Building the Not-Numerous Center: Cosmopolis in a Time of Drift
A small, patient center formed by intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversions. It bridges old and new, corrects bias, and insists on complete, long‑term solutions.
“There is bound to be formed a solid right… a scattered left… But what will count is a perhaps not numerous center… painstaking enough to work out one by one the transitions to be made… strong enough to refuse half measures and insist on complete solutions even though it has to wait.” — Bernard Lonergan
We live in turbulent times. Technological disruption, cultural polarization, and institutional distrust dominate headlines. Amid rapid change, short-term wins often trump long-term good. In this essay, I provide a lens I’ve found helpful to understand this turmoil: the dynamic of progress, decline, and possible recovery. Human progress occurs when insights and creativity build upon one another, improving society. Decline sets in when bias and shortsightedness block those insights, causing society to drift or even regress. In Lonergan’s terms, “the principle of progress is liberty (the freedom for insight), and the principle of decline is bias”. When bias prevails, “intelligence comes to be regarded as irrelevant to practical living”, society settles into “a decadent routine, and initiative becomes the privilege of violence”. In other words, when people stop asking new questions or seeking truth, problems fester unresolved.
While there are many biases, we’ll focus on three major biases that distort our thinking and drive decline:
Individual bias: the tendency to favor one’s own immediate interests and ego satisfactions at the expense of broader or long-term concerns. This “interference of personal desire with the development of intelligence” leads people to dismiss inconvenient insights. It results in short-sighted decisions that may benefit one person (or a small group) now, but undermine progress for others or for the future.
Group bias: the tendency of groups, factions, or institutions to favor their own advantage and traditions, while ignoring or suppressing insights that benefit outsiders or the common good. Group bias skews the very formation of common sense in a community. New ideas are accepted only if they align with the group’s interest or power. Over time, “what originally was a neglected possibility becomes a distorted reality,” and social development twists into conflict between the “solid right” and “scattered left”.
General bias of common sense: the most insidious bias, shared by everyone to some degree. It is “the propensity of common sense to extend its legitimate concern for the concrete and the immediately practical into disregard of larger issues and indifference to long-term results”. In plain terms, it’s the anti-intellectual streak that dismisses theory, expertise, or hard questions because they don’t have an immediate payoff. Common sense, invaluable in daily life, becomes a liability when it refuses to “analyze itself” or recognize that some problems require going beyond the here-and-now. General bias feeds short-term thinking in politics, education, and economics—sacrificing the future for the present.
These biases are engines of decline. They warp our perception of problems and our will to solve them. As a result, good ideas get shouted down or ignored, and genuine progress gets reversed. We see this today: entrenched interests resisting needed reforms, culture-war mentalities rejecting evidence, and widespread impatience for quick fixes. Left unchecked, biases can produce a vicious cycle of cumulative decline—a long “cycle of decline” that multiplies social ills. The question is: Who or what can correct bias without simply becoming another biased faction? In a society polarized into a “solid right” and “scattered left,” how do we escape an endless pendulum swing of extremes? The answer I’ll propose here is neither a revolution nor a technocratic elite, but something we can call cosmopolis – a collaborative higher standpoint that works patiently to reverse decline.
What Cosmopolis Is (and Isn’t)
Cosmopolis is a response to the problem of bias and decline. It is not a specific institution or utopian city, but rather a mode of collaboration and consciousness oriented to the long-term good of humankind. We can think of cosmopolis as a kind of enlightened cultural engine: “neither class nor state,” but a moral-intellectual movement “founded on the native detachment and disinterestedness of every intelligence”. In simpler terms, cosmopolis is an alert and creative “center” of persons who transcend partisan viewpoints, committed to truth and the welfare of all. It stands “above all [the] claims” of competing factions and “cuts them down to size” by exposing their biases. Crucially, cosmopolis demands our first allegiance be to truth and genuine progress, not to any party line.
One way to grasp cosmopolis is to say what it is not. Lonergan emphasizes that cosmopolis is not a political party or power bloc. It does not seek to seize governmental power or impose an ideology. It is not a technocratic elite of “smart people” who dictate to everyone else, nor a covert cultural faction fighting a “culture war.” It is also not a quick fix or emergency task force that will resolve crises overnight. Instead:
Cosmopolis is not partisan or ideological: It is “not a political agenda” at all. People in the cosmopolis can come from any party, tradition, or background, but they refuse to be captive to slogans or tribal loyalties. Their loyalty is to understanding the situation truthfully.
Cosmopolis does not rule by force or decree: “so far from employing power or pressure or force, [cosmopolis] has to witness to the possibility of ideas being operative without such backing.” It influences by truth and demonstrated solutions, not by coercion. Cosmopolis doesn’t take over; it persuades.
