Wisdom Cannot Be Googled

The following quote from Henry Kissinger looks at the impact of the Internet on humans' sourcing and ultimate use of what they read online.

"In the contemporary world, human consciousness is shaped through an unprecedented filter. Television, computers, and smartphones compose a trifecta offering nearly constant interaction with a screen throughout the day. Human interactions in the physical world are now pushed relentlessly into the virtual world of networked devices. Recent studies suggest that adult Americans spend on average roughly half of their waking hours in front of a screen, and the figure continues to grow.

What is the impact of this cultural upheaval...?

For all the great and indispensable achievements the Internet has brought to our era, its emphasis is on the actual more than the contingent, on the factual rather than the conceptual, on values shaped by consensus rather than by intersection. Knowledge of history and geography is not essential for those who can evoke their data with the touch of a button. The mindset for walking lonely political paths may not be self-evident to those who seek confirmation by hundreds, sometimes thousands of friends on Facebook.

...philosophers and poets have long separated the mind's purview into three components: information, knowledge, and wisdom. The Internet focuses on the realm of information, whose spread it facilitates exponentially. Ever-more-complex functions are devised, particularly capable of responding to questions of fact, which are not themselves altered by the passage of time. Search engines are able to handle increasingly complex questions with increasing speed. Yet a surfeit of information may paradoxically inhibit the acquisition of knowledge and push wisdom even further away than it was before.

The poet T.S. Eliot captured this in his "Choruses from 'The Rock'":

      Where is the Life we have lost in living?

      Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

      Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Facts are rarely self-explanatory; their significance, analysis, and interpretation...depend on context and relevance. As ever more issues are treated as if of a factual nature, the premise becomes established that for every question there must be a researchable answer, that problems and solutions are not so much to be thought through as to be 'looked up.' But in the relations between states--and in many other fields--information, to be truly useful, must be placed within a broader context of history and experience to emerge as actual knowledge. And a society is fortunate if its leaders can occasionally rise to the level of wisdom."

Henry Kissinger, in his book, World Order

  

The Community Becomes What it Models

The way to learn how to become what we desire to become is to see others modeling it. 

If, however, all we observe and experience, especially from a young age, is haughtiness, crudeness and defensiveness, how will we ever learn grace?

How will we grow strong if we only surround ourselves with weakness?

If our community, family or social circle sets a tone of victimhood, they leave no room for and are unsupportive of—even hostile to (out of jealousy, mostly)—the already-healed, those desiring to heal and those who are just beginning the process of healing.

When our community strongly implies that “if you’re not sharing something negative, you’re not sharing,” then petty mediocrity closes the road to maturity—and moving forward— for all.

In failing to heartily acknowledge and intellectually appreciate progress and recovery—be it in people and politics, history and health; in denying goodness and being uncomfortable with encouragement; in refusing to stand in ovation at overcoming; in stubbornly turning away from the visible righteousness of God; then we, as a community, are, and will remain, a glass half empty. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

Charles Spurgeon on Gossip

 

"I heartily wish that by any process we could put down gossip, but I suppose that it will never be done so long as the human race continues what it is, for James tells us that 'every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.' What can't be cured must be endured, and the best way of enduring it is not to listen to it...

The talk of the village (and family, I would add) is never worthy of notice, and you should never take any interest in it except to mourn over the malice and heartlessness of which it is too often the indicator."

Charles Spurgeon

Taking Control of Our Conversations

One way we can honestly "make the world a better place" is to stop constantly finding fault with it in our conversations.

If we really want to, and train ourselves in doing it, we can become naturals at applying the brakes mid-thought in order to catch ourself from spinelessly going along with the complaining tenor of a group conversation.

We can do this by replacing the negative comment we were going to pile on with to a positive statement, or, think better of saying anything at all and remain silent.

The key is the “really wanting to” part, and the noticing of how much of how we talk is mere habit, and bad habit at that.

I’m increasingly finding, as I’ve been sitting back and observing more objectively, that the tendency to join in with, enable, or proffer my own rather dramatic tone on a topic is incredibly easy—if not expected. 

I’ve noticed how negative comments spoken about the world or other people, and the intentional bringing up of dour news (often gleaned from i-Phones held in one’s hand at the social gathering) is more common than the alternative of verbalizing sentiments of gratefulness, respect, appreciation and goodness.

I find that lately, when I am in the company of an Eeyore-infused Holding-of-Court by a group or individual, I increasingly find it awkward and distasteful, and don’t like myself afterward. Especially because I see now how often I have personally perpetrated histrionic perspective and details in past conversations.

So, in the hope of training myself to “not go there,” I’ve taken up the practice of the art of changing the subject—a very delicate art, to be sure, when in the company of vociferous malcontents. 

The way I’ve been able to summon the confidence to do this, though, is through the epiphany that, just because someone brings up politics, or begins griping about a relative or boss, doesn’t mean I have to become complicit, or volunteer similar gripes of my own.

And if my gentle steering into more constructive, “the sky is not actually falling” dialogue is not well-received, or even resented, I’m finally at the place of logically being okay with that: because if their initiating of constant handwringing is okay for them (regardless of what others think), my not going there, and instead countering with a more positive direction, is also okay for me (regardless of what others think).

