Wicked Problems, Workable Solutions

Lessons from a Public Life

By (author) Daniel Yankelovich

Not available to order

Publication date:

18 December 2014

Length of book:

202 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442244818

After five decades of studying how Americans respond to public issues, Daniel Yankelovich presents a strategy to nurture the greater public wisdom necessary for modern society to confront its most wicked problems. Having been an advisor to major corporations and influential media, business and government organizations, Yankelovich is a leading public opinion expert who has had a long career studying, questioning, and reporting on national issues, trends, and opinions. Stagnant incomes, blocked social mobility, political polarization, dysfunctional educational, criminal, and health care systems and global instability plague the welfare of not only the United States, but also the entire world. By instituting a few powerful innovations we can revolutionize today’s inattentive public into a thoughtful, action-oriented populous. Yankelovich shares the philosophical foundation of his successful career and revisits some of his breakthrough experiences, drawing insightful conclusions applicable to our current condition. Full of stories of how destinies can change when people abandon ingrained, unproductive thinking habits, Wicked Problems, Workable Solutions lays out a pragmatic design to reboot democracy and lead our society forward into a more promising future.

PART I: Elitism Versus Democracy
1. Introduction: America’s Wicked Problems
2. Retrofitting The Plumbing Of Democracy
3. A Plea For Adaptive Sanity
4. Four Wrong Turns
5. Why We Can’t Rely On Our Culture
6. Straight And Crooked Thinking
7. Caring and Stewardship
8. Elite Forms of Groupthink
9. From Martin Heidegger To Lloyd Blankfein
10.Transitioning to a Thoughtful Public - A Strategy

PART II: Understanding the Public’s “Learning Curve”
11. An Accidental Profession
12. Starting My Own Firm
13. Part Science …
14. Part Circus …
15. Smart People; Dumb Mistakes
16. New Methods Of Conducting Research
17. Research Designed For Action
18. Never Present More Than One Idea At A Time
19. Tracking The Cultural Revolution
20. A Special Brand Of Rebellion
21. Who’s Afraid Of The “Generation Gap”
22. High-Risk Experiments Without A Net
23. America Tells Itself A New Story
24. The Yankelovich Monitor
25. Founding The Public Agenda
26. The Elitist Double Whammy
27. Missed Chances To Regain The Public Trust
28. Coming To Public Judgment
29. Losing the Battle With The News Media
30. How My Philosophy For Living Evolved

PART III: My Philosophy For Living
31. Dinner With Quine
32. How Scientism Nearly Devoured Philosophy
33. My Wrong Map Problem
34. A Look At Existentialism
35. Finding A Better Framework
36. Applying Philosophy To Psychoanalysis
37. “Ego and Instinct” In Retrospect
38. The Mindset Of The Iron Cage: Prying It Open
39. Don’t Fight Human Nature!
40. Co-Evolution
41. Culture Is Inescapable…
42. Structuring Your Own Philosophy For Living
43. Some Philosophical Tweets to Live By

Daniel Yankelovich is one of the great students of American life. In this personable and engaging book he not only identifies some of the central "wicked problems" of contemporary American culture, but he also calls for and begins to articulate the change in our understanding of ourselves that we must undergo in order to solve them. In short, he calls for each of us to take up a distinctively American philosophy of living, one that is fit to the demands of a free and civically engaged democratic society. There is wisdom in this book.