In The Tragedy of the Commons: Rational Actors, I discussed linear vs. spiral logic. I suggested that western logic tended to be more linear and Islamic and other cultures, perhaps more spiral. But that is a generalization based on today’s conditions. In the past, western logic tended to be spiral as well. A good example is Percival in the graal quest sagas.

Chrétien de Troyes wrote about the legend of Percival in Perceval, the Story of the Grail. In this story, which Wolfram von Eschenbach also wrote about, Percival is a man, son of a knight that died. His mother tried to protect him and kept him insulated from his knightly heritage. He meets a knight and understands his heritage and sets off to understand knighthood. His mother gives him some parting advice to learn from everything.

To cut to the chase, Percival has several interactions and learns a bit from each. They are essentially the same type of interactions, but from different perspectives and with accumulated knowledge based on previous interactions. Each interaction turns about better and he eventually reaches the Chapel Perilous and the graal. This is essentially a spiral journey illustrating spiral logic. Percival could not have succeeded in the graal quest without his spiral journey.

The spiral journey is also similar to the labyrinth people walk in some forms of meditation. Like incidents in Percival’s journey, the meditator sees the same spots from different perspectives on the way to the center of the labyrinth. The labyrinth in the picture is in Chartres, a well-known cathedral in France. The circular motion also seems to influence meditation and cognitive processes. The point is engaging the six Ps in the figure as we contemplate.

The spiral path is about contemplation and deep thought vice quick answers. It is effective for complex, wicked problems that are outside relevant ranges that can have many variables and factors. In these types of problems, linear logic may not be of much use.

Linear logic is about knowns, relevant ranges, and binary logic gates and deductive logic. For most problems, it is fast and works well. Wicked logic (a newly coined term) uses fuzzy logic where truth may be relative and the various inputs affect each other.

While linear and wicked logic may reach similar outcomes, depending on the problem at hand, wicked logic may take too long to reach a decision in straightforward problems and well-understood inputs. The questions are whether wicked logic can reduce to linear logic when required, whether wicked logic can find a solution in the time available, and how to optimize among multiple solutions.

Complex situations that lead to wicked problems are difficult. Lafond et al. note, “complex systems tend to overwhelm the cognitive capabilities of decision makers, often leading to a phenomenon called tunnel vision (Miller, 1982). He defines tunnel vision “as insufficient problem formulation and situation assessment, producing narrow-minded interventions that may lead to failure or even to the emergence of new unintended problems.” (Lafond et al., 2012, p. 2). This correlated directly to Design Thinking and the need to think critically and get beyond biases and preconceptions. Bazerman and Moore, in Chapter 2, discusses bias (Max H. Bazerman, 2009).

Percival faces a wicked problem as he sets out on his quest to be a knight and discover his heritage. He initially has only his mother’s parting advice. The lead figure shows Percival meeting a knight on the road. The wicked logic circuit starts with internal assessments and cogitation (the spiral over Percival) and his study of the knight (the spiral over the knight). His journey into wicked logic continues as he experiences more and meets more knights and travelers.

Besides rational logic, he also relies on his intuition. At first, his intuition is weak, since he has little experience in the ways of the world. As he travels and meets people, his intuition grows stronger until he nearly completely relies upon it in the last part of the quest when he is asked a critical question. But as Haidt notes on page 55, intuition is a form of cognition. I suspect intuition can play a large role in wicked problems to help sort out conflicting concepts and data points, illustrated by the sine waves with multiple flows connecting to spirals. In some respects, this is like the NAND and NOR gates in fuzzy logic. Haidt states, “But intuitions (including emotional responses) are a kind of cognition. They’re just not a kind of reasoning.”

Reasoning vs cognition. What an interesting concept. Reasoning tends to be more linear logic based, while cognition takes in the range of thinking processes. Reasoning may be a subset of cognitive processes. What is even more interesting is he quotes David Hume to show that relying on reasoning/linear logic will rarely convince someone with dearly held opinions and ideas.

And that is exactly what we find in the political commons. There are people with diametrically opposed ideas and concepts that all are convinced they are right. In wicked problems, the issue is not to just find a solution, but to find a solution and convince others it is viable and helps all stakeholders. It is as much about emotion and intuition as it is about logic. Haidt illustrates this in the Social Institutionalist Model in the accompanying figure.

Haidt’s Social Institutionalist Model, p54 of The Righteous Mind

The figure uses a simple two-person interaction. In the political commons, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people interacting with varying degrees of nuances, differences, and dearly held ideas. Our framework needs to take this diversity into account. But we need to focus on deep diversity rather than the surface diversity upon which many social justice advocates focus. And addressing the differences between these two types of diversities is a wicked problem which affects virtually all the problems in the political commons.

And just as Percival learned throughout his journey and used his knowledge to complete the quest, the citizens of the political commons must be learners as and able to apply the knowledge they gain. We need learning organizations with critical thinking skills to handle the wicked problems of the political commons.

References

Bazerman, Max H, Moore Don A.. (2009). Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (7th ed.).

John Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind (p. 56). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Wiley and Sons.

Lafond, D., DuCharme, M. B., Gagnon, J. F., & Tremblay, S. (2012). Support Requirements for Cognitive Readiness in Complex Operations. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 6(4), 393–426. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555343412446193

Miller, Alan. (1982). Tunnel Vision in Environmental Management. The Environmentalist (Volume 2, Issue 3), Pages 223-231. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0251-1088(82)93407-6

Figure Haidt’s Social Institutionalist Model