure 12.1.
The characteristic feature of the Global Civilization is the financial elite
(the “1%”), a culture based on business (the society in the service of business
rather than the other way round), the English language, the CNN, the Wall
Street Journal and a fashion in clothing, with the Internet and global transport
networks its infrastructure.
118 Andrew Targowski

Global
Civilization
Chinese

Hindu Buddhist

Global Market

International
Institutions:
United Nations
Western Easatern
WTO
IMF
G7 , G20
Other

African Islamic

Japanese

Figure 12.1. Civilizations in the 21st Century.

Arguably, the Western Civilization has already been transformed into the
Global Civilization, as manifested in the decline of the Christian morality for
the sake of the morality of business – no morality. This is evidenced by the
financial and economic crisis of the West, which started in 2008.
Other civilizations are variously affected by the Global Civilization. The
Hindu Civilization accepts the Global Civilization as its society knows English
perfectly and is highly “mobile” globally. The Eastern Civilization (Russia and
Bulgaria), with Russia in particular, accepts capitalism but fends off
Westernization. The Japanese Civilization allows itself to be involved in the
Global Civilization but its culture is very traditional and strong. The Chinese
Civilization allows modernization but does not officially accept
Westernization, as opposed to the leanings of its young generation. The
Buddhist and Islamic civilizations do not accept westernization or
modernization but the elite of Islamic Civilization uses the Global Civilization,
particularly its financial system and its residential areas in case a social crisis
occurs in the home countries.
 Table 12.1. Civilization Wisdom Potential Index (CWP) in the 21st century2

CWP CWP
WISDOM ACTIVITY CWP BASIC UNDERSTANDING CWP GLOBAL UNIVERSAL
CiVILIZATION POTENTIAL MIND MIND MIND MIND RANKING
JAPANESE 0.73 4 27 80 477 1
WESTERN-WESTERN 0.21 1 9 65 459 2
CENTRAL-WESTERN 0.12 0.44 3 13 53 3
CHINESE 0.34 0.63 2 4 7 4
JEWISH-WESTERN 0.01 0.06 0.43 2 6 5
EASTERN 0.05 0.09 0.65 1 5 6
LATIN-WESTERN 0.02 0.02 0.30 0.7 2 7
BUDDHIST 0.02 0.05 0.14 0.4 0.4 8
HINDU 0.08 0.13 O.4 0.4 0.4 9
AFRICAN 0.02 0.003 0.002 0.01 0.05 10
ISLAMIC 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 11
120 Andrew Targowski

In the world that is so complicated in civilizational terms, man must adapt

their wisdom to the requirements of the civilization in which they live. So, the
wisdom of civilization, as the collective intelligence, creativity, emotionality,
health, and developmental capacity, must be taken into account in the various
minds (basic, understanding, global and universal). Following my other study,2
the potential of the wisdom of civilization is presented in Table 12.1.
The CWP implies that the Japanese and Western-Western (Atlantic)
civilizations have the highest potential of wisdom, as evidenced by the highest
quality of life and security attained in these civilizations. The Central-Western
civilization (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltics,
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia) have a considerable potential for wisdom – the third
highest. The Chinese, Jewish-Western, Eastern and Latin-Western are
undergoing active transformation and have problems with both the standard of
living and security. The Buddhist, Hindu, African and Islamic ones have the
lowest potential for wisdom, which results from the condition of religion,
politics, slow development, social gaps and inter-civilization conflicts.
Now, it is worth contemplating what the People's Wisdom Potential Index
(PWPI) is for those living in the civilizations. Are they left with the statistical
wisdom of their civilization or can they be wiser that their environment? Can
they stand out?
I have conducted studies3 about people aged 35-60 coming from educated
families, with IQ=91-110 for the basic and understanding minds only. The
ranking for this index is presented in Table 12.2.

Table 12.2. People's Wisdom Potential Index (PWPI)3

PWPI for the BASIC PWPI for the

CIVILIZATION MIND UNDERSTANDING MIND RANKED
JAPANESE 0.82 5.74 1
WESTERN-WESTERN 0.63 4.45 2
JEWISH-WESTERN 0.52 3.70 3
CENTRAL-WESTERN 0.43 2.60 4
EASTERN 0.21 1.47 5
BUDDHIST 0.41 1.24 6
CHINESE 0.32 0.98 7
AFRICAN 0.38 0.67 8
LATIN-WESTERN 0.13 0.65 9
ISLAMIC 0.31 0.31 10
HINDU 0.06 0.07 11

This index ought to be understood in such a way that a Japanese person

with a basic mind will make 8 wise decisions out of 10 decisions made with
 The Wisdom of People and Their Civilization 121

the so-called common sense. When they use the understanding mind they will
make 6 wise decisions out of the ten made. The high level of wisdom in the
Japanese civilization results from their art of living on a small island without
natural resources. Also, they are able to learn from others, as evidenced by
their fast adaptation of Western technologies and then the betterment of these
to the extent that they have become the main suppliers of cars and electronics
in the global market.
Regarding wise decision-making in the Western-Western Civilization and
the Jewish-Western Civilization, the number of the wise decisions made is
falling, which stems from the fact that the people living in these civilizations
have long been enjoying a high or very high standard of living; when they
lived in poverty, they tried to get out of it, but now that they have got out of it,
they have lost their eagerness to make wise decisions.
In the remaining civilizations, there is a very low number of the educated;
hence the people's decisions based on theoretical knowledge are limited in
number, though the elite of the Chinese and Indians (Hindus) are developing
their individual wisdom fast, particularly in business and technology. None
the less, these huge populations are not well educated and therefore they have
been ranked low on the list. As a result of globalization, the 21st century China
has visibly raised its standard of living in cities (450 million people), but in the
country side there is serious poverty and backwardness (involving 800 million
people). The per capita GDP in China is $5,184 (2011). In India it is worse,
with per capita income at $1,527 (no. 133 globally). In comparison with the
USA, with its per capita GDP at 50,000$, the productivity of these countries is
still very low, indeed. Is it not a measure of the wisdom of the people who live
in those countries, in the end? Surely, this is determined by a number of
factors, including the historical ones. Still, is history not tantamount to the
additive wisdom of the people?
Man has powerfully developed their knowledge as a result of the
Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and consequently – wisdom,
which follows from the liberation of reason. The result is the Western
(Atlantic) Civilization's standard of living close to prosperity. However, this
wisdom is eroding along with globalization, with the following challenges
emerging from human wisdom4:

1. The conflicts of geopolitics, inter-civilizational, particularly between

the Western, Eastern and Islamic civilizations, conducted by means of
terrorism.
122 Andrew Targowski

2. Geopolitical conflicts resulting from the transformation of the

Western Civilization into the Global Civilization, and the resulting
replacement of the Christian morality with the morality of the global
stateless business.
3. The sociopolitical conflicts of globalization connected with the
policies of Westernization, modernization, isolation or conflict.
4. The sociopolitical conflicts of globalization connected with the
transfer of production to Asia and leading to the fall of the middle
class in the Western Civilization, resulting in social unrest, with the
political classes passive and moderated by lobbyists.
5. The growing gap between the rich and the poor, between the culture
of the elites and the permittivity of the masses.
6. The vulgarization of the market by the masses with their primitive
tastes and interests; the ground-leveling of values and a spiritual
limbo.
7. Egocentricity, non-integrating individualism; isolationist and
separatist nationalism4.
8. Conflicts of technology innovation affecting the society, which stem
from the excessive automation, robotization and informatization
(digitization).
9. The conflicts of the internet-political nature resulting from the
societies going virtual and evolving towards direct democracy that
accepts populist and radical solutions.
10. The intercultural and ethnic conflicts, resulting from the need to
coexist with immigrants, who use globalization and human rights, and
who refuse to assimilate in the society where they wish to live.
11. Overpopulation and adverse demographical trends, as a result of
which the ecology is deteriorating, and natural habitats are finding
themselves under threat.
12. The conflicts of globalization resulting from the gradual exhaustion of
the strategic resources on Earth and the emerging rivalry for their
possession (China has dominated Africa with a view to accessing the
resources such as oil, precious metals and, possibly, food too.)
13. The conflicts resulting from the accelerated development of science
and technology, which man has been unable to master and use wisely.
14. Others.

