A Japanese aphorism has a way with words relative to knowledge without wisdom.
“Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass.”
I can envisage, as I did earlier when I read this, a number of reactions.
A knowing smile has emerged on your face.
A thought in your brain “I can think of a few persons to whom that applies”
How can someone with a high IQ have these kinds of intellectual deficiencies?
Put another way, how can a “smart” person act foolishly?
The Enron case was perpetrated by two individuals who had MBA’s from the top two MBA programs in our country.
Keith Stanovich, professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada, has grappled with this apparent incongruity for 15 years.
He says it applies to more people than you might think.
To Stanovich, however, there is nothing incongruous about it. IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties, he says, including logic, abstract reasoning, learning ability and working-memory capacity – how much information you can hold in mind.
Wisdom marries knowledge with real life application for the good of others and not for personal profit or pleasure.
“Wisdom is as good as an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to the one who possesses it.” Ecclesiastes 7: 11–12 nrsv
“How wonderful to be wise, to analyze and interpret things. Wisdom lights up a person’s face, softening its hardness.” Ecclesiastes 8: 1 nlt
