Willpower is not some mythical force that we either have or don't have. Willpower is our decision to use higher mind thinking instead of lazing around in the clutches of our primal mind.
Collective wisdom is about our capacity to recognize interdependence and to make decisions demonstrating that we have a stake in each other, that we can indeed care for each other and the physical planet we share.
The parliamentary principle of decision by majorities only appears during quite short periods of history, and those are always periods of decadence in nations and States.
Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.
... but the important thing is that when you do find one where you really do know what you are doing, you must buy in quantity.... Charlie and I have made a dozen or so very big decisions relative to net worth, although not as big as they should have been. And in each of those, we've known that we were almost certain to be right going in.
Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible.
Do we have a guide to help us choose the right and avoid dangerous detours? I have tried to pattern my life after the Master. Whenever I have a difficult decision to make, I have looked at that picture and asked myself, "What would He do?" Then I try to do it. We can never go wrong when we choose to follow the Savior.
I suppose it is a bit of a date that we're having at the moment. As is usually the case you don't get married on a first date, you've got to go out a few times before you make any big decisions.