The vast scale of the present-day conflicts may go beyond the human
intellectual capacity for problem solving. Discord between people is growing
as well as chaos in economic, political, technological and social theories.
Can these problems be solved successfully? I think the chances are small.
The only chance is the enhancement of education and making their wisdom the
 The Wisdom of People and Their Civilization 123

most vital resource people ought to fall back on, a resource they have forgotten
about.
Chapter 13

WISE CIVILIZATION
THE DIAGNOSIS OF THE CONTEMPORARY
‘UNWISE’ CIVILIZATION
The progression of civilization is in its sixth millennium. By the time of
the Industrial Revolution it had been slow. In the second millennium of the
contemporary era, the world’s population grew twenty two times, income per
capita went up by 855% and the income of the whole world grew 300-fold. It
was only as of the Industrial Revolution that civilization started growing
tremendously fast. Within 800 years, i.e. from 1000 to 1820, income per
capita had grown a mere 53%, while from 1820 to 1998 it grew eight times,
1
with the population growing five times (500%) . The average life expectancy
increased in this millennium from 24 to 78 years in the developed countries1.
One could say that an average man was just a little better off in 1800 than
someone living 6,000 years ago. Owing to the growing population most
average people fared even worse than their forefathers. People in the UK and
the Netherlands were better off but normal people living in the immobile
societies of Japan and China lived close to the level of cavemen. They were
subject to Malthusian selection where births were leveled off by deaths. Any
growth in the number of births diminished the level of per capita income. The
paradox of the then civilization was about wars, epidemics, diseases, chaos
and lack of hygiene boosted living standards as it reduced population.
The Industrial Revolution, which introduced machines in place of the
muscular effort of men, produced a surplus of goods, which was a rationale for
the growth in population, and even forced it, as the industrial business needed
more and more clients – this developed scientific and technical knowledge,
126 Andrew Targowski

and in consequence developed the techniques of production and distribution.

In effect, per capita income and the living standard grew at an accelerated
pace. At the beginning of the 21st century, about 2 billion people are living in
very good conditions, while 5 billion are still living in poverty. This means a
formation of a systematically expanding rift between the rich and the poor. It
can be statistically estimated that the rich live 7 times better that the poor, if
2
we take the whole world as a system of reference .
If civilization maintains the current pace of the economic growth, using
the calculations analogous to the ones of the 2nd millennium, at the end of the
3rd millennium, the population may grow to the absurd level of 180 billion
people, whereas our ecosystem can only maintain 8 billion people. If we want
to keep living on Earth, the economic growth in the 3rd millennium, over the
next 1,000 years, should grow 3% only for the end of the period. This is a
growth rate planned for one year rather than the whole millennium.
The nonsense of upholding the present economic strategy, which is about
securing an economic growth of 3% annually to secure employment in the
economy for a population thus expanding, is that a bigger supply of goods not
only fosters employment but stimulates the number of births in families that
have an adequate income. It is a repetition of the Industrial Revolution
strategy, investigated in the relationship between the economic growth and
population growth.
Table 1 represents the situation of the planet if China and India keep
growing as fast as the USA.

Table 1. If China and India keep developing like the USA

American Way of
Life—
Population % of global resources % of resources used
Country (million, 2005) used (2005) (2005)
USA 298 27 27
CHINA 1,300 5 117
INDIA 1,100 2 99
R.O.W. 3,700 66 66
TOTAL 6,465 100 309
Sources: Pocket World in Figures, The Economist, 2008 plus the author’s estimates

The data shown in Table 1 imply that at present it takes three planets like
Earth to secure the American Way lifestyle to China and India, assuming that
 Wise Civilization 127

the rest of the world, i.e. 50% of the population live the way they live today, in
poverty. If those remaining poor people want to live like the Americans, then
it takes 6 planets like Earth to secure this lifestyle or 5 billion people need to
be transferred to other planets, which for now seems impossible. In conclusion
of the hopeless situation of the civilization, the following opinion by Lester
3
Brown could be quoted:

 If the Chinese wanted to eat as much beef as the Americans, they

would have to have 343 million tons of grain annually, which is as
much as an annual volume of production in the USA.
 If the Chinese wanted to eat as many fish as the Japanese, they would
need to consume 100 million tons of seafood, i.e. as much as is being
hauled from waters around the globe nowadays.
 If the Chinese wanted to have 2 cars in each family, they would have
to use 80 million barrels of oil daily, which is as much as is being
mined globally. Incidentally, they would need to expand the parking
area by 31 million hectares, where they currently produce 132 million
tons of rice, which is their staple food.
 If the Chinese want to be better educated, they would need to increase
the use of paper from the present 35 to 342 kilograms per person (this
is how much Americans are using), and this is more paper than its
annual production volume around the globe.

The above example of estimates that lead to absurdities is just about

China. India’s needs might be similar. The conclusions simple: if the
Terrestrial Civilization is to last, it needs a new political-economic system.
The present one is characterized by solutions which are adequate for the 19th
century but not for the 21st century;

 The policies of steady economic growth for the sake of securing new
jobs for the growing population, which supports these policies, is
growing in a positive spiral, leading the problem of overpopulation to
self-entanglement and self-destruction of the population.
 The policy of improving the organization and efficiency of agriculture
and industry is a fundamental paradigm of contemporary business and
business schools. In consequence, it leads to a vast nonsensical
concentration of businesses, automation, robotization, informatization
and virtualization, which curtail employment where the labor market
is on the rise.
128 Andrew Targowski

In the USA, 4 companies have come to dominate most of the farming

business, causing the local farmers to go bankrupt. Big companies supply food
which is unhealthy and tasteless whereas local farmers produce food which is
both healthy and tasty. In the USA, 81% of beef is supplied to the market by
only 4 companies4. Cargill, Inc. controls 45% of global cereal farming;
Archer Daniels Midland controls 30% of these farms in the world5. Four
international companies control over 70% of liquid milk production in the
USA, with an Ohio-based company producing 3 billion eggs annually6. A
company in Utah breeds 1.5 m swine and has a problem with excrements,
comparable to the problem of a major city of Los Angeles7. A huge pig farm in
North Carolina generates more feces than the states of California, New York
and Washington on aggregate8. A typical morsel of food that an American eats
travels the average 1,500 miles from where it came from until it lands on the
table. Transporting a box of Kellogg’s flakes to a shop takes 7 times more
energy than what the contents of the box contain9.
In the name of enhancing productivity and efficiency, 200,000-acre farms
are set up, run by one manager and several people supervising automated
machine systems. This concentration of agricultural production in the name of
its bigger efficiency makes 6 million Americans yearly suffer from diseases
resulting bad food, 300,000 end up in hospital, with 5,000 dying10.
In Western Civilization, almost each country witnesses this type of
concentration of agricultural production, which results in the low prices of
food, but also bankruptcies of the small local farms. The environment too
undergoes increasing erosions a result of this large scale of production and
feces that are hard to process. Some provincial regions of the USA are called
food desert, with churches and main streets of towns virtually deserted.
Concentration of farming may be good for global corporations, but small
farms are still more effective in output by hectare, whether calculated in tons,
calories or dollars, not to mention its better quality. The success of the strategy
of sustainable development is about supporting small and medium-sized farms
rather than the huge ones. Small and medium-sized farms do well with water
and energy provision, as well as waste disposal. Super-farms face tremendous
problems in this respect, which destroy the environment, degrading the
civilization
The Agricultural Wave11 started the civilization of man and sustained man
for 5,800 years until the Industrial Wave took over the leading role in the
development of civilization 200 years ago. The West developed the super-
consumption strategy alongside a perfectly organized production so as to
supply more and more goods in the subsequent generations. The point is for
 Wise Civilization 129

the customer to keep buying something new, even if it is unnecessary. In

1970-2000 the industry of the West introduced advanced systems of automated
and robotized production saturated with information technology, having
superbly educated and specialized engineers and managers. During the
Information Wave (Internet) of the end 20th century, the intensified industrial
production was moved to Asia. For the second time in the history of the world,
the West used the “slave” labor of Asian workers to reap exorbitant profits –
what better term can you think of to denote work done in Asia for a dollar per
hour?
In consequence, the West (North America and Europe) was flooded with
cheap products, which were also sold in the Asian market. In 2011, 14.5
million cars and 18.5 million vehicles (trucks and other) were sold in China.
And here begins the possible end of civilization. One cannot stop the
ambitious Asians use the benefits of hi-tech production by saying that Earth’s
strategic resources will not suffice for all if they keep buying so many cars and
other goods. This would be immoral on our part. Thanks to the
industrialization of Asia by means of the Western global business, the world
‘is flattening’12. The capital gains from the West move East and the gap in
standards of living tends to narrow down, particularly in Asian cities.
In the eyes of a number of humanists, this trend is positive for the world,
and never mind that it is taking place at the expense of Western Civilization.
They think it might even be advantageous that the things are that way as this is
how the wrongs of the West (the USA) can be redeemed and its mistakes
corrected as regards the colonization and slavery.
The contemporary plight of civilization is filled with contradictory
economic and political trends and strategies, which in effect accelerate the
decline of civilization. The confusion is exacerbated by the virtualization of
the society, caused by social networks. These networks lead to the replacement
of representational democracy (MP’s) by direct democracy.
The latter democracy is a step backwards in social progress since it
introduces populist and radical politics. Obviously this new Virtual
Civilization cannot be regulated as shown in the failure to pass the ACTA
treaty on copyright and prosecuting online dissemination of contents that lead
to real-life crime. The community of Internet users blocked the treaty in the
name of freedom of information circulation in the Internet. For fear of failure
to be reelected, politicians in a number of countries succumbed to the direct
democracy in 2011-2012. This is not a wise strategy, but apparently it is not
what is wise but, rather, what is convenient for the masses that have become a
sort of oracle, dictating how to judge and select solutions.
130 Andrew Targowski

In conclusion of the crisis of Contemporary Civilization, a following

picture emerges:

1. Mass production of food poses a threat to consumer health and

destroys the natural environment.
2. Cheap industrial production boosts ultra-consumerist attitudes and
leads to the exhaustion of strategic resources within a few dozen
years.
3. Automation, robotization and informatization generate unemployment
at a time when there is uncontrollable population growth and available
manpower soars.
4. Virtualization leads to people being brainwashed by representative
democracy having been replaced by direct democracy, i.e. radicalism,
extremism and chaos.
5. Market economy has turned into the market society, where almost
anything is for sale, and the common good has been replaced by
individual advantage.
6. Instead of serving the society, business demands that it be served by
the society.
7. Politicians oriented to being elected in short 2-4-6-year cycles
demonstrate no commitment to correcting disadvantageous long-term
trends within civilization. Politics is not founded upon spirituality
(either religious or civic) and the ethics/morality it generates.
8. Societies have very little confidence in politicians who do not
promote the common good and issues that are vital for the people at
large.
9. The political crisis handed over the development of societies to
managers and technocrats, who negate the value of the common good
and replace it with a business approach, oriented towards profit for the
private operator, who has been entrusted with the lease of a prison,
hospital, school, park, theatre, museum, rail or even military
operations (in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of people hired to
provide services for the military exceeds the number of soldiers; these
operators treat this as great business, generating the more profit the
longer it lasts).
10. Universities support passé status quo with their know-how in order to
preserve the benefits from the cooperation in research and
consultations.

Thoughtless continuation of the processes mentioned, based on the

wisdom of the market only, will inexorably lead to the decline and fall of the
civilization as we know it and one we dream of. This is why we need to move
 Wise Civilization 131

on to develop a civilization based on wisdom, or at least try to approach it

mentally (conceptually), which is a duty of intellectuals, if not politicians.
Perhaps the readers of this concept might take it up.
The development of civilization so far, over the 6,000 years is
characterized by a continuum of conflicts and wars, stimulating the progress of
technology, science and politics. Wars regulate population levels in some
ways, but the means is too radical. Therefore this option needs to be rejected
and a situation ought to be reached where world peace will create a bigger
stability of societies and a lesser pressure for the development of lethal
technology and science as well as domineering policies of aggression.
Striving for world peace is a domain of international organizations such as
the UN Security Council. Countries that have good reasons to go to war pay
little attention to this body. In the 21st century we are facing a conflict between
the Civilization of Islam and the Civilization of the West and the East. It is a
clash of the moralities of these civilizations. Such conflicts are on the rise and
often assume a local character, such as between ethnic groups. Since organized
religion deals with moral issues, they ought to try and handle the conflicts.
Alas, this is practically impossible.
Even within Christianity, Pope John Paul II endeavored to befriend
Protestantism in the so-called ecumenical process, but he failed. Attempts to
enter into co-operation with the Orthodoxy failed, too. It is hard to imagine
Islamic authorities striking a consensus with the leaders of Christianity. We
cannot count on churches, mosques and synagogues to bring peace on Earth,
even though in all those places the clergy and the believers pray for this kind
of peace every day. Notably, they chiefly pray for peace for their own fold.
They do not say that, of course, even if they do think this way. And this is
what they communicate to their god.