Cosmopolis is not swept up in short-term urgencies: It deliberately resists the frenzy of immediate crises and popular whims. It refuses “half measures” that temporarily appease but don’t actually solve the underlying problem. It is willing to wait for complete solutions, maintaining a long view when everyone else demands instant results.
So what is cosmopolis positively? We can call it a transdisciplinary, trans-partisan center of inquiry devoted to the human good. Let’s imagine cosmopolis as a widespread but loosely organized effort by people in many fields and communities. Its members share a commitment to several core tasks:
Diagnosing and overcoming bias: Cosmopolis continually identifies where bias—whether personal, group, or general—is distorting decisions and public debate. Its role is “to prevent dominant groups from deluding mankind by the rationalization of their sins,” as Lonergan vividly puts it. In practice, this means cosmopolis agents speak up when data is being denied or when scapegoating and slogans are trumping careful analysis. They shine light on uncomfortable truths that each side’s propaganda ignores.
Mediating between common sense and theory: Cosmopolis works to connect high-level ideas with everyday practical understanding. Lonergan says it must be “at home in both the old and the new”—comfortable with inherited wisdom and new discoveries. In concrete terms, this means translating academic knowledge into terms the public and policymakers can use, and vice versa, bringing real-world concerns to inform theoretical research. Cosmopolis “sponsors genuine progress” by helping sound ideas move from the lab or think-tank into everyday practice.
Keeping attention on the long view: Perhaps most of all, cosmopolis is “concerned to make operative the timely and fruitful ideas that otherwise are inoperative”. It combats the shortsightedness that plagues societies by insisting on thinking in terms of longer cycles and broader impacts. Lonergan writes that cosmopolis exists “to prevent practicality from being shortsightedly practical and so destroying itself.” It’s a kind of cultural memory and imagination that reminds everyone of larger goals beyond the moment.
In sum, cosmopolis is a counter-force to decline that doesn’t operate through domination but through understanding. It is the “perhaps not numerous center” Lonergan forecast: not necessarily a majority, but a vital minority large enough to influence both “sides” and dedicated enough to “work out one by one the transitions to be made” toward a better order. The spirit of cosmopolis can be found wherever people of intelligence, integrity, and goodwill collaborate across divides for enduring solutions. It is as much a personal stance as a group project—a refusal to give in to bias or despair. But living out this stance requires profound changes in ourselves. Three, in fact: intellectual, moral, and religious conversion. These conversions form the kind of people capable of building and sustaining cosmopolis.
Intellectual Conversion: From Naïve Realism to Critical Realism
The first conversion is intellectual. It’s a radical shift in how we understand knowledge and truth. Many people (including highly educated ones) operate with what Lonergan calls the “naïve realist” or empiricist mindset: the belief that “knowing is just looking” at what’s out there, as if truth were simply what our eyes or instruments see. In this view, objectivity means keeping the knowing subject (us) out of the picture—being a detached spectator who observes facts. This view is a myth, and intellectual conversion is the process of shattering that myth in favor of a critical realism.
Knowing is not a passive gaze but an active, structured process that happens within the subject. We experience, we inquire and have insights, we reflect and judge those insights, and then we decide what to do. Knowing anything truly involves this pattern of experience → insight → judgment (and then decision, which moves into the moral realm). Intellectual conversion is the moment we fully appropriate this pattern in ourselves. It’s the realization that “knowing ... is not just seeing; it is experiencing, understanding, [and] judging”. In other words, the objectivity of our knowledge does not come from us being detached onlookers, but from us performing these cognitional operations authentically and self-critically.
Lonergan famously expressed this with the maxim: “Genuine objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity.” We attain objectivity by being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible in our knowing. Instead of pretending we have no standpoint or mental process, we examine and refine our process. Intellectual conversion involves a reflective heightening of consciousness: we come to observe ourselves in the act of knowing and discover the built-in norms of the mind. Lonergan calls these the transcendental precepts, which is a rather philosophical term for foundational habits of insight and responsibility: Be attentive (to the data), Be intelligent (in understanding), Be reasonable (in judging), and Be responsible (in deciding). Following these internal norms leads us towards truth. It also exposes where we might be going wrong (for example, jumping to a conclusion without sufficient evidence violates “be reasonable”).
Making this shift can be disorienting at first. One has to admit that reality is not just sitting “out there” waiting to be looked at; rather, we mediate reality through our questions and judgments. But the payoff is immense. Intellectual conversion frees us from the grip of common sense literalism and ideology because we no longer equate our immediate view with the truth. We learn intellectual humility and patience. We come to relish nuance and evidence, realizing that insight often requires revising our assumptions. In practical terms, someone intellectually converted is more likely to say “I wonder why that is?” instead of “I already know enough.” They will cross-examine their own assumptions and welcome data that challenges their opinions. This is precisely the kind of mindset needed for the “not numerous center” of cosmopolis, which must sift truth from bias on all sides.