We can’t control or change other people, but we can control and change ourself. 

Our attitude, approach, and what comes out of our mouth is the only thing we can take charge of one hundred percent. And when we do, we are no longer allowing other people to control us with negative, fault-finding comments that set a tone and perception that is often unnecessary and almost always tainted with sour grapes, boredom or bias. 

We find that the way the world looks to them, doesn’t have to—and oftentimes does not—look that way to us. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

In Dialogue, Do We Thrive on Dissension or Respect?

 

Yesterday I explored Charles Spurgeon’s concept of maintaining a deaf ear and a blind eye to ornery dissensions, gossip, hearsay, polarized-political complaining, and general malcontentedness among people who have more invested in keeping animosity alive than actually solving anything. 

These temperamental types are, as I quoted Spurgeon previously, best to “have nothing to do with” or there will be “no end to the strife.”

But what about discussions involving two or more perspectives on an issue, carried on in the motivation of constructively explaining, expounding, educating, or relating experientially? 

When the motivation is to solve, or begin to solve, or to elicit cooperation so that possible avenues towards betterment can be considered and perhaps adopted, what is our attitude then?

Would we say that we are open to, essentially, open dialogue? 

Or do we find ourselves automatically becoming defensive, alert for offense, or just plain fatalistic that anything can ever change (especially if we are forced to work with, instead of against, so-and-so or such and such group which we thus far have not wanted to)?

This would beg the question: 

Have we ever stopped to think how much we operate out of preconceived conclusions, and then seek, or listen to, only the sources that support them? Is our priority to maintain our assumptions and opinions, respect for others be damned?

When exposed to alternative viewpoints, do we hear with ears shut, or do we listen with ears open in order to understand, even though we may not agree? 

And if we do discover that we now agree—essentially changing our mind—are we confident and wise enough to admit and publicly acknowledge it?

Do we comprehend that a sincere seeking of a fair and balanced worldview is the necessary first step towards peace among people who claim to be of good will? 

And is that, ultimately and sincerely, what we honestly want? 

And if not, why not?

Copyright Barb Harwood

A Blind Eye and a Deaf Ear

 

Continuing on with the theme of positive ways to interact in conversations, Charles Spurgeon offers great beneficial insight.

About attempts by others to draw us into family, church, school, office, or political differences, dramas, quarrels and disputes, Spurgeon advises:

“Be deaf and blind to these people…If any flagrant injustice has been done, be diligent to set it right, but if it be a mere feud, bid the quarrelsome party cease from it, and tell him once for all that you will have nothing to do with it…”

If we engage their fault-finding, chronically-critical and gossipy narrative, Spurgeon warns, there will be “no end to the strife.”

Spurgeon writes that instead, we can, as he did, take “the wisest course by applying my blind eye to all disputes which dated previously to my advent.”

What he refers to here is that when he was young, and began as a new pastor at a church, he refused to listen to the hearsay and gripes church members bombarded him with regarding his predecessor, and paid no heed to manipulations to steer him into various “camps” which would turn him against other church members.

He goes on to say,

“It is the extreme of unwisdom for a young man fresh from college, or from another charge, to suffer himself to be earwigged by a clique, and to be bribed by kindness and flattery to become a partisan, and so to ruin himself with one-half of his people.” 

Therefore, he earnestly recommends, not just for pastors, but for all of us, young and old alike:

“Have nothing of parties and cliques…Blessed are the peacemakers, and one sure way of peacemaking is to let the fire of contention alone. Neither fan it, nor stir it, nor add fuel to it, but let it go out of itself.”

What a stunning bit of wisdom: stunning in that it is rare to actually see it in practice!

Think about our own family, where there almost always is one pot-stirrer who is constantly volunteering gossip, planting misconstrued seeds of doubt and dislike regarding other family members, and who will stop at nothing to create drama in an attempt to get-back-at, assuage their inner insecurities, and be the center of attention. 

In addition to a person’s general negativity, they can also keenly manipulate: one minute they are our best friend and confident; the next they are dissing us behind our back due to some perceived slight or offense. Beware of their fluctuating complements and chumminess, as these are most likely a scheme to steer us into their corner and turn us against another family member or mutual acquaintance. 

In other words, never trust a malcontent or instigator of drama.

Ditto for the office co-worker, neighbor, acquaintance and friend who, fishing for an accomplice, hopes that we bite and dine with them on their unfavorable perceptions of another. 

Don’t go there, Spurgeon says. 

Leave that morsel, no matter how tempting, to dangle, thus depriving the slanderer and whiner of their supply, and see if that doesn’t perhaps end their gadding-about-the mouth. 

Regardless of whether the person ever does actually cease their shenanigans, what these types of people say and think will stop at our boundary, hitting a once and for all Dead End, because we will it to stop, and go no further with us. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

We Don't Have to Listen to Everything We Hear

 

Charles Spurgeon has a great quote about tuning out the noisy negatives:

"You cannot stop people's tongues, and therefore the best thing is to stop your own ears and never mind what is spoken...

We would say of the general gossip of the village, and of the unadvised words of angry friends--do not hear them, or if you must hear them, do not lay them to heart, for you also have talked idly and angrily in your day, and would even now be in an awkward position if you were called to account for every word that you have spoken, even about your dearest friend."