Easy Wisdom

This essay examines how contemporary culture confuses the appearance of wisdom with the practice of judgment. A short video of Slavoj Žižek, in which four contradictory statements all sound equally profound, was the spark for a reflection on how easily insight becomes a stylistic effect rather than a form of understanding.

The same mechanism now shapes mainstream leadership discourse. Concepts like authenticity, empowerment, or courage circulate as interchangeable virtues, applicable to any situation and rarely grounded in analysis. This encourages leaders to rotate postures rather than confront trade-offs, often outsourcing responsibility to consultants or external authorities. A more durable orientation requires restoring judgment as a practical discipline: interpreting context before selecting stances, distinguishing complexity from vagueness, and accepting responsibility for decisions. The alternative to “easy wisdom” is not a new doctrine but a renewed connection between choice, consequence, and situational clarity.

A condensed summary is provided below. The full essay, including references, is available as a downloadable PDF.

Easy Wisdom and the Erosion of Judgment.

The idea for this reflection came while rewatching an old video of Slavoj Žižek discussing why he distrusts the modern fascination with wisdom. In the clip, he offers four short statements, each pointing in a different direction: reject immediacy and seek eternity; reject eternity and live in the present; find eternity in fleeting moments; accept the permanent tension between the two. Each statement contradicts the others, yet all could be styled as “wise” with minimal effort. And even knowing exactly how the demonstration unfolds, it remains surprisingly hard to resist the reflexive nod that rises with each line. The structure does most of the work. The format feels insightful, so the content is accepted without scrutiny.

What Žižek exposes is a general pattern. Contemporary culture increasingly treats wisdom not as a form of judgment but as an aesthetic. If a sentence carries the right cadence - two abstractions, a contrast, a conciliatory turn - it can pass as depth regardless of what it claims. The preference shifts from engaging complexity to consuming fragments that resemble understanding. This shift is not limited to philosophy or self-help. It now shapes how leadership is taught, discussed, and practiced across much of the professional world.

In mainstream leadership discourse, the same architecture appears. The concepts that circulate most widely - authenticity, empowerment, presence, courage, vulnerability - have become interchangeable virtues. They are presented as universally applicable and rarely evaluated against the specifics of a situation. Encouraging them becomes a matter of style rather than analysis. And naturally, no one positions themselves against courage or questions empowerment; these are virtues designed to be agreed with, not examined. Leadership advice therefore adopts the same structure as Žižek’s demonstration: mutually incompatible propositions that all sound correct because they all follow the familiar shape of insight.

The effect is predictable. Leadership talk shifts from clarifying decisions to offering attitudes. Instead of analyzing the competing pressures that define a situation, individuals select a stance that feels appropriate. The model implies that leadership is transferable across contexts because it rests not on evaluation but on disposition. This is appealing not because it increases competence but because it reduces discomfort. It offers conceptual mobility (one can always rotate to another virtue), while avoiding the constraint of commitment that real leadership requires.

A simple example shows how easily this dynamic works. When a team underperforms, a leader can call for “more empowerment.” If empowerment produces confusion, the leader can pivot to “clearer direction.” If direction appears too rigid, they can shift again toward “authentic leadership” or “servant leadership.” Each shift appears justified, and each one bypasses the harder work of understanding what the situation actually demands. The rotation of virtues creates the appearance of adaptability without requiring the analysis that adaptability depends on.

The avoidance of judgment is reinforced by a second pattern: the externalization of responsibility. When decisions carry political weight or internal risk, organizations often turn to consultants. The purpose is not always diagnostic clarity. Consultants serve as a buffer for decisions leadership already intends to make but prefers not to own directly. When a proposal meets resistance, it becomes “technically correct” because an external authority endorsed it. Responsibility is displaced. Judgment is outsourced. Leadership becomes procedural rather than substantive.

A different orientation begins from a more classical understanding of judgment. Wisdom, in this older sense, is defined by the capacity to evaluate competing obligations, recognize constraints, and choose despite the absence of perfect coherence. It is not a harmonizing technique but a disciplined confrontation with trade-offs. The same logic applies to leadership. Leadership involves interpreting ambiguity, identifying which priorities must prevail, and accepting the consequences of that choice. It requires distinguishing what is difficult from what is merely vague. It demands the ability to act when options are constrained and outcomes are uneven.

Modern leadership language often obscures this structure. By reframing organizational problems as matters of personal posture, it encourages individuals to focus on how they appear rather than on what they decide. Leaders learn to speak in the vocabulary of transformation while remaining disconnected from the work transformation requires. The result is a widening gap between expression and action. Principles multiply while decisions weaken.

A personal example illustrates the alternative. Years ago, I presented a post-project appraisal to a board that included a former German chancellor, a former Russian minister, the CEO of one of the major oil companies, and several individuals typically described as oligarchs, among them my own CEO. The appraisal was direct: the project had not gone well. When I finished outlining the failure points, the room went quiet. The CEO looked at me and asked, “So you’re saying we need to be tougher and smarter?” For a moment, I assumed the discussion was about to take the usual turn and that my role in the organization might be ending. Instead, after a long pause, he nodded and said, “You’re right. We didn’t get this one right.” There was no defensiveness, no search for a scapegoat. Just acknowledgement and the expectation that we would understand the failure rather than romanticize it or bury it. That is what responsibility looks like in practice.

The same discipline is needed at a broader cultural level. Meaning today is often fragmented. Frameworks that once provided orientation now compete or have dissolved entirely. In this environment, individuals gravitate toward short, symmetrical statements that feel like insight but require no interpretation. These fragments create temporary coherence but weaken the capacity for substantive judgment. The danger is cumulative. When people become accustomed to consuming depth rather than practicing it, they lose the ability to distinguish between gestures that resemble understanding and practices that embody it. Over time, the ability to deliberate weakens, individually, organizationally, and socially.

A more stable alternative requires reintroducing judgment as a practical discipline. It begins by interpreting situations before selecting stances, using expertise as a resource rather than as a shield, and accepting responsibility for choices rather than outsourcing them to conceptual cues or external authorities. This is not a new model of leadership. It is a restoration of something older: the link between thought and consequence.

The full essay, including references, is available as a downloadable PDF.