The Follies of Decisions without Wisdom

 • The function of intelligence is characterized as focusing on questions of how to do and accomplish necessary life-supporting tasks; the function of wisdom is characterized as provoking the individual to consider the consequences of his [or her] actions both to self and their effects on others. Wisdom, therefore, evokes questions of should one pursue a particular course of action.
          ---Vivian Clayton
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Who you become depends to a great extent on what you decide--but who you are and what you value frequently determine what the best decision is.
          ---James Stein, '10
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http://www.answers.com/topic/iphigenia-film-1

In the film Ephigehnia depicting a Greek mythic story, the Athenians are stranded at Aulis, Agamemnon having killed a deer sacred to Dianna. Dianna stopped the wind and the Athenians can't sail. So, the men are getting restless. They want to go fight Troy to recover Helen, who had eloped with Paris. The sheer, Calchas consults the oracle and recommends that Agamemnon kill his beautiful daughter Ephigehnia before the wind could come. Meneleas, the cuckholded husband, and other generals pressure Agamemnon while his wife Clytemnestra pleads. What would you do?
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“You are what you decide,” (Stein, ’10) may be a philosophical haiku of sorts that informs a universal truth, loaded with stuff. If we stopped and reflected on it, we might learn something of ourselves. We might see that our social, professional financial and, in fact, our station in life might have been decisively decided by decisions made. Some memories of such decisions might at times gnaw our hearts with regrets: if only in the fork in that road we had taken to the right instead of the road to perdition! Not individuals only are faced with “fork in the road” challenges, but also do groups, institutions and societies at large.

I have seen people who take almost eternity to make up their minds. There are others who never make up their minds—effectively deciding not to decide. While, others (yours truly included) make impulsive snap decisions with regrettable consequences at times.

We marvel at the guy who jumps on top of the child in the path of an on-coming train and lies on top of him until the train passes, thereby saving the child’s life—and his, of course. That is a snap decision. Where does it come from?

Then there is Barack Obama, Mr. Cool. While everyone is fidgeting and getting red-faced about BP oil-spill, he seemingly is not ruffled. Then, he does his magic with a strength that few see: The $20 Billion “shake-down.” The “shake down” according to one legislature, who was forced to withdraw his statement, was probably more the truth than not.

It seems that there are situations that require snap decisions, and there are others that require deliberate reflective analysis. Knowing the difference is probably a mark of wisdom, and may lead to good decisions, which lead to successes in our enterprises.

Decisions also seem to be made relative to an environment, the philosophical settings, or the zeitgeist of the time. And often the wisdom of a decision is evaluated in retrospect, in hindsight—hence, the adage that “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” implying you see more clearly after the fact.

While there are now mathematical models for making deliberative analytical decisions as in Decision Theory, some ancients made very wise decisions while others made disastrous decisions seemingly by the seat of their pants. Whether using decision theory or otherwise, making a decision is generally about payoffs: what do I get if I do this? The “what” is a critical payoff factor that may go into determining the wisdom or not of our decision. Is the payoff factor “my success,” meaning soothing my ego, or is it “community harmony?”

In Uganda many epic decisions were made by our leaders. If wise decisions increases the probability of success, implicitly, our failures, traumas and the state of our nation has corollary in unwise decisions based on selfish and misguided payoff factors: I must rule until I croak; pay me, and I will change the law for you because I am just a little rat; the nation’s coffer is my piggybank; if you are with me do whatever you want, and I will look the other way; successes are mine, and for failures blame others; if I don’t win, I take the gun; get out of town because this is my dominion; etc, etc, etc. Is it now a time for a paradigm shift of some sort?