> Pushing for negative or positive connotations feel both odd to me if the point is to evaluate a set of practices to apply to specific issues they could efficiently solve.
The point is, it's not just a set of practices" applied to "specific issues". It's a complex system of beliefs that ultimately result in living differently and being less susceptible to today's problems. "Wisdom" sounds like a fitting name for such system of beliefs.
Going for the whole system of beliefs makes it a different proposition, where as you say we wouldn’t be trying to solve specific issues within our culture, but replace wholesale one’s individual culture with another.
I think it extremely rarely happens (or it does in dramatic ways that few people survive), and instead we try to look at positive parts and cherry-pick them to merge into our own culture. The yogi example is not (I think) about moving to India and restarting one’s life as a yogi, but to cherry-pick some specific parts (fitness exercices and/or meditation techniques probably) and wedge them where it could fit in our modern life.
There is an impedance mismatch between the Indian yogic tradition and the West's ability to assimilate it. Theirs is a world onto itself and for us to get something out of it takes willpower. How this might ultimately manifest itself in the West could be demonstrated by e.g. the proposition of neuroenchantment.
The point is, it's not just a set of practices" applied to "specific issues". It's a complex system of beliefs that ultimately result in living differently and being less susceptible to today's problems. "Wisdom" sounds like a fitting name for such system of beliefs.