On Wisdom
Posted in For Meditation, Quickies on | 1 minute | 9 Comments →
Why might wisdom be defined as more valuable than wealth? Money comes and goes, and with it troubles. Wisdom provides consistency amidst variety; it anchors or adheres to principle. The wise life is the better life regardless of secondary circumstances such as wealth, status or current level of comfort. The wise life cultivates not blind or superficial happiness amidst misfortune, but serene and transcendent understanding whenever possible. For when one is living wisely, it matters little whether one is rich or poor; weekend warrior or professional athlete; far along in their career or nubile; single or happily married. Any combination of those in the absence of wise living can cease to be blissful and quickly turn sour.
JimCH
says...Hi Chris-
“Why might wisdom be defined as more valuable than wealth? Money comes and goes, and with it troubles.”
I agree, but sometimes I see power-interests relying on just this attitude from the mass-citizenry in order to cow them into economic marginalism. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I see the dissolution of corporations as the sine qua non of true democracy. Again, I’m not in disagreement with your statement; just using it as a conversation starter on your turf.
By the way, your site host doesn’t seem to recognize html commands (or am I missing something?)
cl
says...@ JimHC,
naw, it doesn’t take HTML I don’t think, and that’s lame. Maybe it’s a setting in the blog I’ll look…At any rate, great comment and I agree about the corporations bit. And surely any idea or statement can be twisted to oppress and control. One could even argue that a large part of the Bible’s admonitions against money were inserted to keep people’s minds off *the nobility’s* money, thus encouraging serfdom and solidifying the power structure. I don’t necessarily share that view, but it’s a valid interpretation. I’m just looking at wisdom and its accompanying contentment from the perspective of someone who’s been both really broke and also made alot of money. It’s a whole ‘nother play on those cheesy “attitude is everything” bits you here now and again…those Stuart Smiley-isms.
JimCH
says...“…I agree about the corporations bit.”
Wow, really? Because usually when I state something like this I get barely more than silence, as if I’ve stated something so far off the spectrum that I can barely even be heard. Trying not to lose the theme of your thread, “On Wisdom”, I’d like to find out how much we might agree in this regard.
Recall Bush’s addresses for the 1st 4 years of his presidency. He offered the following, or something much like it, in most of his speeches at the time; “We’re creating an ownership society in this country, where more American’s than ever will be able to open up their door where they live & say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property” [I’m looking at an actual transcript of a particular speech, but there are many more almost identical from the period]. I think the implication is fairly straight forward, when viewed in the right context. That is, if working-class people owned a small piece of the market — a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private pension, etc. — they would cease to identify as workers & start to see themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses. This means that they will vote for politicians promising to improve stock performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness then, it is hoped by the neo-cons, would become a relic. Class consciousness, as I see it, has been the thorn-in-the-side for the segment trying to push such an agenda. The problem for them I think boils down to this: people tend to vote their economic interests, & even in the wealthy US most people earn less than the ave. income. This means it is in the interest of the majority to vote for politicians promising to redistribute wealth from the top down. What were the neo-cons to do then? I think that Reagan got the ball rolling in the ’80’s but the real break-through came in the ’90’s, with the “democratization” of stock ownership, eventually leading to a huge number of American households owning stock. I mean those little stock-tickers on TV screens became more common than weather forecasts, for crying-out-loud. This is where the sub-prime lending came in (for those that couldn’t make it they’re out on the street, but for those that could they become “owners”). Again, it’s all psychological.
I just realized that I didn’t state anything really about corporations, as such. I realize that your topic is focused on personal wisdom; however, I hope that something concerning collective wisdom was maintained for the thread’s sake.
Did we part company anywhere?
JimCH
says...Oh well, I tried.
cl
says...Hey Jim whats up..no you didn’t lose me. In fact I just saw your last two comments. I’ve been fighting a different sort of battle lately so I haven’t been keeping up much with blogging. Speaking of blogging, I got inspired to create a blog addressing the same type of arguments that go on at evolutionblog. If you wanna check it out, http://www.towardsclarity.org.
About the comments, well…it sure doesn’t feel like an ownership society to me. Call me a pessimist which I’m not, but I really don’t think corporation-ism can be defeated. I was just talking to my buddy about the housing mess and the debt mess. I made an off-the-cuff comment about how back in the old days the Hebrews had the Year of Jubilee when all debts were cancelled. Every seven years. Think of how such a law might impact America. I’ll tell you what, if such a law existed, and I was a lender, I would immediately stop sending people credit card offers, and I would surely think twice before extending thousands in credit to people already in debt, or to some squaking high school cheerleader that wants to emulate Hollywood high society.
Thanks for sticking around, I’m glad to have your comments even when/if we disagree, and sorry I messed your name up again on my first response. This accident is killing me!
Greg Lang
says...This thread of discussion instantly made me think of how easily people are confused by what purpose a thing or an idea serves. The statements that you made Chris, that sparked my thoughts, are as follows, “The wise life is the better life regardless of secondary circumstances such as wealth, status or current level of comfort.” Yes, you are entirely right from my point of view. However, I would argue that the wise life is precisely what will lead someone to secondary circumstances without troubling the person to find or acquire them. Wisdom is real wealth providing secondary wealth to hose who possess it. Also, “The wise life cultivates not blind or superficial happiness amidst misfortune, but serene and transcendent understanding whenever possible.” Wisdom seems to break apart confusion in the way that it destroys designations. Wisdom seems to allow one to see through the illusion of something like what wealth really is, to get to the heart of the matter of something. It is elementary to see that a million dollars is worth nothing to the person on a deserted island. Alan Watts one wrote, “A person on a deserted island needs a fishing line, a boat, and some female company.” “In this way we can easily see how wealth changes depending on circumstance. Money is just a tool or way to make bartering less complicated. It only works if a social system accepts it as that tool.
Brad
says...“Why might wisdom be defined as more valuable than wealth?”
I think it’s probably due to multiple factors. One, wisdom derives from experience, which may be a slightly more socially ennobled virtue than wealth. Perhaps wealth is one-dimensional whereas wisdom is all-encompassing, and so receives a greater appraisal for its greater scope. Maybe because value is in the mind, wisdom is in the mind, and wealth is something external to be wielded on the outside, wisdom can confer greater or more directly realizable benefits to a person’s mind and spirit. (I use ‘spirit’ in a more secular sense, mind you, as an umbrella term containing such features of the mind as mood, emotion, attitude, disposition, passion, focus, et cetera, although one could argue these are inherently nonsecular I suppose.)
cl
says...I like that, and such is interesting. Wisdom can apply to more than one realm. Why might that exist which can apply to more than one realm, unless perhaps more than one realm also exists?
Just thinking directly with zero editing there. :)
Brad
says...If by “wisdom can apply to more than one realm,” you mean it is productive in a greater variety of situations and thought processes, then I follow. Otherwise sounds like your lack of editing reveals some internal projection onto your thinking. (: