"Knowledge versus Wisdom"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Knowledge versus Wisdom”

January 1, 2022

 

“The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment.

………………………..

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

                                                                                                                                T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

                                                                                                                                Choruses from “The Rock,” 1934

 

Eliot’s concern, during the dark days of 1930s Depression, was the loss of religious faith. While faith is still missing from many of our lives in these temporal times, the more pressing concern is the lack of wisdom amidst so much knowledge. Our leaders, not only in politics but in business, the media, schools, colleges, Hollywood, Wall Street and professional sports, are steeped in the knowledge that specific jobs require, but there is a paucity of wisdom. This concern is not new. The Book of Proverbs, written around 700 BC, addresses the issue in chapter 4, verse 7: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.”

 

Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. Modern homo sapiens arrived about 160,000 years ago, and recorded history dates back 5000 years. Do we ever consider the shortness of our own lives within this continuum of life? The physical conveniences we take for granted – communication, transportation, flush toilets, medicine, heating and cooling, photography, recreational pursuits – date back only a little over 200 years. My three-greats grandparents lived lives more recognizable to those who lived a thousand years previously than to us today. We live in what is called “The Information Age,” an historical period that followed the industrial age, beginning in mid-20^th Century. It is characterized by an epochal shift from an economy based on mining and manufacturing to one based on information technology and genetic modification. Unsurprisingly, growth in technologies have exceeded our ability to adapt. We have gained knowledge, but do we understand and appreciate its consequences? 

 

As more time has been spent acquiring knowledge, we have become less wise. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) created the Knowledge Doubling Curve, which showed that until 1900 the amount of information extant doubled every century. By the end of World War II, information was doubling every twenty-five years. Today, data is estimated to be doubling every year, and IBM reckons the “internet of things” will lead to a doubling of knowledge every twelve hours.  Yet, the wisdom of the ancients is unchanged and is as relevant today as when the words were uttered: Tacitus, “The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise;” Confucius, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail;” Marcus Aurelius, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Sadly, the classics, which are filled with wisdom – from the Bible to the Greek poets, from Roman philosophers to Shakespeare, from Aesop to J.R.R. Tolkien – are no longer required reading in schools and universities. STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) courses have replaced them. The latter are, of course, crucial disciplines in today’s competitive, technological world, but when they are not accompanied by classics the ability to place all that knowledge in perspective is lost. 

 

Wisdom, it is said, is gained through experience. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote: “Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day.” As well, it can be learned by listening to wise people and through reading books that have stood the test of time. Before the advent of movies and television, authors, like Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, Thomas Mann, Leo Tolstoy and Miguel de Cervantes, wrote wisely of eternal truths, of people and their relationships, where the characters would not be lessened or enhanced by a vision on a screen. Wisdom can be found within their pages. 

 

Open debate, individualism and independence are necessary for wisdom. Censorship, conformity and dependence are detrimental. Is it wisdom that says we should abhor our past, bequeath to our heirs $30 trillion in national debt and allow urban murder rates to skyrocket? Which policy reflects wisdom in government: assimilation or identity politics? Is it wise for citizens of a nation, built on principles of individual liberty, rule of law, merit and hard work, to abandon those principles in favor of policies that mandate equal outcomes regardless of ability or effort? Institutions are not wise. It is the individuals who comprise them that make them so…or not so. According to England’s Royal Society, as of last August 210,183 reports related to COVID-19 had been published. But did individual government and educational recipients of that information make wise decisions regarding the pandemic? A government that tries to protect its citizen from all risk will lose the independence of its people – of their ability to think freely and to act wisely. Churches, when they are not being used to advance a favored political cause, like gender identification or man-caused climate change, are places where wisdom can be acquired. The Old Testament and the New Testament are filled with moral stories, each containing lessons – from the Garden of Eden to Exodus, from the Gospel of Matthew to Revelations. Borrowing from an 1896 campaign speech by William Jennings Bryan, do not sacrifice wisdom om a cross of knowledge.

 

As we begin this new year, we should take time to consider the need for wisdom in a politically correct, information-filled world; we should not lose our way in a sea of knowledge. A wise Henry Kaufman, when director of research at Salomon Brothers in the mid 1980s, once said he preferred to see his analysts leaning back, thinking, rather than staring at and absorbing data from a computer screen. Like Kaufman’s favored analysts, we should spend part of each day in contemplation. The Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who lived five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, once wrote: “Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in few.” It is a lesson by which I will try to abide in 2022.

 

I wish you a happy and healthy 2022!