TENETS OF A WISE UNIVERSAL-COMPLEMENTARY

CIVILIZATION
From Religion 1.0 to Spirituality 2.0

The first condition of the design of the architecture of a Wise Civilization

is civilians undertaking to introduce the second level of complementary
religion, which can be called Spirituality 2.0. It does not replace any of the
existing Religions 1.0, which would not only be a heresy, but an outrageous
132 Andrew Targowski

revolution, impossible to win, but also an unnecessary and harmful one. The
point is not to fight religion but that it should grow at the global level rather
than in some areas of the world. Spirituality 2.0 would teach complementary
morality, founded upon the most essential values of the particular Religions
1.0. These are listed in Table 2.

Table 2. Complementary values of Spirituality 2.0

CIVILIZATION VALUES OF RELIGION 1.0 AS CONTRIBUTION

TO UNIWERSAL-COMPLEMENTARY
SPIRITUALITY 2.0
AFRICAN Spiritual contact with ancestors
BUDDHIST Morality, based on the unity with the Universe and its
creatures
CHINESE Worship of elders and a sacred character of family
HINDU Moderation in satisfying desires and appetites
ISLAMIC Awareness that crime will be met with punishment
JAPANESE Co-operation and worship of nature
EASTERN Devotion and sacrifice inspired by a sense of being a
part of the collective
WESTERN Free election, tolerance, technology based on the
discovery of nature laws and their applications
GLOBAL Human and citizen’s rights, international law; free
flow of ideas, people, goods and services, tolerance
for other views
UNIVERSAL- The above plus wisdom, integrity, conditional
COMPLEMENTARY forgiveness, equal access and sustainable
development

A semantic-logical aggregate of the above values constitutes the morality

of the Spirituality 2.0, which will control the need to develop the Universal-
Complementary Civilization (UCC), as common for the whole world. UCC is
not a loose cluster of the remaining civilizations – it is simply the highest level
of world civilizations, beneath which there are levels of the civilizations
known to date. In this way, an American or Pole, or any other terrestrial will
practice the moral values of at least 2 civilizations. One can imagine following
the norms of three or more civilizations simultaneously. Shall we say a couple
live in the Western Civilization and each of them come from a separate
civilization? This civilizational mix forms a complicated “cloudy” model of
 Wise Civilization 133

civilization that might have to be observed so that tolerance to others might

become a morality practiced locally and globally.
How do we successfully phase in the morality of Spirituality 2.0? This
may take several generations or more. It took Christianity 300 years until it
was recognized. Today, thanks to excellent communication systems, this
should take hold faster. Spirituality 2.0 needs to be launched at schools and
universities and 2-5 generations need to pass (50-100 years) for the first
positive effects of the process to come to light. Spirituality 2.0 cannot surely
be enforced immediately at the level of adults; neither can it be imposed by
legislation. This religion needs to be implanted in all world civilizations,
which may prove impossible. The religions of these civilizations will consider
this process an assault on them and will seek to undermine the credibility of
Spirituality 2.0 in the eyes of their adherents. The paradox of the potential
conflict is about these religions not being mutually preclusive with their ideas
– they are meant to complement each other and continue their mission for the
sake of humanism.
Failure to enforce Spirituality 2.0 into the observance of the Universal-
Complementary Civilization will make it impossible to eliminate or even limit
wars waged on premises of morality clashes both now and in the future. The
author knows of no better solutions for the time being.

From Capitalism and Socialism to Ecologism (Eco-Supremacy)

Over the last 200 years, civilization utilized three socio-political systems:
Capitalism, Socialism and Communism, as well as their various combinations.
None of these systems can control the Universal-Complementary Civilization.
Capitalism in its present form of turbo-Capitalism is subservient to global
business and its bosses and is controlled by lobbyists, thus losing its
democratic and liberal character. Its main objective is generating exorbitant
profits for a narrow elite (1%). Apple had $100 billion cash in 2012 and
decided to pay a dividend to its shareholders -- $2 per $600 worth of share,
which for small capitalists is a ridiculously negligible capital gain, amounting
to 0.003%. The bosses of the corporation, though, regularly pay themselves
dozens of millions of dollars in bonuses.
The strategy of global business is a pursuit of a steady increase in the
productivity of resources by an ever growing concentration of companies in a
given branch, monopolizing the market and expanding target markets.
134 Andrew Targowski

Socialism, even democratic, is too costly to be applied to the population at

large, whether it is 7 or 9 billion. Communism proved to be a doctrinaire,
murderous system, even for its own people, and one destructive to the
environment.
In this situation, a new socio-political system needs to be developed,
which will be called Ecologism, from the word ecosystem, a synonym of
biosphere. The following aims will be set before it:

 Mission: implementing the policies of sustainable development of

civilization.
 Aim: controlling population growth and the consumption of resources
in such a manner that the next generation will have the same living
conditions as the previous one.
 Strategy: sufficiency versus efficiency, with the society evolving
towards a wise society.
 Main policies:

1. Nature is the most important.

2. People are more important than markets.
3. People’s health is more important than money.
4. Sufficiency is more important than efficiency.
5. Business is subservient to and controlled by society.

Ecologism includes the following subsystems:

A. Eco-education – based on eco-knowledge and wisdom.

B. Wise society – trained and educated in the knowledge of eco-
education and having qualifications to wise decision-making.
C. Eco-democracy — all equal to each other but not to the environment,
which is supreme to man.
D. Eco-justice – any violation of the law must also be assessed against
and possibly punished for possible harm done to the environment.
E. Eco-infrastructure – operates in harmony with Nature and protects it
against destruction.
F. Deep economics – includes environmental and social costs alongside
those of business and administration into cost-effectiveness
calculations.
G. Deep media – comprehensively and impartially inform the society of
the plight and development of the sustainable civilization.

The architecture of Wise Civilization is presented in Figure 13.1.

 Wise Civilization 135

Eko-edu cation

Deep media Eko-democracy

Spirituality 2.0

Deep economics Eko- justice

Wise
Society Eko-i nfrastructure

Figure 13.1. The Architecture of a Wise Civilization.

Three elements play a vital part in the architecture of Wise Civilization:

Eco-education, Spirituality 2.0 and Wise Society, which decide the success of
the remaining five. The three decide people’s consciousness and their wise
attitude to each other and Nature. These also decide a successful
13
transformation from the present paranoia to the expected metanoia .
The process of approaching the state of Wise Civilization today is
characterized by so called triple bottom line, which is incomplete: economic
14
vitality, environmental accountability, and social responsibility .
Unfortunately a model of sustainable development does not contain the
principle of spirituality; therefore it will be included in the complete model of
sustainability strategy, depicted in Figure 13.2.
Hence, the complete model of sustainability contains quadruple bottom
lines:

 Spirituality 2.0
 Economic vitality
 Environmental accountability
 Social responsibility
136 Andrew Targowski

Spirituality 2.0

Social Responsibility

Sustained
Entity or Economic
Environmental
Process Vitality
Accountability

Compassion for Wise

Civilization

Figure 13.2. The Complete Model of Sustainability Strategy.

