After going through several TED talks, I found I always chose those I was most interested in for our study group. It might be a bit unfair to you - so this week we have a talk which is recommended by another YOYO member:
I am glad to know that you've watched these three clips before and you like them all. ^^
Before you use them as your future topics, would you mind sharing your opinions about these talks with us?
Dear YOYO members,
All ISG threads are open to every YOYO member. You are welcome to comment on any topics if you feel like it.
In this talk, Barry Schwart elaborates the idea of "wisdom" – it's not the usual stereotype of wisdom about some very smart or brilliant people who do some extraordinary jobs, but the one that ordinary people can apply in their daily life, and it can practically change the world - it is the practical wisdom, a combination of moral will and moral skill.
Schwart takes the job of hospital janitor as an example. The janitors in hospitals have to act on instructions on a list of job descriptions; however, instead of always following the rules, they sometimes improvise in order to do something well to the patients or other people. A counterexample is about a father unintentionally let his seven-year-old son drank alcohol. Later both of them experienced a draggy procedure which involved police, ambulance people, welfare protection agency, foster home and judge, just because the procedure had to be followed.
When things go wrong, people usually use two tools to fix them: rules and incentives, to change people's behaviors. But Schwart points out that they do not essentially solve the problems. We have to reverse to the human nature of virtue and practice moral will (to do right things) and moral skills (to figure out what doing right means). It's a wisdom about when and how to make the exception to every rule, when and how to improvise, and how to use these moral skill in the service of the right aims. It depends on experience and need to be practice. It takes time, need permissions (from organizations) and mentors.
Recently the world have been confront with an unprecedented global financial crisis. It's time for the governments and individuals to realize that the key to solve problems is all about virtue - that is the way to make people have the will to do the right thing at the right time, and in the right way.
Sherry Liao 寫:When things go wrong, people usually use two tools to fix them: rules and incentives, to change people's behaviors. But Schwart points out that they do not essentially solve the problems. We have to reverse to the human nature of virtue and practice moral will (to do right things) and moral skills (to figure out what doing right means). It's a wisdom about when and how to make the exception to every rule, when and how to improvise, and how to use these moral skill in the service of the right aims. It depends on experience and need to be practice. It takes time, need permissions (from organizations) and mentors.
Hey, Sherry,
I checked my longman dictionary and found that "reverse" is a transitive verb, so I guessed the sentence above should be revised as, "We have to reverse human nature of virtue and practice moral will (to [to is a preposition here] doing right things) and moral skills (to figureing out what doing right things [so it'll agree with previous part, "to doing right things"] means)."
Sherry Liao 寫:Recently the world have been confront (should be confronted) with an unprecedented global financial crisis. It's time for the governments and individuals to realize that the key to solve problems is all about virtue - that is the way to make people have the will to do the right thing at the right time, and in the right way.
Wisdom, in the definition that Barry Schwartz referred to, is the combination of moral will and moral skills. A person with wisdom should have the moral will to do right as well as the moral skills to figure out what “doing right” means and how. By overly relying on rules and incentives, Barry Schwartz pointed out, the world is having a war against wisdom.
There is no doubt that rules are essential to avert disasters. These days, however, regulations have become too much of a good thing and thus squeeze the room of discretion and the opportunities to improvise. Improvisation, in Barry’s mind, is a breeding ground for the development of moral skills.
Likewise, incentive is something we cannot live without. We all need to have something to live for, after all. Excessive incentive, nevertheless, may do more harm than good. It destroys our desire to do the right things or stops us from asking ourselves whether “it is right.”
To counteract the loss of wisdom, here is Barry’s prescription: the society need to acknowledge moral heroes – designating them as role models for ordinary people to follow; redundant regulations and rules should be done away with so that people can exercise discretion and learn moral skills from it.
Your mind boggles at sth: it's so strange or amazing that it's difficult for you to imagine or understand
Ex: My mind boggles at the amount of work still to do.
Ex: My mind boggles at the amount of money they spend on food.
chip away sth: to gradually make sth weaker, smaller, or less effective
Ex: The company dominance of the market is gradually being chipped away.
Barry Schwartz gives his own definition of “Being wise”. It is having a moral will and moral skills. Both moral will and moral skills can be taught and learned through life experiences. He implies the what people miss today is ethical thinking. Without ethical thinking, we are stumbled by all the existing rules. The existing rules prevent us from improvising. What improvisation can give us is there are always exceptions from case to case. The structures is built by past knowledge, and the awareness of exceptions requires education to approach. A kind of education that teach us ethical thinking which can lead us to right aims. The right aims is not necessarily done by an extraordinary hero. Any of us can be ordinary hero to be a mentor for one another. In workplace, the practice to be an ordinary hero might be even more important, when a person’s job involves people interaction.
02.Dancing around something (04:25) (Idiom) (自己定義)：在一件事的週邊圍遶，沒有直指該事的核心或問題本身。
Dance around the truth: One does not literally dance around the truth or make any physical motion at all. Instead, to dance around the truth means to avoid speaking truthfully outright, or to evade truth by lying.
(“In order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace Bentham, I’m afraid we’re going to have to replace you with a sleezeball.”)(13:45)
Sleezeball --> Sleazy person
Does that mean "How good you are is not important, any jackass can fill out the vacancy" ??
02 What does it mean?
(14:15)There is no better way to show people that you re not serious than to tie up everything you have to say about ethics until a little package with the ball and consign that to the margin as an ethic course. What to do instead……
I think I just got the answer.
One way to not to do it. Teach more ethic courseThere is no better way to show people that you re not serious than to tie up everything you have to say about ethics until a little package with the ball and consign that to the margin as an ethic course. What to do instead……
Barry is telling us not to teach more ethic course, because we talk too much about it. Any other practical things is better than just talk about theory, such as celebrate moral exemplars.
The speaker thnks we should learn and teach the pratical wisdom in our life. The practical wisdom includes virtue like empathy. For example, the job description of the janitor in a hospital is mopping the floor and empty the trash. But some of them know how to bend the rules for the hospital patients. They will stop mopping the floor because a patient will try to get a little excercise at that time. Another janitor ignore her supervisor's instruction to vacuum the room because she knows the patient will have visitors in the room alll day. Barack Obama also appeals to us based on the virtue in the election. So it is something more important we should learn in our life.