Cultivating intellectual conversion can take specific practices. For instance, explicit methods of inquiry (scientific method, investigative journalism standards, philosophical argumentation) serve as training regimes for the mind’s authentic functioning. Habits like daily reflection on how one has formed an opinion, peer review and debate, and even “bias audits” of one’s work help keep the knower honest. Over time, these practices reinforce the insight that objectivity comes from asking all relevant questions and not slanting the answers. The result is a person (or community) more committed to truth than to being right, more interested in learning than in winning arguments. Such intellectually converted people can engage opponents without simply dismissing them, since they are secure that acknowledging complexity or error is a step toward truth, not a weakness. They have “self-appropriated” their cognition – they know what they are doing when they claim to know.
To summarize, intellectual conversion shifts us from a naive realism (“I just see the facts”) to a critical realism that understands knowing as a compounded, self-correcting process. It lays the foundation for cosmopolis by creating thinkers who value evidence over bias and method over indulgence. It gives us the patience to gather and weigh data, the humility to doubt our own insights until verified, and the discipline to “insist on complete solutions even though [we have] to wait”. But knowing what is true or real is not enough. The next question is: will we choose what is truly good? That brings us to the second conversion, the moral.
Moral Conversion: From Satisfactions to Values
Moral conversion is a shift in the center of gravity of our decision-making—from the pull of personal satisfaction to the pull of genuine value. In everyday life, it’s normal to start with ourselves: we prefer things that please or benefit us (or our tribe) and avoid what doesn’t. Morality, in this everyday sense, often means negotiating compromises between our desires and some external rules or social expectations. For our purposes, moral conversion means a far more profound reorientation. It “changes the criterion of one’s decisions and choices from satisfactions to values.” Instead of asking “What’s in it for me (or my group)?”, a morally converted person asks “What is truly worthwhile, truly good in itself?” – and commits to that, even at cost to self-interest.
This conversion can feel like an inversion of priorities. Before, one’s value-scale likely put personal happiness, success, or comfort at the top, and nebulous ideals further down. After moral conversion, values (like truth, justice, love, the common good) hold the pride of place, and one is willing to sacrifice lower satisfactions for higher values. We can think of this as moving from making yourself the center (with the good revolving around your satisfactions) to making value the center (with yourself orbiting the good). For example, if I undergo moral conversion, I might turn down a lucrative but unethical job offer because integrity and social impact matter more to me than extra income. Or I might accept personal inconvenience—paying more for an eco-friendly option, say—because I judge that the environmental value overrides my satisfaction in saving a few dollars.
Importantly, we do not equate value with a dry duty opposed to feeling. Rather, in a converted state, our feelings themselves are educated and aligned with value. We start taking genuine joy and pride in doing what is truly good, and feeling revulsion or shame at what is base or unjust. Our affectivity undergoes a shift: we come to “love what is truly good, even if not immediately satisfying”. This doesn’t happen overnight—it’s often a gradual process of awakening. We might have moments of clarity (through personal crisis, great role models, or faith experiences) that reveal how shallow mere satisfactions are. Those moments invite us into a new horizon where, say, living with integrity is non-negotiable or caring for others becomes a source of meaning.
A key mark of moral conversion is authenticity in the ethical sense. One opts decisively for the truly good and then tries to live consistently by that fundamental option. Of course, as fallible humans, we will fall short, but the converted stance includes constant self-scrutiny and correction. One begins to ask about every significant decision: “Does this accord with the values I have chosen to live by? Does it contribute to the good of order (the welfare of the community and future) or only to my private satisfaction?” Institutions, too, can reflect moral conversion, for example when a business shifts from a profits-at-all-cost mentality to a mission-driven approach that respects employees, customers, and the environment as values, not just means.
Practices supporting moral conversion include what some traditions call “examination of conscience” – regularly reflecting on one’s actions and motives in light of deeper principles. It also helps to engage in dialogue with others who hold one accountable to values (e.g. community groups, mentors). Education in ethics and exposure to stories of moral heroes can widen one’s horizon of value. On a structural level, designing institutions that reward long-term good over short-term gain fosters moral conversion collectively (for instance, a company could tie executive bonuses to ethical behavior and social impact, not just quarterly earnings). We also note the need for “horizon-widening”: deliberately seeking out perspectives beyond one’s comfort, which challenges the complacency of one’s satisfactions.
The payoff of moral conversion is a kind of integrity and steadfastness that is essential for cosmopolis. Only people who prize values above quick wins will have the “stamina to refuse half-measures” and insist on complete solutions. They won’t be easily bought off or discouraged, because their motivation isn’t ego or tribal victory but the intrinsic worth of the goal. Moreover, moral conversion engenders solidarity. If I care about true value, I will recognize others who do the same—even if they belong to a different faction—and I’ll be willing to work with them. This builds the “center” that is “strong enough to insist on complete solutions even though it has to wait.” In current events, we often see fragmentary coalitions (left and right) form around common values (like defending democratic norms or the dignity of the vulnerable) that transcend party. Those are hints of cosmopolis at work, driven by moral commitment.