Wise Civilization can function provided that it is supported by Wise

Society. This kind of society is constituted by Wise People, who can use four
minds: basic, reasoning, global and universal and have mastered a wise art of
living.
Furthermore, the concept of “good life” and life success currently defined
in material and economic terms, should be replaced by a broader concept of
“quality of life” which includes spirituality, primarily manifested as care for
human beings and their environment.
The development of Wise Civilization will not begin if it is left to the
popular laissez-faire of today. The danger of civilization collapse indicates
that a certain dosage of social engineering is necessary. It would be about a
mix of a bottom-up and top-down approaches. The role of organizations such
as the UN is as indispensable as the involvement of NGOs. Even today every
school and university ought to apply itself to developing eco-knowledge and
wisdom, as well as training wise graduates. Those will be candidates for wise
citizens, workers, leaders, who will apply wise solutions in their positions,
ones which would develop Wise Society and Wise Civilization.
In summary, one can recognize that the main targets of human race are;
sustainable civilization and quality of life. To accomplish these targets one
must emphasize the importance of the societal processes, such ones as:

 Spirituality 2.0-driven process

 Solidarity-driven process
 Wise Civilization 137

 Knowledge-driven process
 Sustainability-driven process

As the critical societal processes which have to practice in supporting

them; education, politics, culture (broadly treated) and infrastructure. The
model of these components and their relations is shown in Figure 13.3.

Supportive Education & Politics

Human Race's Targets for Survival

Wise Society

Spirituality 2.0-driven Sustainable

Wise
Societal Processes

Solidarity-driven Civilization

Knowledge & Wisdom-driven

Sustainable
Sustainability-driven Wise
Quality of Life

Supportive Culture & Infrastructure

Figure 13.3. The Processive Relationships between Wise Civilization and Wise Society
Figure
and Quality of Life. 13.3. The Processive Relationships Between Wise
Civilization and Wise Society and Quality of Life
CONCLUSIONS
1. The development of civilization so far has been controlled by
religions, which are in a structural, permanent and ever-growing
conflict at the dawn of the 21st century.
2. Lessening of inter-civilizational conflicts (as illustrated by the present
war on terror) is only possible when religions come to consensus,
which is not very likely at present.
3. The only practical solution is the introduction of Spirituality 2.0,
which introduces a shared supra-platform for shared values and
secures tolerance and the application of Religions 1.0.
138 Andrew Targowski

4. The likelihood of the introduction of the enforcement of Spirituality

2.0 is currently very small but given the good will of those involved,
and particularly if they prove wise, might be possible.
Chapter 14

WISDOM, TRUTH AND RESPONSIBILITY

There is a very close connection between wisdom, truth and responsibility.
Depending on the issue, the relationships between these virtues and values
may vary. Let us ponder some examples.
The issue of developing multiculturalism in the USA and in Europe has
led to various results in these parts of the world. In America, Bill Clinton's
introduction of a dual-culture American – Irish-American, African-American,
Latino-American or Polish-American – in the name of the emancipation of
cultures has led to an abandonment of the melting pot. The melting pot was
about assimilating people coming from various cultures in the American
culture and integrating them into the American people. In the 20th century, the
hierarchy of the Catholic Church banned holy masses in Polish so that the new
immigrants would learn English faster and more quickly become useful
citizens of the country where they had settled.
The present practice of affirming the other culture of the citizens is
leading to a transformation of the American nation into a political society.
Religious services in national languages are widespread. This is has lead to the
formation of ethnic ghettos and mini-states. California, which hosts the
settlement of the biggest number of immigrants from Mexico, is called
Mexifornia, to the indignation of its native residents. During the presidential
primaries in Florida in the Fall 2012, candidates must flatter the immigrants
from Cuba. Those in turn ask “What good things are you promising us?” They
do not really care about the common good of the country where they are living
– what they care about is the interests of their own ethnic community.
Things have gone so far that no American politician will dare to question
the policy even though the truth about how harmful it is cannot be denied.
Shouldn't political wisdom dictate that this practice be broken with? The
wisdom of a politician is about applying such a strategy that warrants re-
140 Andrew Targowski

election. What we are dealing with here is a stark contradiction between

responsibility, truth and wisdom.
The dilemma of state multiculturalism has been solved in Germany and
France, where the Chancellor and the President respectively openly declared
that the policy of multiculturalism does not do their countries good. This has
entailed state policy: fighting ethnic ghettos and their protests.
The financial crisis of 2008, which has turned into a structural economic
crisis, is about globalization benefiting global corporations only rather than the
regular American citizens. This is the truth but the politicians and media,
rather than being accountable to the people they are supposed to serve, are
smart in saying what the lobbyists prompt them to declare. Smartness is not
the same as wisdom; done the way it is being done at present, it only leads to
politicians fooling themselves, the media and the citizens.
When a patient is in a terminal condition, the doctor tells them the truth as
this is the most important event in their lives, second only to birth. Also, they
do not have that much do time what needs to be done while they are alive and
are supposed to decide. The truth, wisdom and responsibility are in a close
interplay here. In Eastern Europe, including Russia, the doctor wanted to save
the dying patient from suffering and withheld from them the truth about the
state of their health. Following 1989/199 – the Anticommunist Revolution –
the Western custom of telling the patient the truth about their health was
introduced to Russia. Way back in 1924, too, when Lenin was dying, the head
of the Soviet state ordered the doctor to tell him how much time was left for
him as he still had to do some important things.
In Poland there are three vital historical events the historians do not tell us
the truth about in order not to hurt national sentiment. These will be briefly
discussed here.
The Poles are proud to have had one of the first constitutions in the world,
the so-called Constitution of May 3, 1791: an act of international significance,
which, among other things, sanctioned the revision of the constitution every 25
years. Alas, the truth is that this constitution was not exactly progressive for
the then political situation of a country that had been partitioned twice before,
by Russia, Prussia and Austria.
The Constitution was passed too late to contribute a better operation of the
Polish polity, which had long been decomposing. On the other hand, it was
passed too early because it triggered the third partition of the country. For fear
of the reaction of the opponents of the new order, it was passed on a Sunday,
with 30 per cent of the MPs absent. The struggle for a new regime was far
from easy. This can be illustrated by the example of the representative of the
 Wisdom, Truth and Responsibility 141

land of Kalisz, Jan Suchorzewski, who threatened to kill his 6-year-old son in
case he survived to see the times of tyranny, that is, the time of the new order.
The guards took the child away from him just in time.
As a result, the Constitution of the 3 May led to the third partition and the
fall of the Polish state in 1795. Is it wise to instruct the citizens in unrealistic
policies now, and take responsibility for any further disadvantageous fate of
the nation, which would inexorably follow such an approach?
The Poles are proud of the heroism of the Warsaw Rising in August, 1944,
whereas the truth is that the rising was the biggest national catastrophe in its
millennial history. It was started at the end of July, but it had never featured in
the strategic plan of the “Operation Storm.” In military terms, it was directed
against Germany, but the Soviet Union was targeted politically – the London
Government wanted to welcome the Soviet troops as host in the liberated
Warsaw, thus making it impossible for the Communist PKWN Committee – a
Polish pro-Soviet government – to take over power.
Alas, the Poles did not know that in August, 1944, Stalin had an
agreement with Roosevelt, upon which he was supposed to send 15,000
mariners to Cold Bay, Alaska, to staff 250 vessels to be taken over from the
Americans, on which they were supposed to fight Japan. In the fall of 1944,
the commander in charge of training was the US Navy Captain George
Maxwell, born in Warsaw, former name Dzwonecki. He owed this nomination
to the fact that he could swear in Russian perfectly, which was not so
insignificant in everyday communication with the Soviet mariners1.
True, the youth were eager to fight battles – victorious rather than suicidal,
though. Therefore, the insurrection itself ought to be distinguished from the
insurgents when analyzing “1944.” The rising turned out a national calamity,
which can only be understood by a Varsovian. The rising is also
synonymous to Polish heroism, German and Soviet barbarity and the Anglo-
Saxon mercenary approach (one could agree here with Norman Davies2) as
well as an unethical and ill-mannered attitude.
The harsh judgment of Poland's “allies” does not make Polish political
leaders any less responsible for the generous disposal of the Polish life,
material and cultural output. May the truth about the rising improve the
process of selection of the leaders for the highest positions in the III Republic
of Poland. This is what the 200,000 dead call for, as well as the 400,000
wounded and 600,000 of those who did not return to Warsaw after the war; the
smoldering ruins call for the same. The great and universal heroism of the
insurgents and residents should make one demand that this be the case.
Otherwise, their „yeast would be wasted.”
142 Andrew Targowski

