Are We Getting Smarter?
When I was a kid, I scored fairly well on IQ and aptitude tests. I have an extensive education. I’ve got 51 years under my belt (I've got a lot of belt), twenty years of marriage, four kids, and I’m an avid student of philosophy.
And I’m an idiot.
I’m not talking false modesty here. Most of you know exactly what I mean. For all my intelligence, experience, and education, I’m clueless about an awful lot. I know nothing about military history, or most of economics … heck, there are libraries of philosophy (my supposed specialty) that I’ve never studied or even read. I’ve utterly missed tons of literature, plays, poetry, essays, novels, and so on. And that’s just the written works in English. I know almost nothing about literature of other languages. I couldn’t name a single Chinese author, except for Confucius and I never actually read anything by him. I studied Spanish and German, and yes, when they sent me to Central America and Germany, I could actually speak it – after being there for a couple months. (I forgot it all within a week of coming back to the US.)
I’m not sure, but I think I took calculus in college. I don’t know a volt from a watt, a boson from a bison, and the inside of the human body is too disgusting to identify, never mind what to do with any of it. Engineering? Kidding me, right? Physics, schmysics.
Socrates taught that wisdom is knowing that you don’t know. I suppose that being more and more conscious of my ignorance fits that criterion. When I watched Thomas Sowell on the recent Uncommon Knowledge talking about the arrogance of experts, I was delighted. He made perfect sense to me.
You see, if I’m still an idiot with all my advantages in education and experience, then how can all these pundits, social observers, media analysts, editorialists, and the army of self-appointed experts be any less idiot than me? They’re just as dumb as I am, if not worse.
A classic example, that just happened recently … Linda Greenhouse and Jeffrey Toobin (both of whom have law degrees, I believe) have covered the Supreme Court for years, and yet they were flabbergasted that the justices might object to the argument that Congress has no regulatory constraints. Their surprise was genuine. In other words … for all their education and experience (and they are smart people, give them credit) they didn’t know what they thought they knew.
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You knew that, of course. No individual can know everything. And it’s no surprise that in the modern world, with its torrent of information overload, no one expects any individual to have a grasp of more than a fraction of it all.
But for the moment, I’d like you to take a moment to reflect on something that struck me today. Consider this:
- Today, Barack Obama claimed that his opinion on same-sex marriage had “evolved.” Sure, he was trying to frame it politically, but even so, he framed it as an "evolution." As if he's smarter and wiser now about the issue ...
- Shep Smith of FoxNews said that he was glad the president had come into the twenty-first century.
- More than a few pundits have claimed that it’s about time we finally “achieved” a little maturity on this issue.
But if Socrates is right, and true wisdom is accepting one's own ignorance ... what does that say about "progress?" As individuals, of course, we recognize our personal idiocy. But the arrogance of progress is that no matter how stupid individuals are, progressives have confidence that society (as a whole) is on a one-way trajectory toward comprehensive wisdom. Progressives trust that society is growing collectively smarter and wiser.
Those who claim that same-sex marriage is an “evolution” make the implicit argument that society is growing wiser because it’s more “experienced.” But what counts as experience? Does the mere passing of time make experience?
There are other issues where time has passed and values have “evolved” away from centuries-old traditions. Sexual ethics are a case in point. Time has passed. The majority now commonly accepts divorce, and as the newer generations come along, they’re more tolerant of hooking up, friends with benefits, and treating sex as fun. Tradition treats it as sacred, but sanctity is apparently for the birds.
Does anyone want to argue that we’ve become “wiser” sexually?
Progressives take it for granted that even though individuals are ignorant, society is on pace to achieve more and more wisdom. But society isn’t some magical beast apart from individuals. Society is just the sum of individuals. And if individuals are idiots (and as we grow older we’re more conscious of our idiocy), then from where comes the confidence in the wisdom of progress?
A question, therefore: what guarantees (or even serves as evidence) that the 21st century is wiser that the 20th? Who says we’re getting wiser? And why?
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Comments:
Jul '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
We are by no means wiser but our knowledge base has improved. I would suggest we have stepped backward in many key area while advancing in others. It is what it is KC and we cannot choose our time nor return to a gentler one.
