This is the third entry in a miniseries about collective wisdom.

In The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki detailed the four conditions for collecting wisdom from a population.  People must think independently of each other, no groupthink.  Their thinking must be decentralized, not influenced by a centralized authority.  Such conditions allow for collecting a diversity of thought from a diversity of experiences.  Then a system aggregates the thoughts in a way that finds the norm.

Surowiecki presented cases of everyday living where these conditions hold true, but they also apply to scientific inquiry.   Universities originally explored and reinforced existing doctrine.  During the Scientific Revolution universities transformed into diverse, decentralized institutions doing research independently of each other.  Then agreed upon methods aggregated the results from experiences and experiments to find the norm.

Collective wisdom in a democracy requires these same four conditions.  First we must think independently based on our own experiences and not succumb to party groupthink.  Our thinking also must be our own responsibility and not obedient to political or media authorities.  There must be no voter suppression to limit the diversity of experiences and thought.  The results then must be aggregated and applied in a way that does not allow the minority to overrule the majority.

We fail miserably at all four conditions for extracting collective wisdom from an electorate.  Party platforms, political panderers and media pundits steer a majority of the electorate into groupthink.  Many laws at the state level suppress who can vote, limiting diversity.  We designed our government to enable representatives and authoritarians to overrule an aggregation of the majority if they disagree.

This failure of our system to collect wisdom from the will of the people begs the question of whether we really have a democracy.  Entries #9 – 12 of my 2024 election year journal, Pandering and Punditry, dives into this question.  This election year calls for a revisiting and reinforcement of this question.

Please subscribe, share and like. You receive the White Paper for the Unenlightened Wisdom Project by subscribing. Get others to join and collaborate on this ten year journey from brain health to democracy. Eventually I will set up a forum here to gain the collective wisdom of like minded journeyers. The first volume of essays for the Unenlightened Wisdom Project will be released towards the end of the year. A supplementary pamphlet called Pandering and Punditry is available now at kirksinclair.com.