The capital was wiped out by the Germans, with the total losses greater
than those caused by the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in August, 1945. There is an opinion among historians and politicians that for
as long as insurrectionists are alive, it will be wise not to talk about the defeat
of the Rising. Is this a wise policy on the part of the national leadership?
Would it not be better to teach the next generations from the mistakes of the
past so as not to repeat those mistakes later? Is it not what political
responsibility to the people should be about? Despite the true official version
of the Warsaw Rising missing, Poles have themselves made up their mind on
the insurrection. More importantly, they did not repeat the mistake and the
Polish Revolution of 1989 was conducted with almost no loss of life.
The issue of the 1945 betrayal of Poland by the West in Yalta is another
example calling for the truth to support the collective wisdom and
responsibility of the Poles.
First, the incorporation of Poland into the Soviet sphere of influence took
place as early as Teheran, in November and December, 1943. The meeting in
Yalta took place on 4-11 Feb., 1945, was about the details on how to
implement the settlements from over a year before.
To have a better insight in the motivation of the West in 1943 and 1945,
one needs to live in a pragmatic Anglo-Saxon culture. On arrival here 33 years
ago, I set about trying to understand the causes of the Teheran and Yalta
stance by President FDR. The US President was then guided by American
interests, not Polish. Banal though the statement sounds, Poles still believe that
the American president betrayed them, even though he had never promised
them anything. For the allies, the British and Americans, the objective no. 1
was defeating the Germans at the lowest possible losses. The Americans knew
that the Europeans would never defeat the Germans on their own and that they
would need to intervene in Europe. Therefore, before this happened, they
wanted the Soviets to defeat the Germans in the East first.
The Polish-Soviet relations were at the time hostile, and the allies would
wipe our tears in this conflict while at the same time they would support Stalin
because it was him, rather than us, who had the military might to defeat
Germany. Had the Americans supported the Poles rather than the Soviets,
there would always have been the threat that the indignant Stalin would sign a
peace treaty with Hitler. This possibility was in the air the moment the
Germans besieged Moscow in 1941 and some probing talks were held between
those parties in Sweden.
Suppose the Americans had supported the Poles and would not have
agreed to divide the influence in Teheran in 1943. By the time Germans had
 Wisdom, Truth and Responsibility 143

lost the battle of Stalingrad, but they were still entrenched in Ukraine and
Leningrad was still under siege. So, Stalin was not sure of victory yet, and
Western political support absent, he might have sought peace with Hitler. It is
uncertain whether Hitler would have opted for peace, but Roosevelt could not
have known that and he preferred not to take risks. Incidentally, Roosevelt was
impressed by Stalin particularly that his close adviser was a Soviet spy. So, it
could not have been expected that during the war Roosevelt would tell Stalin
“Fight the war with the Germans and, when you have already won it, leave
Poland to us.” In the Teheran Treaty the matter was left to elections, which
Stalin was to rig later. However, this made the West declare the Cold War on
the Soviet Union, so the wartime friendship was indeed replaced by war, the
reason being the Sovietization processes in Poland. A special part in the Cold
War was played by President Harry Truman, who always reminded the Soviet
leaders of having failed to conduct free elections in Poland.
For the Poles it would have been nicer if – rather than declare the Cold
War – the West had invaded the Soviet Union right away in 1945, preferably
under the command of a Polish popular General W. Anders, who was eager to
write the “last chapter” of his memoirs after conquering the Soviet Union. I am
writing this chapter only 67 years after his memoirs, seeing his naiveté.
Although we were to experience the practices of Communism, it was thanks to
Poles in captured Poland (1945-1989) rather than anyone else that the system
was finally disgraced and dumped in the landfill of history.
Admittedly, Roosevelt disregarded the French, too, and did not treat them
as some kind of tip in the balance of the war in Europe. This Franco-American
resentment can be felt even today. Surely, having won the war against
Germany in 1945, the Americans wanted to return home immediately rather
than die for “Danzig” again.
In the event of a Soviet-German peace treaty, either the powers would
have fallen back on the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact or Ukraine would have been
divided and Poland – incorporated into the Reich. Hitler could still have
dictated solutions. Thanks to the peace, Germany would have transferred most
of their forces to the West, and consequently the American invasion of 1944
would have been questionable. If it had materialized, the war could have lasted
up to three more years. In practice, it would have lasted until the summer of
1945, by which time the USA had developed the atom bomb. Still, neither in
Teheran nor in Yalta was FDR unaware of that possibility. It was only the
knowledge of the A bomb that provided the edge to H. Truman's position in
Potsdam in July and August, 1945.
144 Andrew Targowski

Poles have a hard time understanding the Anglo-Saxon pragmatism. Poles

tend to pursue several objectives at the same time, argue in the process and, of
course, fail in the end. Anglo-Saxons focus on one goal and use all their might
to attain it. For them, in Teheran and Yalta the objective was defeating the
Germans. Let us not be in denial of the obvious fact – Germany was still very
strong; beating the Germans between Normandy and the Elbe – which you can
now cover within a day – took 11 months (June 1944 – May 1945). The
Germans were still fighting in the East, where they had deployed most of their
troops.
Had it not been for Teheran and Yalta, the Polish Resistance would have
had to become more active, which would have led to even greater retaliation
and, possibly, murdering 10 rather than 6 million Polish citizens.
In the summer of 1945, the Americans would have dropped the atom
bomb on Germany and the Soviets would have invaded Poland, exploiting the
chaos in Europe. Would the Allies, busy with the nuclear cleanup, have
declared war on the Soviets, to fight for “Danzing?” I really doubt it that Gen.
Anders would have entered Poland on his “white horse and written the “last
chapter.” Poland would have become the 17th Soviet republic. It would not
even have been the Polish People's Republic.
In these deliberations I should like to inform East European readers that
the 900,000-strong Soviet army defeated the Japanese Quantung Army in
Manchuria in August, 1945, which sealed the defeat of Japan. With the
crushing of the Japanese, Stalin delivered on the promise he had made to
Roosevelt and thus paid for Eastern Europe he had gotten “as a reward.”
The price paid for Poland's freedom, only regained in 1989, must include
the lesser evil: Yalta and the Polish People's Republic. I know that in using an
engineering logic, rather than writing to comfort the hearts, and in doing so
from America, I expose myself to stinging criticism. Well, this is the cost of
telling the truth, which professors used to and should do. And I am one.
Otherwise we do not learn the lessons of history and will continue living in an
illusion rather than reality.
In conclusion, this is to define the principle that responsibility for the
situation and possible solutions determines whether it is wise to tell the truth
or not.
Chapter 15

