?What is to be done?? Anticipating the future and mobilizing prudence

Abstract

Various social and political factors often block the emergence of good ideas — e.g., the presence of an overbearing leader, the loquaciousness of some actors and the shyness of others, conventional and doctrinal thinking, the political climate, etc. — and devices have been invented to overcome some of these obstacles in decisionmaking settings: the Delphi technique, idea writing, and the nominal group technique are all 'front-end' operations designed to encourage the blossoming of possible solutions to problems. Devices for generating ideas have not been helpful in coping with the volumes of ideas produced, however, and this had led some theorists to give up on the human mind as a solver of problems. Following a summary of the factors impeding rationality in decisional settings, the advantages of Q methodology are presented, and a case study is described in which Q, in conjunction with front-end operations, has been used to assist groups in clarifying their own perspectives and in gaining access to collective wisdom (political prudence) for purposes of problem solving. ...every on says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. (Aristotle,)