Yet, even values-driven people can lose heart. Working patiently “even though it has to wait” asks for extraordinary hope and love. Here is why we need the third and ultimate conversion, which deeply empowers the other two: religious conversion.
Spiritual (Religious) Conversion: Being-in-Love with the Unconditioned
We can understand religious conversion as “being in love in an unrestricted fashion.” It is a profound and total orientation of the person towards the ultimate ground of all value and truth—what we can call the Unconditioned or simply God. Unlike intellectual and moral conversion, which we can approach by deliberate effort, religious conversion is typically experienced as a gift or grace. Religious conversion is characterized as a falling in love at the deepest level of one’s being: “a being-in-love with God” that is not merely sentimental but a real state of consciousness. This state “floods” the conscious subject with a radical new impetus: one’s whole outlook is now rooted in unconditional meaning and value. In Christian terms, it’s the outpouring of God’s love in one’s heart (a great example in Romans 5:5 on God’s love being poured out through the Holy Spirit).
What does this have to do with cosmopolis? In a word: hope. To sustain the long, painstaking work of reversing decline, individuals need more than good ideas and good principles; they need existential hope, humility, and an orientation towards transcendent meaning. Religious conversion provides exactly that. “Being in love with God is the basic fulfillment of our conscious intentionality.” It answers the restless dynamism in us (the drive to know, to do good) with an experience of ultimate meaning and goodness. This experience “brings a deep-set joy that can remain despite humiliation, failure, privation, pain, betrayal, [or] desertion”, and “a radical peace, the peace that the world cannot give.” In other words, it enables a person to endure suffering and delays without despair, because one’s ultimate point of reference is no longer worldly success but the love of the Unconditioned.
For members of our “not numerous center,” such spiritual depth is a wellspring of resilience. Working on long-term solutions often means your efforts are not immediately appreciated; you might even face opposition or ridicule from the “solid right” or “scattered left” who misunderstand you. It’s easy to become cynical or burned-out in that situation. But the religiously converted person draws strength from a different source. He or she can echo the sentiment, “If God (the ultimate Good) is for us, who can be against us?” and thus persevere when others quit. This isn’t fanatical zeal—on the contrary, it comes with great humility and charity. True being in love with God instills “hope, humility, and forgiveness” because one is grounded in the unconditional love that underpins reality. Pursued authentically, it makes one less prone to ego-driven frustration and more open to reconciliation.
Why does cosmopolis need religious conversion specifically? Couldn’t a thoroughly morally converted secular person do the job? Indeed, many non-religious people heroically serve the long-term good. I’m not saying only the religiously converted can contribute. But I suggest that the full breadth of self-transcendence—going beyond ego and bias—culminates naturally in a transcendent love. Religious conversion consummates intellectual and moral conversion by orienting us to the highest possible frame of meaning (similar to the four levels of happiness). It relativizes our personal drama within something infinitely greater. This perspective is crucial for truly unbiased collaboration. It is what allows cosmopolis to seek reconciliation without denying truth. For example, envision truth and reconciliation commissions (more on this shortly): they require people who can hold together a thirst for justice and an offer of mercy. Such balance comes easier when participants have a spiritual conversion that frees them from hatred and vengefulness. They can hate the sin but not the sinner, because they see even the sinner as loved ultimately by God.
We can think of religious conversion in terms of love and acceptance: “when one accepts God’s gift of his love”. This acceptance generates compassion and the courage to face painful truths. Practically, those living out religious conversion will engage in practices like prayer, meditation, or deep reflection to continually place themselves in God’s presence and receive renewed inspiration. They often participate in “shared rituals that form trust and mercy”—community worship, acts of service, confession and forgiveness practices, etc.—which knit people together in a bond beyond self-interest. Over time, these practices build communities of hope that can withstand long winters of adversity.
In summary, spiritual conversion supplies the transcendent energy for cosmopolis. It grounds the work in something more enduring than any political movement or academic school. To be “in love with the Unconditioned” is to live in hope that, however dark the moment, truth and goodness ultimately have a source and destiny that triumph (in theological terms, that God’s love wins in the end). Thus, one can be “strong enough to refuse half measures” and wait without despair. With the three conversions—intellectual, moral, and religious—at work, we get persons who see clearly, choose rightly, and trust deeply. The next step is to translate these personal conversions into structural patterns that can sustain progress. Lonergan’s vision doesn’t stop at individual enlightenment; it extends to how we organize collaborative efforts (like scholarly research, policymaking, etc.) in a way that embodies cosmopolis.
