Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.
Schwartz highlighted the following points:
Practical Wisdom: Moral will + Moral skill
A wise person:
1. knows when and how to make “the exception to every rule”
2. knows when and how to improvise
3. knows how to use these moral skills in pursuit of the right aims
4. is made and not born.
Watch this video from TED and ponder if what he says applies to Singapore too.
Special thanks to Elaine Toh.
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Yes, I agree with Mr Barry Schwartz.
It is not rules or incentives that produce moral behaviour or wise choices. It is the possession of moral knowledge, practical experience, courage and a strong resolve to do the right thing that will ultimately save us from future financial disasters.
The relevance of this to Singapore is questionable. The governance model in Singapore provides a higher chance of dealing with and avoiding financial disaster. That’s why Singapore doesn’t need to nationalize the banks, unlike the US or the UK.
Never ever send a sheep to do a wolf’s job.
This is an excellent talk. I particularly look the following points:
1. focus on virtue
2. focus on practical wisdom
3. school should teach character, by example
Barry Schwartz mentioned the following values (which are embraced by Barack Obama):
honesty
courage
kindness
hope
Obama has acrticulated these values clearly and convincingly. They have been overwhelming accepted by the American people.
I agree with these values. They are similar to the five values that I promoted:
honestly
fairness
work for benefit of others
positive
courage
I have found two new words for my 5 values
kindness – to replace work for the benefit of others
hope – to replace positive
I find that these values are also important for the people of Singapore to take us through the economic crisis and through a period of change. We need honesty, fairness, kindness, hope and courage.
That is a thought-provoking talk. It is all-so relevant to S’pore. Remember the recent case of SGH staff billing the foreign guy who jumped into the S’pore river to rescue a girl? It’s a perfect example of what Schwartz is talking about. Moral skill…
Honesty, courage, hope, kindness etc were embraced by American forefathers like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln..They were shining
examples of all these virtues when US was moulded. What happened along the way? The recent crisis emanating from US indicated such virtues had eroded and maybe more supervision and control are needed. The laizzez faire model of US doesnt work anymore. The countries that seem to do better are those with a certain amount of central control..i think.
Indeed a very inspiring talk. The values spoken in it had either long been forgotten by the younger generations or the material world that we are today had all but encouraged people to look beyond these values. Hopefully, with every crisis that people encounter, we learned from it.
Virtue, Moral, Ethic and Value. What are their differences ? Not much really as the desired results are similar and that is to have propriety i ones’ existence.
It marvels no end that a regurgitation of thousand year old wisdoms which were regularly taught in schools and by parents of yesteryears could get so many of our enlightened and erudite netizens so ecstatic at its’ repetition. Not only what was spoken in the video was regurgitation, the content must have been repeated countless times throughout history as they are foundation and pillar to all human societies. Be it in the Orient, Middle-east, Europe(early Greece, Rome etc), man were taught to be good and wholesome by other man. So, what is new ?
It is new and news when man forgot and take the old for new, not only life goes in cycle, it seems that wisdom has to start anew too. Why is this so ? Let me venture an explanation; maybe, just maybe, mankind likes to plagiarize.
I find Obama so inspiring. He came out of his own identity crisis (african father, white mum), upbringing with his mum and stepfather in Indonesia for 4 years, etc his search for his identify, his solution across black, white, latino, african, asian widely accepted.
His graduation from Columbia University and subsequent Harvard Law School and appointment in the Congress and Senate were all so amazing and mind blogging; even to the American society.
His adoption of the american (or should I say huma)’s idealogy, hope, values, accountability, ownership and leadership are all apparently very much needed in Spore.
From his book: Dreams from my Father, Audacity of Hope, the interviews he gave, his speeches and solutions are so consistent and full of practicality, closely connected to the real life issues and grass roots.
Not just a elite kind of person as viewed from academic background, groomed to take over as MIW.
As long as Singapore’s political system is State engineered, Singapore can only ‘buy’ wisdom.
great and by the way, you’re not talking about singapore, are you?
Let me contribute my 20 .. that I pleasures the most:
Fully understand and manage CAUSE, PROCESS and OUTCOME of situation. (1, 2, 3)
Weigh and judge the situation in 2 aspects, namely QUALITATIVE and QUANTITATIVE. (4. 5)
Examine the situation in totality of 5 dimensions, namely ECONOMIC-FINANCE, POLITICAL-LEGAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL-PHILOSOPHICAL, and SCIENTIFIC-METHODICAL. (6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
10 Possibly ways of doing and thinking to handle the situation: Appropriate level of RATIONALITY, THOUGOUHNESS, CALMNESS, KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING, DECISION PROCESS, ADAPTABILITY, COLLABORATION, EXAMPLARY and LEADERSHIP, FOCUS and CONCENTRATION, and BALANCE. (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20).
To the commenter named “Christopher”,
Your comment is more than 4,000-word long.
It is disallowed.
Moral is something that Singapore (the government and the people) hardly or almost never talked about. It seems to be the least important thing. Singaporeans are more afraid of being lawfully wrong than morally wrong.
@ 14 , Well said !
We stopped being wise when we gave absolute power to the ruling party,
and the ruling party stopped being wise when they believed
only they are capable of running the country.
In Singapore, it would be “The real crisis? When our leaders become greedy”
One phrase that I remembered most is :To serve other people, not to manipulate other people.
Maybe now that so many of our bank officers are out of job, maybe the Govt can start a state bank to lend money more generously to our own SMEs. Thus creating more jobs for the retrenched bank officers and also helping the SMEs tie over ; resulting in…. less retrenchment.
Wisdom ? Courage ?….. Nah … too troublesome… might as well use the U$20b or so to buy into some firesale bank stocks in the US ..hoping it will recover… its faster , easier and its been done beofre.. who knows , it may get a better return 10 years down the road if it doesn’t bankrupt tomorrow.