Wisdom is one of the most highly sought out attributes in the ancient world. King Solomon was so famous for his wisdom that the Queen of Sheba visited him to see if the reports were true. The Proverbs is an entire book of the Bible dedicated to wise sayings. Many people throughout history have gone to great lengths to seek wisdom. Where is the interest in wisdom today?
Why is it that we don’t really hear much about wisdom today? People are interested in tips for parenting, exercising, cooking, and investing, but that’s not even close to wisdom. Self-help books abound, but many of them are focused on what the reader wants, never asking the question if what people want is the right thing to pursue. Few authors are attempting to offer their readers true wisdom about how to live in the world.
Why has wisdom fallen out of favor? Don’t we all want to live well? Part of the problem is the decades old progressive campaign against absolute truth—truth that transcends time and place, thereby robbing us of the supposed freedom to determine what is true for ourselves. And since wisdom points to the truth and how to live in light of that truth, wisdom suffers when there is no truth.
Another prominent attack on wisdom comes from politics and the industry that supports it. There is a lot of wealth to be made, and power to be grasped for those who are able to manipulate the masses. What has shown to be the most powerful tool for getting the masses to do what you want is to generate fear—repeatedly. In order to do that, only the slightest connection with the truth is necessary. Beyond that, truth is a problem, because the facts are rarely as one-sided as any politician would like you to believe. So the political industry benefits by not only playing loose with the truth, but also doing an end-run around wisdom and going straight for an emotional response. Wisdom leads to prioritizing, looking at the long-term, and staying calm, but none of those things benefit our current batch of politicians. They need voters who won’t do any of those things. Political propaganda falls apart in the face of truth and wisdom. I fear we are heading into an era where truth isn’t merely manipulated with a nod and wink, but where truth doesn’t matter because how one feels about an issue is all that matters.
In short, there is a war on wisdom. Democracy should be a bastion of truth compared to autocratic regimes like Russia and China where the media is controlled by the State and there is virtually no opposition. Unfortunately, wisdom and truth are no longer widely valued in our society. It is a common saying that the news media holds politicians to account, but that only works in a society that cares about truth and wisdom. These are the only true metrics that show how well a leader is doing. Until American society as a whole learns to care about truth and wisdom, our leaders certainly will not.