From Persons to Patterns: Institutions that Embody Cosmopolis
If cosmopolis is to be effective, it must take shape not only in converted individuals but also in new patterns of collaboration. People who have undergone the conversions we’ve described will naturally want to restructure their work and institutions to reduce bias and favor long-term insight. Here’s a proposal for a concrete way to do this: namely, through a differentiated method of distinct steps or functions. Let’s assume eight functional specialties that break intellectual endeavor into sequential tasks (Research, Interpretation, History, Dialectic, Foundations, Doctrines, Systematics, and Communications). By separating out different kinds of tasks, we can ensure each is done with proper rigor and minimal bias, and then link the results together for a comprehensive solution.
Why is this important? Bias often creeps in when people confuse different tasks. For example, a historian tasked with gathering facts may start injecting their own ideological interpretations prematurely (mixing the research function with the dialectic function). Or a policy group might jump from research straight to communication, skipping the hard work of evaluating conflicting viewpoints (dialectic) and establishing common foundational values (foundations). Our insight is that we can design a workflow that forces us to do first things first, and to challenge our biases at each stage. Each stage/function has its own proper standards. For instance, Research gathers data carefully (with source-critical objectivity), Interpretation strives to understand meaning in context, History looks at development and contexts, and Dialectic explicitly surfaces and debates the differences and biases in various accounts. Only after working through those “retrieval” phases do we move to forward-looking ones: Foundations (where we take a stand on fundamental values and perspectives – essentially the fruit of moral and religious conversion formalized), Doctrines/Policy (formulating the agreed insights and values into directives or teachings), Systematics (organizing those into a coherent worldview or model), and Communications (conveying the results effectively to the broader community).
In an institution embodying cosmopolis, you would see structures or teams corresponding to these kinds of functions. For example, consider a global policy think-tank tackling climate change. It might have one team dedicated purely to data gathering and fact establishment (Research), another to interpreting what the data means in human terms (Interpretation of scientific findings in economic or ethical context), a historical team examining past cases and trajectories (History), and a dialectic forum where advocates of different viewpoints (e.g. economic growth vs. sustainability) engage, with facilitators ensuring all biases and assumptions are made explicit (Dialectic). After this phase, a foundations group (perhaps a multidisciplinary panel including ethicists, community leaders, etc.) would articulate the shared values or grounds that emerge (e.g. “We value both human development and ecological integrity, here’s how we prioritize them…”). Only then would they draft concrete policy proposals (Doctrines) and integrate them into an overall strategy (Systematics), finally rolling out a campaign or publication to educate and mobilize the public (Communications).
The design principle at work is twofold: division of labor and integration of results. By division of labor, each kind of bias can be isolated and addressed. The person doing initial research is not also trying to justify a policy – their job is just to get the facts right, which helps avoid cherry-picking data for a pre-set agenda. The dialectic stage squarely confronts bias by having opposing views meet in a structured way, rather than letting bias lurk unspoken. By integration of results, the output of each stage flows into the next, so nothing essential is lost, and everyone down the line is accountable to what came before. Note that each specialty “has its unique criteria” but also must “dovetail with the rest,” otherwise scholars tend to overstep and introduce confusion. The same goes for any collaborative cosmopolis effort: scientists, policy analysts, moral leaders, communicators all have roles, but they need a common frame to cooperate. Method provides that frame.
As another example, large engineering projects or health initiatives often implicitly follow similar stages (research, design, testing, review, standards, etc.). What we’re adding is the explicit self-correcting, bias-checking element. We essentially build feedback loops into the process: notably at the Dialectic stage (which is a check on the first three “historical” stages, asking where viewpoints conflicted and why) and at the Foundations stage (which asks, “have we personally appropriated the horizon of values needed to carry this project forward?”). These stages force a kind of meta-reflection in the process, preventing groupthink or the domination of a single ideology. It’s as if the process says: “Stop. Let’s critically examine how we got here and who we are, before proceeding.”
In the spirit of cosmopolis, such institutional patterns invite external critique and transparency. A cosmopolis-style research program would publish not just conclusions but the methods and debates (the “dialectic”) that led there. This way, the wider community can see the work is not a closed cabal but an open search for truth. It builds trust and also educates others in the method. In fact, this method can be seen as an educational template for any field – teaching practitioners how to collaborate without bias by delineating tasks and challenging them to conversion at the “Foundations” step.
To summarize, converting individuals is only half the battle; the other half is converting patterns of collaboration. By institutionalizing functional specialties, review mechanisms, and interdisciplinary translation “layers,” cosmopolis gains continuity. It doesn’t rely solely on a few heroic figures (who eventually retire or die); it creates a sustainable culture of inquiry and implementation. The result is an intelligent, moral, and yes, spiritual workflow – a cosmopolitan institution in microcosm. Many forward-thinking organizations today embody pieces of this, whether knowingly or not. Next, we will look at a few case sketches that illustrate how elements of Lonergan’s cosmopolis might appear in practice.
