Looking up the definition for Wisdom I found the following; The ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Reading that, I find it hard to see the definition being applied to very many people in positions of authority, be it the police, a manager, or an elected official. Our technology has reached a stage that it can continue to be used for great suffering like the Atomic Bomb or drone strikes against each other or for great advancement of our species. I find no wisdom in creating offensive weapons to use against each other, who wins? I suppose the bankers do, and the 1 percent whom profit off war. A persons son, etc, had to die in order for a company to see great profit margins this year, a small price to those whom sit so far from the battlefield and death. So the definition called for a total of 5 items to be applied to a problem for it to equal a wise decision, so I will take them one by one.
Knowledge isn’t something we are in short supply of, we have so much knowledge in fact that it’s almost like small cult followings of certain types of knowledge. Even in large knowledge circles like math and science, we still create a bunch of branches of those that contradict each other. People can get quite upset if one can not see their math or science is superior. I find it all a bit naive, but since we have a culture of competition, it spills over even into the most educated of us. My point stands that a redesign of the Education system is sorely needed (see my post The Next Education System). Remove the ego, be sure we pass on what we know works fully, and always have the rest at our fingertips to study should we choose. The same basic knowledge needs to be equally spread out across our species, otherwise we will never be able to help each other efficiently solve problems, and will continue to rely on those handful of educated people to solve our problems for us. Most of our politicians have law degrees or were CEOs of a company, how can they solve real problems of the people without proper engineering and social design skills? Seems that should be a requirement to serve in positions of authority across the board.
Experience is a great example of something that simply takes time to acquire, and are we giving our species the opportunity to gain the proper experience in which to make good decisions? If we vote a politician into office, do they have enough experience in all aspects of that position to choose the right road to take? Perhaps our system as it currently stands simply can not accommodate the needs of the people anymore, perhaps it’s too much to ask a few people to care for an entire city as each could not possibly have enough experience in all city workings to make a good decision, they would rely on the one person, say of a council, whom had managed in waterworks to deal with that problem, but who is to say that one solo persons conclusion wasn’t lacking in engineering experience? Perhaps the council person was just managing peoples time. Would we say a person whom managed a restaurant chain could go from that to managing a city? It simply doesn’t translate, but we do it anyway all the time when we place people in positions of authority, and those people are making decisions based off the same things they use to, money.
Understanding is a tough one. Do people really understand each other? How can each of us know what a persons life has been like for them? They could describe a tough life, one that may come close to our own, but we bounced back, they didn’t. Might we perceive they just didn’t try hard enough? Might a person in a position of authority think the same way? They didn’t work as hard as I did, look what I have achieved! They could have all this too. It seems while people believe they do understand each other, they don’t because they stereotype people or just don’t try to understand because that person is so different from them. Understanding truly takes some thought and it can take a lot of it, especially when we are speaking of the human species. Ask honestly if we can sit down and look at anyone, be it a grossly wealthy one percenter, or a homeless solicitor, and feel as if we can understand their greed or their poverty? Or would we place a stereotype on that person and call it done? We all have to learn to “bridge the difference” if we truly want to understand each other. We have to listen and not slap dismissals on any ideas different from the status quo.
Common Sense, now here is a fun one. I don’t believe I’ve personally ever spoke to anyone that has claimed not to possess common sense, but I have witnessed that everyone lacks it, myself included. It almost presents itself as a cultural feeling, than a skill acquired. To me it’s common sense to house, cloth, feed, and provide healthcare for each other, all to work towards the daily goal of bettering all of our lives equally, to live in harmony with our surroundings by building energy efficient homes and infastreucture, and to design our cities to meet the needs of the species equally. But what do I know. The reality is the cultural feeling of common sense pushes competition with our neighbors, family, and close friends. We do have our moments of working together to help each other, but it’s quickly lost when daily survival kicks back in after the shock of a traumatic event like an earthquake. To a politician it’s common sense to choose an option that nets them money in their pockets, makes their campaign backers happy, and leans towards helping those with influence towards the next vote.
Insight seems to hint that one would have the most relevant information about a particular problem. If the information you had on say on how much nutrients was in a fields soil 6 months ago, and needed to know what it was today, that’s not proper information to present. However, if we had just tested the soil before coming to the table to make a decision, that would be excellent insight on the current soil conditions. Now lets say the decision was on how the nutrients had changed over the last year, and you only have the current soil test we just took, that would be awful insight. So if you ask a politician how many people have died from a current virus, and they quote you stats from 6 months ago, it’s poor insight. If someone asked you about what a person was like, but you had not seen them for 5 years and proceeded to tell them based off that old information, that would be poor insight. When it comes to our larger issues like world hunger, these would require really deep and instant access to information for us to bring great insight to the table, and for that to happen we would need to use our technology.
A few years ago, I thought a lot about the word Wisdom. What did it really mean? Who decides that it was a “wise” decision? Just because a decision doesn’t work out does it mean it wasn’t “wise” if we met all the criteria for wisdom listed above? Perhaps the decision was made using all the knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight we had at that time? I think the choices we have made thus far reflect exactly that, our “level” if you will of wisdom we currently posses, not because we can’t do better, but more so we have such a disjointed cultural system that lends to a cluttered education, lack of experience, stereotyped understanding, skewed common sense, and obtuse insight. How then do we align ourselves so we can catch the full force of wisdom in our sails? Allow me to present W.I.S.D.O.M.
