“Gentle Cynicism” maintains moral and cognitive way of moving through--not stepping away from—tensions where there is a complex array of easy-to-get thin practices, answers and ideals on one side, while beyond—profound, thick resources that invite persistent minds toward the way of becoming more fully human. The task is one of becoming comfortable with doubt, negation and integration via patient dialectical knowing and learned ignorance offering dynamic forms conceived over time into honed praxis, livelihood and embodied wisdom overcoming combinatorial explosion[2].
[1] Alasdair
MacIntyre, After Virtue, used this comparison suggesting that modern
society faces challenges similar to the post-Roman Empire period. He posits
that just as the legacy of classical civilization was preserved in monasteries
during that time, it is necessary to create "local forms of community
within which . . . the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the
new dark ages". Some suggest that the barbarians, in this context, are not
outside the system, but have already been governing.
[2] By
way of recursive relevance realization avoiding combinatorial explosion,
ill-definedness, and the way in which we can be misdirected by salience to
misjudge what is relevant in any given problem. See John Vervaeke, Leonardo
Ferraro, “Relevance, Meaning and the Cognitive Science of Wisdom”
in The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom, Nov 2013, 21-51. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286508333_Relevance_Meaning_and_the_Cognitive_Science_of_Wisdom