What Can We Get Away With?

We’ve heard it said that “With Much Wisdom Comes Much Vexation, and Increasing Knowledge Results in Increasing Pain.” I think the fellow that said it was pretty bright too. Hm.

So there are a few obvious was of rationalizing to ourselves how getting smarter brings about vexation and pain. Looking at the word vexation (note, not the original word, but for our purposes…), we see a connotation of nuisance, annoyance. We’re usually vexed by termites in our home, not by divorce in the family. Most of us can probably relate to being annoyed by the asininity of a conversation held between college students on the level of third graders. We hear Chet complain to Kyle about the complexities of Psych 101; We, in our greater knowledge, could deal with said problem in our sleep, and are annoyed by those who struggle with such a simple task.

Hopefully I don’t have to point out that in this situation, while the greater wisdom provided the platform, you still took the step over to judgment and general snobbery.

Here’s another scenario, more addressing the increasing knowledge resulting in increasing pain bit: The world has a lot of ugliness to find. The happy fool sits on his box, sometimes giggling between drool at the pleasure of his simplicity (although of course, he wouldn’t actually be aware of his state as such, but he might have random flashes of enlightenment as to his condition.) But we also know that the simple are killed by their turning away and the complacence of fools destroys them. Maybe not the best option. But be warned that when you seek knowledge, you’ll find that quite a chunk of what’s out there is bad enough to cause you pain. Better to suffer in seeking wisdom, than be destroyed by your apathy.

I’m sure there are a few other ideas out there about how, pragmatically, Smarts = that smarts (hoho). But here’s what I’ve been thinking on the past few days that was certainly new to me: With much wisdom often comes the ability to defend your wisdom. The more you know, usually the better you can explain what you know. Great, right? Lucidity rules. My concern isn’t with simple clarity of expression, but more with the rhetorical swagger that too often tends to accompany “much wisdom.” Often, before a young fella has this wisdom, he’s proven wrong in an argument and has to sit in it. But ah, now that knowledge has entered the picture, he may be able to present his opponent with an airtight case for whatever inane thing he wishes.

Put more simply (hopefully), I think that often what keeps us in check isn’t our better judgment or morality, but the fact that “I couldn’t back this up.” Regardless of my position being right or wrong, I know that my first thought has been something similar at times. “Can I make a case for this? What would their response be? Then what would I say? Ahhh, forget it, I can’t sustain that argument.” Little or no thought (initially) given to whether or not what I’m arguing for is right.

Consequently, with increasing knowledge and much wisdom, the potential for making a solid argument for something ridiculous grows. With a loaded rhetorical arsenal, we sometimes become trigger happy, all too ready and willing to open fire on anything we see.