BECOMING WISE
Nobody is born wise; wisdom is practiced throughout one's conscious life
and it never reaches a saturation point. Neither can one assume that once one
made a wise decision, one will always behave wisely forever after. In order to
consider one wise, one need not be wise in all decisions – it is enough to have
a positive balance in important decisions.
Wisdom is accumulated throughout a lifetime even though it is dependent
on the time and circumstances in which it occurred. It means that there is
never a wisdom which always works, as what was wise long ago need not be
wise today1,2,3.
Progress in knowledge changes the methods of judgment and choice; it is
particularly true in medicine. Some time ago it was recommended that the
patient lay in bed after operations. Now walking on the next day is advised. I
have given a number of examples illustrating this conviction here in this book.
Men with four minds: basic, understanding, global and universal usually
– that is, if all goes really well – comes to possess those minds in adulthood
(35-65). This is not to say that they cannot perfect their basic mind at school
age (6-12) and adolescence (12-18).
On top of having the four minds, men perfect their art of living all their
lives. The older they get, the better they control their emotions and
concentration on important matters. The same holds true for the virtue of
patience: young people are less patient that adults. They are also less altruistic
since they tend to deal with a number of time-consuming occupations:
learning, sport, pleasures, dating, etc.
It has long been believed that wisdom cannot be learned4,5 – one gains it in
the course of expanding one's life's practice. It is definitely so. How does one
teach wisdom unless one knows what wisdom is? Apparently, wisdom has
146 Andrew Targowski

been defined in detail here. Whether it has been presented clearly – this is up
to the reader to decide.
It cannot be guaranteed that someone who has been taught the theory of
wisdom will by default be wise, just as it cannot be promised to a student of
the theory of finances that they must necessarily become rich.
In order for man to consciously develop their wisdom, they first need to
know what it is about and above all; this must be assisted by parents, school,
universities, work and a wise environment. The following is a brief discussion
of what these institutions need to do.

PARENTS – BASIC MIND

 Early childhood (1.5 –3) – work on the development of the skill of
self-control.
 School age (6–12) – work on acquiring methods of keeping tidy and
organized, doing homework and housework independently, which
develops competence, entrepreneurship and eliminates the inferiority
complex; instruction in controlling emotions and focusing on
important things, teaching patience and honesty in thinking and
action.
 Adolescence (12-18) – assistance in the understanding of one's role in
life by reinforcing one's gifts (if there are any, such as a talent for
music, sports or foreign languages), stressing the importance of
family, loyalty and a selfless attitude towards it; further mastering of
the control of emotions and focus on important things, teaching
patience and honesty in thinking and action, both in private matters
and those affecting the local community, region or one's country.

Today's civilization's problem is the crisis of family. In the USA, 50% of

married couples divorce, with their children suffering from the lack of
appropriate upbringing. As many as 75% of children in America live in homes
where their parents are in informal unions. A number of these children have
“many parents.” Parents “buy” their children's love with ever new presents,
leaving it to the children to orient themselves in knowing who they are and
what they need to do with their lives; they do it in the name of a wrongly
understood idea of “freedom and independence.” Alas, the child has not
enough knowledge to make wise choices. They leave for college on the other
side of the country to forget about home. And then they strive alone with the
art of living.
 Becoming Wise 147

SCHOOL – BASIC MIND

Traditionally, school develops the basic mind, which should secure
common sense. Doubtlessly, school does that, but it poses an excessive burden
of rote-learning and insufficiently trains in common-sense methods of wise
judgment and choice. Asian schools are famous for that and the more pages a
student can remember, the better they are. In the Western Civilization, the
focus is on critical thinking. None the less, there is still a lot of emphasis on
remembering numerous facts rather than their association. In history, in
particular, what matters are dates, rather than the causes of events and their
effects or their connections with other events. An attempt at a concerted
teaching of history in big picture, undertaken in Polish schools in 2012, was
immediately countered with a critical discussion from traditionalist history
professors. What is indispensable is the combination of the teaching of an
issue in its small picture (such as the local perspective) within the context of
the big picture (such as global), as well as in a systemic approach: considering
the most important aspects/elements in relationships to fulfill a goal (in higher
classes).
The neXT generation, male in particular, is in deep crisis as it has been
possessed by the craze of computer games. Boys walk about in untidy clothes,
take little interest in girls and are engrossed in their mobiles and tablets. Their
interests boil down to discussions of digital gismos: those available and those
“better” ones about to come out. One of the best tennis players in the world,
paid millions in tournament prizes, is so much into computer games that he has
been abandoned by his beautiful girlfriend as he had no time at all for her; his
millions were seemingly not enough to keep this wise girl. It is evident that
this generation is suffering from a total lack of the art of living. This is
appalling because the fate of civilization is in the hands of those reckless
people.

COLLEGE – UNDERSTANDING MIND

College develops the understanding mind, priming it with the theoretical
foundations of science, technology, medicine, law and arts, as well as other
specialized fields. These foundations include elements of judgment and
choice, but they are not stressed as the phases of the process of wisdom. If it
were so, the phases ought to be compared with other examples and approaches
148 Andrew Targowski

and thus the essence of wisdom would be deepened. In colleges, all the
elements of the processes of wisdom are lectured, but they are dispersed, as a
result of which the student can be at a loss whether they are in fact dealing
with wisdom. If they do not, they cannot see anything extraordinary, deepen
their knowledge on the subject or develop their skills in making wise
decisions.
The development of the global mind ought to start at college provided that
the student starts using study-abroad programs, such as one-term foreign visits.
They should also take part in foreign trips, which are rather cheap for students.
Learning foreign languages should be mandatory. Also, participation in two
seminars/talks per semester on international issues, which are organized at any
university, ought to be obligatory.
The development of the universal mind at the universities of the Western
Civilization occurs within the general teaching of the humanities. Student
participation in some enlightened causes, such as women's emancipation, the
protection of the environment or saving energy definitely develops this kind of
mind.
In colleges, where student life is rich in a variety of associations and
activities, the art of living begins to manifest itself. The sense of belonging to a
group, caucus, team or some other grouping determined by interests begins to
form. This is when first serious relationships are entered into, which
sometimes end up in marriage. This is also when students learn loyalty to the
ideas they subscribe to, with some feeling isolated as they cannot see any
bonds of ideas with their environment. The forms of student life that go
beyond studying are extremely important as they shape the art of living. It
would be advisable for students to take part in seminars on the art of living,
which universities have gone silent about, treating those as students' private
business.
The 21st century invasion of social networks and tweeting written
communications kills face-to-face communication. It is a very negative
process, which replaces natural life with a form of artificiality. The youth have
fallen in love with this form of communication. Alas, the art of living ought to
limit it so as not to bring human beings down to “chatterboxes” which
communicate more than they say.
 Becoming Wise 149

WORK – ALL MINDS

At the adult life stage (35-65), the ability of wise reasoning turns out
really useful. This stage of life is the most productive of all. If work requires
high qualifications, the four-mind wisdom is very useful. In the reflexive
process of applying wisdom effectively, man becomes enriched in his range of
wisdom. A good art of living is particularly necessary as the tolerance to
making mistakes grows less. More is demanded of an older person than of the
young. Young and inexperienced people are forgiven whereas adults are
criticized for being unable to live wisely.
At this life stage, the art of living is about realizing one's interests, a
skillful passage into the stage of aging, taking selfless care of the needy, such
as in the family, as well as about good communication with the environment.
Many people contradict those with their behavior and suffer from the crisis of
the middle age, trying to make themselves younger and spending their energy
onto too many undertakings, which they are unable to cope with and which
others see as pathetic. At this age one ought to be mature, which is reflected in
the ability to say “no” at a right moment.

