One thing that really annoys me is the “wise sayings” trope. Where platitudes are supposed to guide our actions in place of the genuinely difficult pursuit of wisdom.
Let’s be clear, the reason for the existence of proverbs and platitudes is to justify the way things are to give a false sense of order and structure to a chaotic universe. I’ll give an example:
Take someone stuck in the middle of dead-end but financially gainful employment. An old friend of hers comes along and says he’s starting a new company that’s risky but has great prospects. To join him in the endeavor, our protagonist will have to give up her current job.
If she declines his venture and it takes off as a millions-worth industry, she’ll live with regret that she didn’t risk her safety and comfort for the opportunity of a lifetime. Along will come a “Wise Man” to scold her, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She got what she deserved.
If she accepts his offer and the venture fails. She’ll live with the regret that she gave up her comfortable life for a full-hardy venture. A long will come this same “Wise Man” to lecture, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” How could she not have known better?
Our protagonist would never notice the paradoxical nonsense that’s just been handed her since she wouldn’t be able to compare the “Wise Man’s” actions in both situations. She would probably walk away accepting his narrative since it’s better to believe you know why you suffer than not know why, even if that means believing it’s all your fault. If anything, this false conviction offers false empowerment over your own fate.
The end result is a sort of moral nihilism that most people swim in while thinking they are pursuing righteous lives. There’s a platitude to justify anything so the illusion of accountability can disguise itself of actual accountability. What makes this kind of moralism so especially enticing is that it’s both low-effort and self-vindicating as you run around telling people “I-told-you-so”. You can feel wise without the hard work of actually learning and reflecting on your own actions or ideology. Never mind if you’re never available to offer specific, actionable advice before it’s too late.
Beyond affecting our personal lives, it affects how we communicate with each other. This, as much as anything else, is what contributes to our cultural divide. Older generations express outrage at the premise of forgiving student debt, but it was their own reliance on “Wise Man” wisdom that created a complacency that led to this crisis of overpriced college degrees in the first place. If a young student goes into debt to obtain a college degree, they shouldn’t have spent money they don’t have and gotten a real job instead. If a young worker without a degree can’t find a job that pays bills, they should have applied their talents to a college degree and gotten a real job instead. Like a person finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk, the American Dream is ever-elusive for current and future generations.
The real pursuit of wisdom is hard. There’s a reason the Book of Proverbs spends relatively little time offering advice and more time imploring its readers to pursue wisdom as they would treasure. There’s a reason Plato said true wisdom is rare and can only be found by those who start pursuing it at a young age in the Republic. Self-help books are validating only because they mask the time-consuming struggle and frustration of pursuing wisdom as though it is easily and freely available. If anything, with wisdom comes the knowledge of how little you understand this world in all its paradoxical complexities and, with that, a humility in offering advice to whole swarms of people. Socrates knew only that he knew nothing, and Lao Tzu said, “he who speaks, does not know. He who knows, does not speak.”
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