Untangling Wealth, Wisdom and Intelligence
Are we getting these words mixed up? and is this steering us off a cliff?
In our contemporary times, the words Intelligence and Wisdom seem almost interchangeable and synonymous. Look up these words in a dictionary and you will find them tangled together in the definitions, but as with so many things in life, dig under the surface a little and suddenly you find it's not so straightforward. My curiosity is piqued by the fact that wise acts can be performed by apparently unintelligent people, while seemingly intelligent people can perform quite unwise, or stupid acts (When you read the word stupid in my piece, read it as unwise)
Something doesn't seem to fit here, and furthermore, how is it that we have generally conflated the Wealth of a person with their Intelligence and Wisdom?
These questions lie at the heart of this episode of Beer mug wisdom. Let's dive in and see what we can learn by untangling these terms.
I started by consulting a dictionary and found the definitions for wisdom and intelligence are somewhat vague and have a lot of fuzzy edges and overlaps, while wealth seems to be a bit more concrete and doesn’t refer to either Intelligence or Wisdom.
Let's start at the end first.
I found for the purposes of this piece, the state of being Wealthy is not so interesting. Rather the path to Wealth is. So let's ask the question: How do people become Wealthy?
I distilled it to 4 basic ways:
They can be entrepreneurs that find success in some commercial or economic endeavour, or they participate in the success of some commercial or economic endeavour, i.e. climb the corporate ladder successfully,
They can be successful at crime. (and by success, I mean being able to enjoy the fruits of their crime),
They can inherit or be gifted wealth in some way,
And lastly they can win it. (winning a lottery for example)
Then I posed the question: How do these paths intersect with Intelligence and wisdom? and I came up with the following surprising conclusions:
The first two are very much the same. And likewise the last two are also almost identical. In the first two, I identified 4 common threads:
An extensive knowledge (and/or Intelligence) in some specific field(s)
A good general knowledge of how the law and how finance really operate (Intelligence)
Either possessing or able to collect a fortuitous set of social connections, and willingness or ability to use/exploit them. (possess a persuasive personality and is good at the relevant social etiquette. One may make an argument that Intelligence may be required, but not so with Wisdom)
And finally a fat bundle of: determination, luck and an appetite and capacity for risk taking (no intelligence or wisdom required)
Since there were such strong overlaps, a follow up question arose: how do these first two paths to Wealth really differ?
After thinking on this for sometime it seems to boil down to something quite simple: the law. They operate on either side of the law.
I personally wonder how many of these people find themselves on both sides of the law, or even, dare I say, nudging it to their purposes. I feel this is important when it comes to Wisdom.
Why did I start with Wealth? because it's the easiest and most tangible of the three. Even so, the thought exercise yielded some interesting conclusions. So let's move on to Intelligence.
As I dive into this, I am immediately confronted with another word that seems deeply tangled with Intelligence: Knowledge. After doing some research and thinking on this, I would now say that Intelligence is a quality a person possesses and knowledge is the collection of information that a person accumulates. Furthermore, Intelligence refers to a person's capacity for accumulating knowledge. So a child can be said to be intelligent while still not yet in possession of much knowledge. Likewise a person in possession of knowledge may have achieved this through brute force and memory, while not in possession of high Intelligence.
I thought of a metaphor to describe the relationship between these two words. Imagine a sack that you always carry with you. The things you place in that sack are units of knowledge, while the sack itself is Intelligence. An intelligent person has a sack that is very stretchy and has a broad and flexible opening. The opposite is a small inflexible sack with a small opening.
Our sack contains the data we use to navigate our world. Once we have possession of a unit of knowledge, it can, and will be applied to all future relevant issues we need to navigate in our lives. This is instinctive to the point of being involuntary. An intelligent and knowledgeable person will (should) find it hard to ignore all their knowledge and act contrary to things they know.
We go to school, college and university to gather knowledge. We pay dearly to fill that bag. We pay with money, and with time. For the intelligent, the bag fills faster with less effort, but even without intelligence, one can become knowledgeable. This is why it is very hard to objectively measure one's Intelligence, while at the same time easy to objectively measure one's knowledge through exams and tests. Furthermore, I feel we all have an instinct to sense a person's Intelligence once we get to know them. We base it on how they “pick things up”, rather than on what they know.
I'd end this by proposing an axiom: Anyone can become knowledgeable, but Intelligence is a gift you either have or not.
Is it genetic?
And finally let's contemplate Wisdom. The slippery elephant in the room.
It is often automatically assumed that Wisdom and Intelligence are somehow connected. It just appears logical that in order to be wise, one must also be intelligent, and that intelligent people are automatically wise. There appears to be some convenient oversimplifications going on here, so let's tease these apart.
Dictionaries definitions are frustratingly vague on Wisdom. I thought about listing some of them here but they are such a dog's dinner of confusing ideas. Also since I could not list them all here, I would have to choose what to add and what to discard, and this cannot help but introduce my own bias. So I invite you to look it up for yourselves if you so wish to accompany this article. So let's dive in.