RETIREMENT – THE BRIDGE TO THE NEXT GENERATION

At this age (65+) a wise man is someone who has truly mastered the art of
living (including the multi-mind methods of judgment and choice) and passes
it on to younger people. A wise man of this age is also someone who keeps
developing their interests and prevents oneself from getting depressed or
desperate. At that age, a wise man participates in the so-called inter-
generational bridge, which secures the continuity of humanism in their milieu
and place.

THE COMMUNITY – ALL MINDS

A wise community fosters the acquisition of wisdom whereas a stupid
environment inhibits a growth in wisdom. Man should realize what
community they are dealing with. They ought to be attracted to the wise and
repelled from fools. This brings to mind the approach of good tennis players,
who always prefer to play with better players even though they can lose to
150 Andrew Targowski

them. Poor tennis players would rather play with even poorer ones as they
want to beat someone at last or are ashamed of losing. They do not care about
high quality play.
In conclusion, the process of the development of a person's wisdom is a
continuing process7,8 and one that is essential, and possibly the most
important, for the success of people and their civilizations. It occurs
consciously or unconsciously. The bigger the role of consciousness and a good
art of living in this development, the greater the chance to become a wise
person, which is yours truly the author wishes those of his patient readers who
have managed to read the book through.
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History]. Warszawa: Nowe Wydawnictwo Polskie, p. 22.
White M. (2003). The Pope and the Heretic: The True Story of Giordano
Bruno, the Man Who Dared to Defy the Roman Inquisition. New York:
HarperCollins (Perennial).

Chapter 8

Courtois, St. et al. (1999). English edition. The Black Book of Communism:
Crimes, Terror, Repression. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Melko, M. (1969). The Nature of Civilization. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent
Publisher.
Targowski, A. (2009). Information Technology and Societal Development.
Hershey, PA & New York: Information Science Reference.
Toynbee, A. (1995). A Study of Civilization. New York: Barnes & Noble.

Chapter 9

Chan, W. & R. Mouborgne. (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy. Boston: Harvard

Business School Press.
Etsy, D. & A. Winston. (2006). From Green to Gold. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons.
Meadows, D.H. & D. L. Meadows et al. (1972). The Limits to Growth. New
York: A Potomac Associate Book.
Targowski, A. (2011). Cognitive Informatics and Wisdom Development.
Hershey, New York: IGI Global.

Chapter 10

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.
Blayl, M, F. (2009). Finding Wisdom. Xlibris Corporation.
Hall, St. (2010). WISDOM. From Philosophy to Science. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf.
 Bibliography 155

Chapter 11

Hall, St. (2010). Wisdom, From Philosophy to Neuroscience. New York:

Knopf.
Maxwell, N. (2005). A revolution for science and the humanities: from
knowledge to wisdom. Dialogue and Universalism, vol. XV, no.1-2, pp.
29-58.
Sternberg, R.L. (1990). Wisdom, its nature, origins, and development. New
York: Cambridge. University Press.
Sternberg, R.L. (2003). Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Targowski, A. (2011). Cognitive Informatics and Wisdom Development.
Hershey, New York: IGI Global.
Targowski, A. (2012). Wisdom. Kalamazoo, MI: Civilization Press.

Chapter 12

Celiński, A. i A. Kawczak (2000). “Wartości XXI wieku. Wartości busolą

człowieka.” A. Targowski, A. Ajnenkiel (eds) Los Polski i świata.
Warsaw: Bellona, p. 390.
Targowski, A. (2009). Information Technology and Societal Development.
Hershey, PA & New York: Information Science Reference, p. 48.
Targowski, A. (2011). Information Technology and Societal Development.
Hershey, PA & New York: Information Science Reference p. 119.
Op.cit. (2011), p. 132.

Chapter 13

Brown, L. (2001). Eco-Economy. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., s.17.

Friedman, T. (2005). The World is Flat. The Brief History of the Twenty-first
Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Halweil, B. (2004). Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global
Supermarket. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Imhoff, D. (2003). Farming with the Wild. Healdsburg, CA: Sierra Club
Books.
Kołakowski, L. (2010): The New Stage of Dialogue and Universalism.
Individuality and Infinity. Metanoia – Solidarity. Dialogue and
Universalism, No. 7–8 (2010).
Lowrence, F. (2004). Not on the Label. New York: Penguin Books.
156 Andrew Targowski

Maddison, A. (2001). The World Economy, a Millennial Perspective. Paris:

OECD, s. 17-31.
McKibben, B.(2007). Deep Economy, the Wealth of Communities and the
Durable Future. New York: Times Books, Henry Holt and Company.
Pretty, J. (2002). Agri-Culture. London: Earthscan Publishing, Ltd.
Scharplatz, J. (2003).Weeding Out the Skilled Farmer. Prairie Writers Circle,
November 26.
Schmid, R. (2003). The Untold Story of Milk. Washington, DC: New Trends
Publishing.
Targowski, A. (2009). Will Business End or Revive Western Civilization? The
Proceedings of the 39th International Conference of the Society for the
Comparative Study of Civilizations. June 3-7, Kalamazoo, Michigan, p. 7-
37.
Tofller, A. (1980). The Third Wave. New York: Bantam Books.
United Nations’s definitione.

Chapter 14

Davies, N. (2004). Rising ’44 “The Battle for Warsaw.” London: Pan
Macmillan.
Persico, J. E. (2001). Roosevelt’s Secret War. New York: Random House,
404-405.

Chapter 15

Allport, P. (1991). Still searching for the Holy Grail. New Scientists, 5:55-56.
Bellah, R.N., et al. (1991). The good society. New York: Alfred. A. Knopf.
Goldfarb, J.C. (1991). The cynical society. Chicago: The Chicago University
Press.
Hall, St. (2010). Wisdom, From Philosophy to Neuroscience. New York:
Knopf.
Maxwell, N. (2005). A revolution for science and the humanities: from
knowledge to wisdom. Dialogue and Universalism, vol. XV, no.1-2, pp.
29-58.
Targowski, A. (2011). Cognitive Informatics and Wisdom Development.
Hershey, New York: IGI Global.
Sternberg, R.L. (1990). Wisdom, its nature, origins, and development. New
York: Cambridge: University Press.
Sternberg, R.L. (2003). Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity synthesized. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
158 Andrew Targowski
 Bibliography 159

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