Albert Einstein said, though no one can verify when or where he said it, that the problems facing us cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created them. If that is so, then it must surely be true of global problems. To solve global problems we need a new level of thinking. In Wide as the World: Cosmopolitan Identity and Democratic Dialogue Jack Crittenden examines and brings to life in a dialogue between two fictional characters this new level of thinking:dialectical thinking. Found through psychological research to be a higher-order thinking characteristic of advanced adult development, dialectical thinking transcends but embraces and integrates difference and ambiguity. It permits those using it to expand their perspectives, their worldviews, and even their identities to cosmopolitan or worldwide proportions. Crittenden suggests that when built in as part of the structures of democratic dialogue, dialectical thinking can help elected officials and ordinary citizens alike, from local meetings to global institutions, address and solve our most vexing problems.
If we are to solve global problems, then we need a new kind of thinking that experts and citizens alike can share through participatory forms of democratic dialogue. That new thinking is dialectical thinking, and it heralds breakthroughs in individual and collective consciousness as our identities expand to include all of humanity.
