The expression ‘wiliness of the wild’ (a direct opposite of Naiveté and thus Spontaneity) refers to the cunningness naturally inherent to human species (arising from the genetically-inherited instinctual passions) in particular, as well as the animal species 1 in general. The word ‘wily’ has the following as its synonyms:
- crafty, cunning, artful, sly, scheming, calculating, guileful, disingenuous, devious, Machiavellian; deceitful, deceptive, Janus-faced, dishonest, cheating, double-dealing
RICHARD: Wherever there be no underestimating the extent to which a lost, lonely, frightened and very, very cunning feeling-being will go in order to remain affectively-psychically in existence – millions upon millions of years of blind nature’s successful perpetuation of the species via its rough-and-ready instinctual survival passions blindly dictates no other course of action can ever instinctually come about – is where there be far less likelihood of ascribing to nescience that which quite properly has its roots in the visceral wiliness of the wild which has so successfully proliferated the species thus far.
It is no-one’s fault if they be more cunning – more instinctively wily – than the norm as it is genetic inheritance which determines the degree to which instinctual drives, urges, impulses, appetites, and all the rest, are operating. –Richard’s Selected Correspondence On Naiveté
Wiliness as explicitly taught
In modern cultures, the following authors have led their audience into consciously enhancing their genetically inherited wiliness-of-the-wild so as to either take advantage of the gullible others and/or improve their lot in life:
Note: Although Mr. Greene here is more likely to receive moral opprobrium than Mr. Carnegie (and the latter does give sensible and practical advice to people for improving their social lives; see example), both of their teachings are to be viewed in a morally neutral way (see the ‘no-one’s fault’ above) so as to allow the discovery of the human wiliness – and its discernment in relation to the superior alternative Naiveté – inherent to those teachings.