Intelligence Vs. Wisdom

Jeremy Torgerson

This evening I had an exchange with a typical leftist. His name is Ted and he's a hell of a great guy.

Ted asked me a pertinent question: did I have high hopes for President Bush to win or was I worried? And, do I, as a conservative, actually fear a John Kerry presidency or just don't want to see one?

Here is my reply:

"That's a great question, but let me explain my answer first before I give it.

I believe fundamentally that there is a distinct difference between intellect and wisdom, but I believe most bright people fall into one of these two categories. Typically, when I meet a person, I place them (in my mind) somewhere in one group or the other. I don't believe that these two are mutually-exclusive by any means, but rather that they are like two different people who are, to paraphrase Frost, taking "roads less travelled". Sort of parallel paths that can see the other but never quite intersect.

I see this every day in my businesses, as I am sure you do in your school: without clear, concise rules and retribution for infraction, chaos ensues.

I believe, and you may take exception to this, that most on the left fall into the "intellect" column. Most on the right give way to "wisdom".

What does that mean? Leftists instinctively seek other possibilities, new ways to push the envelope, the untested and untried. There is a hint of arrogance in this way of thinking, in my opinion, because it presupposes, for example, that the lessons of the past aren't always important to the future.

An "intelligent" man is one who can see many other possibilities, one who can think "outside the box". In his quest for other possibilities, the intelligent man instinctively raises a skeptical eyebrow at traditions and norms. He questions or even scoffs the lessons of the past as whispers from long-ago "lesser men" who no doubt never understood the nuances of today.

Haven't you heard kids in school saying this very thing today? When you say sex and drugs at 15 is wrong and harmful, they just think you can't understand their world- it's too different than when we were kids. And by the way, does their faulty argument make them unintelligent or unwise? I would argue that they may be very bright, but not wise. Taken to extremes, this brand of revisionist thinking often leads to unbridled nihilism, secularism (are we SURE there's a God?), communism, and worse.

A "wise" man is not dissimilar from an intellectual except for one fundamental point: he gives a nod of acknowledgement to the lessons of the past. He realizes that those who came before laid the groundwork and paved the road to discoveries that he now takes for granted. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, a wise man acknowledges that the wheel was just fine as it was created, and move on. A wise man looks at chaos and can pull order and logic from it, and can make distinctions where an intellectual would see only neverending relativism and a crippling wave of nuance. Wise men can make generalities, whereas an intelligent man seeks to grasp every possibility (and is therefore unable to act on any of them as all have equally relevant weight). A wise man can make assumptions confidently, but an intelligent man is a second-guesser. An intelligent man is obsessed with gathering FACTS, but a wise man is obsessed with finding TRUTH. I think there's a reason why the phrase is "the WISDOM of the ages" rather than "the INTELLIGENCE of the ages".

That said (rather long-windedly), Kerry is an intelligent man, and this fits my theory of left vs. right in America: leftists accuse Bush continuously of being unintelligent, which, by my definitions, is perhaps true. It's not that Bush is intellectually inferior in any way; it's that his intellect gravitates toward WISDOM. Bush is not seeking moral confusion with endless shades of gray. Bush seeks the wisdom of "black and white", and takes reassurances for his decisions in moral absolutes. It makes taking action and making decisions easier when you can use the crucible of your mind to burn away the irrelevancies until you are left with a pure product: the TRUTH. Thus, to an intellectual, he seems dim-witted or unable to see all the possibilities, which is untrue. Bush sees them, he just rejects endless theory in favor of a general course of action. Order over chaos. It's really that (pardon this play on words:) simple.

That said, even you will acknowledge some moral absolutes. Rape is absolutely wrong, for example. But then an intellectual clouds the definition of rape to include many shades of gray. Now a girl can simply regret it the next morning, and confidently report that she was "date-raped". In raping the word to self-serving ends, liberals have cheapened the horror of real rape.

Or another example: people like me can see that any slaughter of innocent life, whether that be by a murderer (which explains why we would be in favor of the death penalty), an abortion, or Saddam Hussein, is evil and must be dealth with. Bush is that kind of man. Kerry wants to know Saddam's motivations for gassing and slaughtering a million and a half of his fellow human beings. Perhaps he meant well? Did he see a perceived injustice? Maybe his father was abusive?

Do you see how simply being intelligent can be paralyzing? You are unable to make decisions; to take a course of action. At Frost's "two roads diverged in a yellow wood", John Kerry would have a harder time deciding which road to take than George Bush. Does that make Bush simpler? No, it makes him, in a way, bolder.

Do I fear Kerry or just distrust him? I do not fear any president, actually, because there are so many safeguards written into our Constitution by wise men, who made generalizations about civilization and God and greed and power-hungry men. They were wise enough to understand the nature of man, and acted to protect our nation from the ambitions of such unfettered human traits with specific checks and balances between branches of government, restraints upon the leaders to protect the rights of the citizen, and the notion that liberty is not government's bestowment, but rather God's gift to man.

Rather, I fear Kerry's inability to make clear moral distinctions. I fear that Kerry, in his quest for endless possibilities, cannot see actual evil and threats to America for what they are. Our own liberal media cannot even reach the logical conclusion to call America's enemies what they are: Islamic terrorists. We see them called "insurgents", "rebels", even "freedom fighters", because liberals are constantly trying to find ways to empathize with evil men in a mistaken attempt to identify with them as a means to understanding.

It's enlightening to me in the middle of this letter that I remembered one of the oldest Chinese proverbs which says: "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names." How true. Conservatives seek wisdom, not intelligence for its own sake, so they are able to make distinctions a liberal deems unsophisticated. Let me show you what I mean: the terrorists, (I'm making a generality here, but a wise one) hate us, not for anything we've done, but for WHO WE ARE. Our homosexuals are permitted to live in freedom and safety, our women are not the property of their husbands, we allow gambling and alcohol, and we worship God as we individually see fit. In short, our society is the anthithesis of the Islamic worldview. Because of that, they despise everything America stands for: individual liberty. As an American, I understand that these extremists must be taken down before they can do the same to me or my family. I can see that clearly as a conservative. As a liberal, can you?

There is another fundamental difference between right and left, and it is this: the conservative believes men act outwardly based upon what is within them. The liberal believes men act outwardly as a reaction to outward influences. Thus, to a conservative, a robber is a man of poor character who decided to prey on weaker people for his own gain. But to a liberal, he may be an oppressed person who acted out upon feelings of desperation caused by living in a poor neighborhood. Which is right? Or, more importantly, which view makes determining punishment more plausible?

In my opinion, John Kerry is the wrong president to finish the war on terror because he doesn't see one even exists. He's busy trying to figure out WHY someone would saw off the head of another human being, instead of calling evil by its name and understanding that the murderer must be captured or killed before he can do it again, whatever his motivation. Bush thinks this way.

Don't get me wrong: Kerry's bright, very bright (we'll leave his personality aside for now), but HE IS NOT WISE. He cannot see the forest because he's too busy noticing the diversity of each tree. Bush takes flak for seeming too simple-minded or single-minded, but George Bush sees the forest, or the "Axis of Evil", or whatever, for what it is. His thoughts ARE simpler, but not less bright. Just simpler. Bush's philosophy makes it easier to reach conclusions because he used generalities to find fewer realistic possibilities.

Five layers of nuance is busy-work for an underachieving or cowardly intellect. Cutting right to the heart of the matter is simpler, more direct, and WISER, as is George Bush.

-Jeremy Torgerson, Editor
RightGuys.Net