Case Sketches of Cosmopolis in Action
To make this concrete, let’s examine a few scenarios that reflect cosmopolis-like centers at work amid the “solid right” and “scattered left” of our world:
Open-Source Innovation as a “Center” in Tech: In fields like software or AI, there is often a “solid right” of maintainers and conservatives who value stability, and a “scattered left” of experimenters trying every new idea. The open-source community can form a not numerous center that bridges these extremes. For example, consider the way the Linux kernel is developed: a global team of programmers (from big companies and independent volunteers alike) collaboratively improves the code. They have rigorous methods (code review, version control) that embody intellectual conversion – truth is found in what works and passes tests, not in who asserts it. They also enforce moral norms: a code of conduct, and the ethos that the best idea wins (a value of fairness over personal satisfaction in being right). This center is “not numerous” relative to all software users, but it has an outsized influence because it produces reliable, long-term solutions instead of quick hacks. It resists biases like corporate monopoly or NIH (“not invented here”) syndrome by being open and meritocratic. We see this pattern emerging in AI as well: initiatives like OpenAI’s collaboration with academic and public partners attempt to balance the “solid right” concerns about safety and control with the “scattered left” enthusiasm to democratize AI. A small interdisciplinary group sets shared standards and best practices (analogous to Lonergan’s functional specialties) so that progress (new features, models) can proceed without causing decline (e.g., misuse or lack of oversight). In effect, these open ecosystems function as cosmopolitan centers by orienting tech development to the long-term common good (such as ensuring AI is beneficial to all), refusing the “half-measure” of just selling a product that hasn’t been ethically vetted.
Truth and Reconciliation Processes: When a society has been through conflict or injustice, typically we see a “solid right” that denies or minimizes wrongs and a “scattered left” pressing radical change or revenge. A truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) tries to be a “not numerous center” that transcends this divide. Take South Africa’s TRC after apartheid: it was not a partisan tribunal but a deliberately balanced body that sought truth (intellectual honesty), justice tempered by mercy (moral value), and healing (spiritual reconciliation). The TRC embodied our three conversions in its process. Intellectual conversion: it insisted on detailed testimony and verification – what really happened – cutting through ideological narratives. Moral conversion: it established that the goal was not retaliation (satisfaction) but restoration based on human dignity (value). Many participants, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chaired it, were driven by religious conversion – a profound Christian faith in forgiveness and redemption. This gave them the strength to “seek reconciliation without denying truth.” The TRC’s public hearings forced the nation to be attentive to painful experiences, intelligent in understanding the causes, reasonable in distinguishing truthful confessions from lies, and responsible in recommending reforms. Its success wasn’t absolute (no human process is), but it prevented what many feared would be a downward spiral of violence. It did so by creating a safe space where bias (on both sides) could be named and overcome through shared humanity. The lesson here is that such processes require people who have the interior resources to endure anger and sorrow without flying to extremes – in Lonergan’s terms, converted people. And institutionally, they need careful method: opportunities for everyone to speak (research), cross-examination (dialectic), acknowledgment of wrong (foundations of value), and concrete recommendations (practical communications). Whenever communities undertake truth-telling and healing – whether in racial justice work, post-conflict situations, or even organizational ethics reviews – they are enacting on a small scale the work of cosmopolis: refusing to live in lies, but also refusing to become a faction of vengeance, aiming instead at a fuller reconciliation grounded in truth.
“Cosmopolis Cells” in Policy and Civic Life: One intriguing application of this thinking is to form small cross-domain teams within large organizations or governments that operate explicitly on cosmopolitan principles. For instance, imagine a City Foresight Taskforce that a mayor establishes to tackle issues like climate adaptation, technology governance, or pandemic preparedness. Such a team would include a few experts (scientists, economists, urban planners), a few community representatives, perhaps a philosopher or theologian – a microcosm of disciplines and perspectives. Crucially, the team would be chartered not to deliver quick wins for the next election, but to map out “transitions to be made” over the next decades and to flag “half measures” that won’t solve the problems. Their workflow might mirror our method: first, gather data on the current situation (research), then interpret what it means for everyday citizens (interpretation), examine historical lessons from other cities or past decades (history), hold an internal dialectic where, say, the economist and the environmentalist debate assumptions (dialectic), come to a shared framework of principles – e.g. “we commit to both equity and sustainability” (foundations), outline robust policies that reflect those principles (doctrines/systematics), and finally communicate these to the public through reports and educational forums (communications). By making the method explicit and even teaching it to members, such a “cosmopolis cell” would function as a seed of broader change. It could demonstrate a better way to govern: based on long-term intelligence and value, not sound bites. Even if its membership is small, its impact can be big by influencing how decisions are made elsewhere in the administration. Over time, more such centers could network together (think tanks, university programs, interfaith alliances for social issues) to form a lattice of cosmopolis, keeping society oriented toward truly progressive progress (and not the mirage of progress that is just rapid, directionless change).
