The Second Reformation

The collections of postings on this page contain my argument that we are in a period analogous to the first Reformation that profoundly transformed Northern Europe 500 years ago. Accordingly, I am referring to the present period as the Second Reformation. The first Reformation was sparked by the invention of the printing press. I argue that the present Second Reformation was sparked in 1994 by the emergence of the World Wide Web.

One profound result of the first Reformation was to remove Truth discovery from the exclusive jurisdiction of the priesthood, and distribute it among learned people in the dress of Science. This effectively caused the Truth-telling function to move from intuition to reason.

I argue that the profound result of the Second Reformation will be to remove Truth discovery from the exclusive jurisdiction of Corporations (including Corporate subsidiaries more commonly known as Media, Academia, and Government), and distribute it among curious people in the humble dress of Wisdom. I define Wisdom as the ability to understand phenomena from all perspectives, combined with the ability to decide how those multiple perspectives combine to reveal Truth. I argue that this Second Reformation will effectively cause the marriage of intuition and reason, thus bringing forth an Age of Wisdom.

Alternatively, if society falls short on the "decisive" half of Wisdom, and learns only how to understand multiple perspectives, then we will enter an Age of Indecision. However, because I believe America is essentially incapable of indecision, I rate this alternative possibility as remote.

The above arguments are explained in the following postings:

• TBD