The wild card event: Discursive,epistemic and practical aspects of uncertainty being ‘tamed’

Abstract

The text explores the functionality of the notion of a wild card event as a means to articulate uncertainty and incorporate it in the performance of various realms of human activity. It starts by examining some common narrative modalities through which uncertainty is being approached. The second section illustrates how the notion of a wild card event fits those modalities and how scanning for wild cards serves as an anticipatory strategy to compensate for certain lack of experience, ignorance and insufficient knowledge and as a very specific technique for temporal adjustment. The third section demonstrates its applicability, influential presence and productivity (including profitability) in three realms – futures studies, the market and politics.