These sketches show that cosmopolis is not purely abstract. Elements of it are already at work wherever sincere inquiry, commitment to value, and hope in the face of adversity come together. However, staying in that not numerous center is difficult. There are pitfalls and criticisms to consider, which I address next.
Objections and Failure Modes
No noble venture is without its skeptics—and its real dangers. Several objections can be raised to this notion of cosmopolis, and history provides cautionary tales of failure modes. Let’s consider a few and how we might respond:
“Isn’t this elitism in disguise?” Critics might say cosmopolis sounds like rule by an enlightened few. Talking of a “center” that’s “not numerous” can smack of technocracy or paternalism. The response is that conversion is normative, not exclusive. Cosmopolis isn’t a club of geniuses or saints; it’s a set of norms and methods that anyone can appropriate, and indeed that everyone is called to. Its leadership is moral-intellectual, not political. In practice, cosmopolis folks have to exercise servant leadership: their job is to help the whole community see more clearly and choose better, not to dominate it. Elitism is a danger if the center becomes insular or arrogant. The safeguard is the dialectical openness of cosmopolis—welcoming criticism, being transparent about its procedures, and ultimately persuading, not coercing. Far from being a detached ivory tower, a true cosmopolis would constantly engage ordinary common sense (respecting it, even as it offers a higher viewpoint). It’s an elite of commitment, not of privilege; its “membership” is self-selecting by authenticity and skill, which in principle is open to all who put in the work.
“Won’t method kill creativity and spontaneity?” Some worry that all this talk of self-correcting method and functional specialties could lead to rigid processes that stifle innovation. The answer lies in understanding that method disciplines creativity; it doesn’t replace it. We all celebrate the miracle of insight—the unexpected spark of creativity. Method serves to scaffold insight, to test and implement it, not to generate it by formula. In fact, by removing a lot of intellectual rubbish (bias, sloppy thinking, miscommunication), a good method frees creative thinkers to spend more time actually innovating. It’s like how a great jazz musician still practices scales; the discipline enhances, not diminishes, the eventual improvisation. That said, there is a failure mode here: bureaucratization. If cosmopolis devolved into just a bureaucracy of “complete checklists” with no room for intuition, it would lose its soul. Thus, any methodological structure must remain flexible and revisable—true to the spirit of inquiry. Note, cosmopolis itself is “a heuristic structure”, a guide to discovery, not a cookbook of answers. Creativity is further preserved by the diversity of the cosmopolis: since it’s trans-partisan and trans-disciplinary, it’s constantly bringing in fresh perspectives that spark new ideas.
Capture by ideology: A more serious failure mode is if the “center” is captured by a hidden ideology or bias—becoming just another faction while claiming neutrality. History is littered with movements that thought they were above bias but were blind to their own (consider how some scientific eugenicists in the early 20th century believed they were purely rational while promoting horrible biases). The defense here is continuous dialectic and self-examination. Cosmopolis must include mechanisms for external critique: for example, periodic independent audits of its work by outsiders, or rotating leadership to avoid groupthink. Our emphasis on dialectic as a functional specialty is effectively a built-in alarm system: it asks participants to explicitly state their assumptions and viewpoints and clash them with alternatives. If done earnestly, this can expose ideological blind spots. Also, the presence of morally and religiously converted members (humble, loving people) provides a kind of immune system; they are more likely to notice when the enterprise is betraying its own values and speak up.
Burnout and Cynicism: Trying to “work out one by one the transitions to be made” while “having to wait” for complete solutions can be exhausting. The not numerous center may feel overworked and underappreciated, leading to burnout. Members might start cynical jokes about “the unwashed masses” or despair that “nothing ever changes.” This is where the spiritual practices are crucial. Regular retreat, prayer or meditation, communal support—these keep the flame of hope alive. Cosmopolis should foster a subculture of sustenance: perhaps common meals, rituals of celebration for small wins, remembrance of pioneers who achieved progress after long years. Burnout is a sign one is running on one’s own steam; religious conversion in particular reminds us to seek grace or a sense of higher purpose as an energy source. Additionally, rotating people through tasks can help; no one should carry the whole world alone. A practical rule might be to pair veterans with newcomers in teams so that fresh optimism balances seasoned realism.
“Performative centrism”: A final pitfall is that people or organizations pretend to be the balanced center to aggrandize themselves, using the rhetoric of being above extremes, actually to advance a self-serving agenda. We see this in politics when someone markets themselves as the “sensible center” while mainly advancing their own interest and dismissing all dissent as extremism. To guard against this, cosmopolis must be earnest in its self-description. It shouldn’t claim the center as a badge of superiority, but demonstrate it through painstaking work and refusal of half-measures. A genuine cosmopolis will likely be quieter and more patient than a fake one. One can watch for the fruits: Are they actually achieving integrative solutions over time? Are they gaining trust from very different segments of society (a sign they truly listen to all)? Transparency, as mentioned, is key: if their analyses and proposals are published with full reasoning and citations, it’s harder to hide a partisan core. In short, the best answer to “performative centrism” is authenticity – exactly what our conversions aim to produce in persons.