Apr '12
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Our knowledge base has improved? It has expanded, and we have much more to unlearn.
As for KC's point or question, the answer is simple. Human nature doesn't change. Until it does, we will have moments of light and darkness. Knowledge will come and go and be rediscovered generation by generation. That which we know of economics was known to the Roman Republic or Byzantium. They might not have called it by fancy names like Gresham's Law, but they knew it. And they didn't. Politicians of the time did the same things. There were demogogues who captured the spirit of the moment only to fall by the way when reality didn't cooperate with their theories and slogans. And those who helped such men to power, those who survived, learned a little and may not have trusted such again.
As Dr. Sowell demonstrates and spoke of, many great thinkers that we would call libertarian, classical liberal, or conservative start out all for the theories and slogans of the statists. They believe that their superior minds can solve the problems. But the really smart ones figure out the only solution is to get out of the way.
Nov '10
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
In truth, the gentler times may not have been so gentle.
Wisdom is seeing things the way they are and knowing why and how they got that way. In regard to the topic at hand, nothing evolved. Truth was simply revealed. There should have been no surprise.
May '12
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
First, congratulations on a tremendous post that deserves so much more than the flippant reply I'm about to give it.
Short answer: No.
We're getting neither smarter nor wiser since it requires great effort rise above our natural states of ignorance and foolishness. And who today wants to put any effort into that?
I speak from authority,as member of the Dazed and Confused (or as we call it here "Without Form and Void") generation, who could more easily list Gilligan's Island episodes than say, number (let alone name!) the constitutional amendments (27 according to Wikipedia).
Thankfully there are legions of experts on the internet--let's call them "society"-- who will kindly school us, at length, should we expose our ignorance on any topic; supposing we posses the wisdom to separate the wheat from the chaff. Which I see is precisely the chicken/egg conundrum to which you allude.
I posit that to gain wisdom requires an openness of mind, either through repeated blunt force trauma (i.e. the hard way), or through intelligent imagination. Clearly, the second way, the easy way, is much more rare than the first, as any parent can attest.
Mar '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
There was once an English schoolboy named Isaac. One day when the teacher needed a little quality time without the incessant questions from the class, he assigned them to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100.
"5050" said Izzy, before the teacher could get his nose back in his book.
"How do you know that?" asked the teacher.
"If I add 1 to 100, I get 101. If I add 2 to 99, I get 101. I can do that 48 more times. Fifty 101s is 5050."
The teacher saw to it that Izzy got more schooling. That paid off. The Laws of Motion, the Law of Gravitation, the calculus. (Leibnitz came up with the calculus too, but I don't have any 'little Gerhardt' stories.)
Later, when he was older, Newton wrote in a letter "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
A lot of people have no understanding of history. They marvel at the Pyramids, and postulate "ancient astronauts" created them. Nope -- just some folks every bit as smart as we are thought very hard about how to do it.
Mar '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
And, because I'm in the mood to quote Newton (and because it is on-point):
Even Newton marveled at all there was that he didn't know.
Apr '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Are we smarter? Of course we are. Our mastery of the practical arts has provided the modern world with a demonstrably better way of life in ways that can easily be measured. The Greeks had a word for this kind of knowledge: Techne'.
But there is another scale of knowing upon which we do not rate so high: Wisdom. What the Greeks called Sophia.
Since Francis Bacon we have convinced ourselves that the so-called "Wisdom of the Ancients" was as the learning of children. Have we not harnessed the atom? Can we not fly faster than sound? Who before us has left footprints on the moon? The sum-total of all human knowledge sits on our desktop, each home having easy access to its own Library richer than that of the fabled one at Alexandria. And yet, faced with questions of Right and Wrong the best we can offer by way of answers are gut-level intuitions about "Caring" or "Fairness."
We are shepherds on a hillside surrounded by the remains of great civilizations and not even curious about who they were, much less realizing they were our ancestors.
Jul '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Knoweledge can only be accumulated but never mastered in the end we are just as confused but at a higher level knowledge.
Dec '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Knowledge is like food, too much does not make you wiser just as too much food does not make you healthier. To eat wisely people filter their choices likewise to learn wisely you also filter choices. Unfortunately people are throwing away their filters and becoming fathead.I also feel I am idiot but a lucky one because everyone around me teaches me something..
