Knowledge and Wisdom

Alexander M. Goldfinger

[Reprinted from The Gargoyle, November, 1960]

Several decades ago I looked younger than my years, which was a handicap in my profession since prospective clients involuntarily down-graded my maturity and experience. I wished ardently for an "older" appearance.

Into my life came a man considerably older who soon became my friend, mentor and guide. Of all men I have known, I admired my mentor the most, for he. had knowledge, experience, logical ability, acumen -- in fact, most of the attributes to which I aspired.

I remember vividly a discussion we had one day. My friend was praising the vigor I displayed in our efforts to make the Henry George School of New Jersey a success. He sadly remarked, "Oh, if only I had your youth and energy, what a great team we would make."

My reply was the crystalization of my thoughts, my admiration and reverence for my friend. I said, "And I envy you. Your age is the culmination of years of acquiring knowledge, and with thinkers such as you, knowledge leads to wisdom and wisdom is the pathway to a better civilization and a better race." I was rather pleased with my statement. It seemed to be a profuund observation and well phrased.

My friend, looked at me quizzicaly for a moment and then asked, "Do you really believe that knowledge leads to wisdom?" My affirmation caused him to say, "This has been said before, and I find it is true: The more we learn -- the more we realize how little we know."

This seemed like the modesty of my friend, so I paid little heed to it. Now, decades later, when gray flecks my hair, after reading and absorbing "knowledge" from hundreds of books and experiences I begin to understand.

We are prone to believe that a key to the understanding of the world is knowledge, both of the past and the future, that knowledge leads to wisdom.

Man is said to be a "time binding" animal. He alone, of all creatures on this earth, has the ability to reap the harvest of all the experiences of his forebears, and learn by their mistakes and triumphs to shape his own life and experiences. His ability to do this is the result of his ability to symbolize reality and to respond to "thinking" which is to say, to symbolize situations in the stark, real world and to "plan" his response. The greatest symbol that man has learned to use is language; words that conjure up in his mentality the things and the situations which in Nature are his environment.

Man, above all other creatures, has the ability not only of adapting to his environment, but of changing the environment to suit his purposes. He builds and heats habitations; he cultivates and harvests the food he consumes. All of these he is able to do because of "knowledge" acquired over eons of time during which man was evolving to his present state.

Learning is endless. It may reduce the prejudices of ignorance. It may cure our sicknesses and help to erect cities and jet airplanes. But what has learning, "knowledge" evolved in the ethical concepts of the relation of man to man, and man to the universe? Because society improves physically, we assume the improvement of the individual and view with horror, amazement and shame the destruction man has wrought in recurring wars, wars not against the scourges of his environment, but in destruction of human life by man;s own contrivance and his own weapons.

Mankind, as a species and genus, and man as an individual do not come into being full-blown, as a finished product. They are the results of endless forgotten influences and experiences. Psychiatry recognizes that the experiences, the frustrations, the satisfactions that occur in the first year of a baby's life largely help to determine what personality will later develop.

Man's quest for knowledge, for learning, is in final essence, his quest for certainty, and the quest for certainty is the eternal quest for meaning. But the meaning man seeks in his external world is a futile search, since meaning is buried within himself.

When, with eyes fixed on our television screens, we see the spectacle of chosen representatives from every corner of the world assembled in the United Nations Assembly, and see and hear the threats, explicit and implied, hurled at the nations of men, most of them seeking the best for their people, then surely we can wonder how far and how fast the knowledge of history, of science and of philosophy has brought us.

As a child grows into an adult and the adult is largely the product of all the experiences from infancy onward, and since generic man is the end product of the conglomerate of all human beings, is it possible that man's learning, his accumulated knowledge will suffice to prevent him from using it to destroy civilization and even human life from this planet?

The answer lies, not in oratory at a meeting of nations, not in compacts signed and later violated, not in striving, each to surpass in material things all others, not in power and the domination of others, not in forcing humans to be "good", but in the realization by mankind that the eternal questions: "Why am I here? What is life? Why was I born?" can have no materialistic answers but that if evolution from the crawling toads and aborigines of life to mankind has any meaning, then that meaning has not fully been realized. There must be in the eons of time yet to come an evolution to a still higher form of life. Man today must be the ancestor of such future beings.

Our knowledge of the physical universe has helped us to survive and evolve. If only knowledge brought wisdom and we could plainly see the steps necessary to fulfill the destiny of man, then we might use that wisdom and knowledge. But true wisdom must be a development which mankind, as a whole, still must learn to acquire.

There are no charts, no methodology, no course of instruction that may make the acquisition of wisdom easier. Nor does education and acquired knowledge lead us, since sometimes an unlearned man may possess wisdom. Wisdom will come when the mind of man, having evolved from the rigours of fighting and building a physical environment becomes contemplative and is concerned with the relationship of man to his fellow man and to the creation and purpose of a world of sentient beings. Perhaps in the evolution of the future men, our conquest of the material universe is a necessary step which will lead to others.

But we who still lack wisdom may use our powers of mind to envision a better human race and to try to fashion the behavior and the necessary human conduct to bring the vision to reality. Only by keeping before ourselves a goal, an unaccomplished reality of a race of men dedicated to each others' welfare and freedom can any progress be made.

Most of us are not philosophers. But we do sometimes examine our own lives. None of us can claim that mistakes were not made for which we feel remorse. If such introspection leads us to better behavior, then the mistakes were not tragic in consequences. We learned by error and evolved better therefore. Perhaps if we learned each day to examine our daily behavior, we could each profit by the contemplation and remedy our mistakes on a daily basis. If, collectively all men would do likewise, the age of wisdom might soon arrive.