In facing these objections and pitfalls, we circle back to our core idea: progress is a function of authenticity in knowing, choosing, and loving. The method and center are only as good as the people in them. Thus, the final section will outline how individuals and groups might practically live out these ideals – essentially, a rule of life for building the not-numerous center in our daily routines.
Building the “Not Numerous Center”: A Practical Rule of Life
How can we personally and collectively move toward this notion of cosmopolis? Grand as it sounds, it boils down to daily, weekly, and monthly habits that nurture conversion and cooperation. Here is a proposed “rule of life” for those who aspire to be part of the patient, truth-seeking center:
Personal: Make a habit of both study and reflection. For example, commit to daily study or reading that enriches your understanding beyond your comfort zone (this keeps you attentive and intelligent). Equally important, practice a daily examen or self-reflection each evening: where was I biased or self-serving today? Where did I follow the foundational habits of insight and responsibility (or fall short)?. Perhaps weekly, do a focused “bias review” – pick an issue you care about and deliberately seek out the best argument against your position, just to ensure you’re not in an echo chamber. And a quarterly retreat (even if just a day in quiet or a long hike) can recentre your soul, renewing that underlying peace and being-in-love that fuels hope. Over time, these practices build authenticity. You become the kind of person described earlier: one who loves discovering truth, who hungers for what is truly good, and who finds resilience in a source beyond ego.
Team: Encourage cosmopolis-style teamwork by implementing concrete protocols. For instance, adopt a “red-team/blue-team” dialectic in project meetings – assign someone to play devil’s advocate or represent an absent perspective, to ensure biases are flushed out (this is a modern echo of Lonergan’s dialectic stage). Keep decision logs: whenever a key decision is made, write down the reasoning and evidence behind it, and revisit it later to see if it held up. This makes the team responsible and reasonable by design. Use “complete-solution” checklists that prompt the group to ask: Are we addressing root causes, or just symptoms? What happens in 5 years if we implement this? Such checklists echo our call for refusing half-measures. Finally, adopt the habit of rigorous citation and grounding of claims (even internally) – e.g., requiring page-numbered references or data sources whenever someone makes a factual assertion. This instills the discipline of evidence before opinion, a hallmark of intellectual conversion. These might seem like minor bureaucratic tweaks, but they form an environment where bias is caught early and insights are given their due.
Community: Broaden the cosmopolis network by building communities of inquiry and practice across domains. One idea is a standing cross-domain seminar – a monthly gathering (virtual or physical) where people from different fields or walks of life discuss a common human concern (like “How do we foster trust in institutions?” or “What does progress mean in the age of AI?”). The aim is not to win a debate, but to achieve mutual understanding and insight by practicing intelligence together on complex issues. Encourage the creation of a shared glossary or common language for your community or organization, so that when technical or philosophical terms are used, everyone can learn and no one hides behind jargon (mediating between theory and common sense). Also, emphasize public communications that teach the method, not just the conclusions. For example, if your team publishes a policy proposal or an op-ed, include a sidebar “How we arrived at this” explaining the process of investigation and debate that led to the proposal. By doing so, you not only argue for a solution, but you also educate readers in the cosmopolitan method, hopefully elevating the public discourse long-term. Essentially, model the change: let people see how a not-numerous center thinks and works, so they can join in or emulate it. Over time, this builds cultural momentum. The more people see a sane, truth-oriented middle in action, the more they realize it’s possible to escape the polarized cycle of bias.
By following such a rule of life, we begin to “build the basis of collaboration” that we envisioned. It starts with individual commitment and radiates outwards. None of us can change the whole world overnight, but each can cultivate a bit of the cosmopolis spirit in our circle. Perhaps we form reading groups (as we did as students with Lonergan’s Insight years ago) to appropriate these ideas more deeply. Perhaps we mentor younger colleagues in not just skills but in authenticity. Ultimately, cosmopolis grows quietly, person to person, practice by practice – “one by one the transitions to be made”. In a time of drift and fragmentation, choosing this path may feel lonely. But remember Lonergan’s hopeful observation: what will count is not the noisy extremes, but the center that may not be numerous yet carries the future on its shoulders. Our task is to join that center, to make it a little less small, and to keep it oriented to complete solutions grounded in truth and love. By doing so, we become, in our own humble way, painstaking builders of progress amid decline – collaborators with all those, past and present, who refused to stop at halfway. The work is ongoing, and even though we often have to wait, it is fully worthwhile.