Dec '10
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Give me your thoughts on Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere.
Mar '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
As I've aged, I've found that wisdom is often gained by keeping one's eyes open and one's mouth closed.
Dec '10
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Define wisdom. A friend of mine once defined it as the ability to live life skillfully. Expanded, the definition would mean the ability to use what one has access to (physically, mentally, spiritually, materially) to achieve one's desired end. To complicate matters, the end has to be good in itself. If one's end was to bugger boys, then accomplishing it would be evil, not wise. If we measure progressivism this way, especially if we look at the actual outcomes of progressive policies, then there is no way to declare humanity wiser for having followed it. The end is not good, therefore applying all of one's (or society's) abilities toward it is not wise and often evil.
Jan '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
A huge topic that may take a conversation to develop the idea. And of course, just because he was a Jesuit doesn't mean that I agree with him. In fact, I don't.
The noosphere suggests that wisdom and consciousness is a product of nature. Human beings will become gradually more conscious (and somehow wiser) simply because of the complexity of nature. To Teilhard, consciousness is as inevitable as gravity. Teilhard designated evolution as the mechanism that moves everything toward consciousness.
I have problems with that. Evolution depends on random, natural selection. A giraffe's taller neck is a random mutation that improved its survival chances, and over time, that advantage perpetuated itself through reproduction.
But the fact that a taller neck was an advantage in the first place was purely accidental. The qualities that improve survival in any particular environment are accidental.
For Teilhard's theories to hold water, the environment must be "hard-wired" to give preference to consciousness-friendly mutations.
But if you're going to jigger the results to God's design anyway, why bother with complexity?
Jan '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
My immediate concern was to rebut the assumption that progress, by itself, confers wisdom ... I deny that.
However, you raise an interesting point, so let's explore it.If progress doesn't confer wisdom, what does? And how will we know wisdom once we see it?
On an individual level, wisdom is more than just knowing what options could work ... it's knowing what option will work best in any particular situation. Golf is a nice way to explain it. To make a good shot, you have to weigh a lot of variables: the lie of the ball, the wind, the slope of the landing area, and so on. Is the ground wet? Does your back hurt? Such variables aren't fixed in stone; they change at every shot. How do you know which variables matter more, at any given time?
Usually, that enhanced ability to weigh possibilities comes from experience.
And that's where I make my distinction. Individuals acquire experience and can profit from it. But society doesn't automatically profit from those experiences. The mere passing of time guarantees nothing.
Jan '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
True, but having more books available in our collective library doesn't necessarily mean that any one of us has read them.
Society is nothing more than the sum of individuals. If some individuals gain wisdom and then share it, great. But that's something they achieve as individuals. Society as a whole doesn't automatically gain wisdom just because time passes or the knowledge base widens.
Jun '10
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
We're getting smarter in the way that Adam and Eve got "smarter."
Nov '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
No society that worships youth as ours has for the last 40-odd years has any claim to wisdom.
May '10
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Then there's the field of practical stuff like building a fire and purifying water, practical skills and knowledge possibly more useful than anything de Chardin has to say as we march boldly Forward into the 21st century.
Dec '10
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
KC Mulville
And that's where I make my distinction. Individuals acquire experience and can profit from it. But society doesn't automatically profit from those experiences. The mere passing of time guarantees nothing. · 28 minutes ago
Another definition is required, this time for profit. It comes back to the good, again, and in defining what is the good is where society has gone off the rails. Yes, we have more experience, but we're applying it collectively toward only God knows what.
Nov '11
Re: Are We Getting Smarter?
Taking KC's (properly) humble sense of the possibility of progress, one might make an argument for reading less widely, but more deeply in the canon that Western civilization has winnowed for us and which still lives, despite the attacks on it. I would suggest, too, that the practical knowledge that we all need--medicine, husbandry, technology and its management, etc.--are better learned in the light of that older, deeper wisdom. Think only of the advantage Abraham Lincoln had in not having had to study a modern curriculum. The Bible, Shakespeare, and Blackstone, and of course the Constitution and the writings of the founders, were his written guides, as I recall.