Axioms and concepts of Wisdom can be taught in a theoretical manner. We may call this the study of philosophy, but does studying philosophy bestow one with Wisdom? It may.
Imagine a person who has collected vast knowledge on anatomy and physiology. Does this knowledge make them a good surgeon? Likewise someone deeply knowledgeable on music theory. Does this make them a good pianist or guitarist, or song writer? I think the study of philosophy can be similarly described, but there is a crucial difference which seems unique to Wisdom. Let me explain.
So if anatomy and physiology are the fields of knowledge required to be a surgeon, one still requires enormous amounts of practice applying this knowledge to make a great surgeon. Do you think anyone can become a good surgeon without knowledge of some anatomy or physiology? Probably not.
Likewise it is possible to be deeply booksmart in music while being a terrible guitarist, but conversely one can become a great guitarist with no knowledge of music theory. We hear about these people from time to time and there is something common amongst them all: dogged determination and an enormous amount of practice and perseverance.
Likewise, the study of philosophy does not make someone wise on its own. But does ‘practise at being wise’ make one wise? Let's dig further and find out.
A surgeon trains first on rubber models and human cadavers, and later with close supervision under experienced surgeons, with simple procedures on live patients. Likewise a musician practises their instruments for many loney hours before performing in front of others, but what about Wisdom?
Unlike these examples, there is no training. Every act of Wisdom must be for real. There are no training courses, no simulations. One either acts wisely or acts stupidly. Of course a study of philosophy can offer a rich source of examples of applied Wisdom which one could tap into to help them act wisely, but there is no safety net below the tightrope of life, for if the net is there, Wisdom is not required. Practice by doing. One simply is wise by acting with Wisdom.
When a person practises the guitar, they have a very short and repetitive training cycle. The guitarist hears immediately if they are playing well or not, they can repeat the same piece over and over again till it sounds right. This tight cycle rewards the guitarist with a hit of dopamine as a reward for a successful rendition of a difficult piece of music. Wisdom is not like that at all. Each example of Wisdom applied will be unique, and the verification of success is often vague and long delayed.
This sounds tough, and it is. Being wise is almost always the hard path to take, but there is a silver lining. Virtually all of us possess a universally deep truth. A profound instinct for right and wrong. If we allow ourselves to see it, we know true Wisdom when we experience or witness it. It transcends all cultures, nationalities and languages. It is an axiom of life. This means that even without any deep knowledge of philosophy, virtually all of us are capable of Wisdom out of the box! I mean this literally! Any parent who has observed children playing together sees the purity of their souls on display in their play. Their blind compassion and generosity to each other is a humbling and beautiful thing to behold.
So a prerequisite of knowledge or Intelligence is not necessary for us to act wisely, so Wisdom may be better described as a kind of reflex. So I am going to contradict myself a little and say that like in sport we can sharpen reflexes, but unlike sports, Wisdom can only be trained in the arena of life. Each exercise performed with no nets or pads. Failure must be painful because everything else is faking it.
Real hardship is an amazingly fertile ground for Wisdom. Hitler’s concentration camps; Stalin’s gulags; Plane crash survivors suddenly finding themselves in remote and dangerous conditions. All these are a hotbed of Wisdom. With life itself hanging by a thread, the extreme brutality of either accidental or arbitrary physical and psychological peril, ironically creates the ideal conditions for Wisdom to flourish.
So what I have found on this little journey of discovery is that Wisdom is in all of us. The reflex to be right and just and fair with all the people and things around us, is in us all. But being wise is tough and almost always comes with a sacrifice. Intelligence and knowledge can sharpen one's Wisdom simply by providing a more accurate, detailed and broad model of the world around us. Like a whetstone to sharpen our sword of Wisdom. But this sword has two edges.
Finally we circle back to the start and ask the question: Where does Wealth fit in? Short answer: it doesn't. In fact I now think Wealth may be a padded bubble which protects the wealthy from the risks of true Wisdom. The Wealthy are like deaf guitarists. Their wealth only magnifies the folly of fake Wisdom.
Some parting thoughts:
The analysis of these three simple words and how tangled they have become has piqued my interest in words and how they are used to mould and bend our ideas of the world around us. A term appeared several times in my research: “prevailing Wisdom”. I dug into its meaning and found it to be pure doublespeak. Anyone familiar with George Orwell’s novel: 1984 will know what I mean.
My last thought is on the Philosopher King, an idea explored in Plato’s Republic. The contemplation and thought process I went through to write this piece took me on an unexpected journey which has left me with dismay at the state of world's democracies and the creeping fascism that is engulfing the nations that were considered the most free. If ever we needed Philosopher Kings it's now. The billionaires pontificating about the climate are dangerous Philosopher King impostors.
I could have gone on and on about wisdom, but I feared that you may think I was pontificating or constructing an illusion of my own wisdom, or intelligent or wealthy for that matter. Claiming to be wise is stupid by definition.
I am deeply thankful for the events that have led me to this place in time and space which has allowed me to dive deeply into this topic. It was deeply rewarding and well worth the effort to write this piece down. Even if nobody reads it, I will always be richer for what I learnt.