Cornel West, the Princeton philosophy professor, was recently asked to critique President Obama. “He’s too enamored of intellect and has failed to surround himself with people of wisdom” was the essential criticism that West, a friend of Obama’s, leveled at him.
I think many of us are enamored of intellect. I know I am. Growing up in the shadow of Yale University, intelligence was something to aspire to, even in the housing projects out on the edge of town. My mother’s dream for me was to attend MIT and become a civil engineer. (She grew up near Cambridge). My mother had few dreams of me growing up and becoming wise. That can be a problem for the world.
The Cornerstones of Wisdom
Compassion, self-understanding, morality and emotional stability are some of the qualities that science currently considers as the cornerstones of wisdom. Two psychiatry professors at the University of San Diego think they have a research-based handle on what comprises true wisdom. Dilip Jeste and Thomas Meeks consider these five items to be the central unifying elements of wisdom:
Wisdom is uniquely human
Wisdom is a form of experience-driven,
advanced cognitive and emotional development
Wisdom is a rare personal quality
Wisdom can be learned and measured, and generally increases with age
Wisdom cannot be enhanced with drugs
Notably absent from the list is any mention of the heart. I’ve presented the Nine Integrative Neural Pathways previously in this blog, along with the Heartmath research and claims by Joseph Chilton Pearce that the next great human developmental/neurological frontier is fully expanding the existing brain-to-heart and heart-to-brain wiring such that it can carry a six lane expressway full of energy and information.
How do we build such expressways? The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal once observed, the heart has its own wisdom and the intellect of our left brains alone might not be the best apprehenders of it. (Pascal would have said it this way if he were a neuroscientist 
). The left brain can’t provide a detailed plan or an accurate map, but it can take good notes along the journey.
Pivoting Between Heaven and Hell
The more I think about wisdom and what it is and how it relates to social neuroscience, the more I suspect it is a function of any variety of profound life experiences that work to organize and integrate our brains in complex ways. It is an organization and integration that often finds us traveling paths that touch on great suffering and bring us face to face with our own personal Dark Nights of the Soul – a journey that often forces us to look deep within our own hearts. William James called people traveling such paths the Twice-Born.
Such integrating journeys increase and expand control of our limbic system as superbly portrayed in the well-known Zen story, The Secrets of Heaven and Hell. This story not only demonstrates the ability to skillfully short-circuit potential limbic high-jacking, but it also presents an accomplished transpirational integration (wisdom consciousness), as well as profound heart-brain interconnectivity – a clear willingness to die for the benefit of another’s learning. Wisdom, this story suggests, runs parallel with the cultivation of learned fearlessness. And learned fearlessness, as the Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa was fond of reminding his students, was invariably rooted in the heart.
As a social critic, Cornel West shows up for me as someone demonstrating learned fearlessness with deep roots planted early in his heart. In his autobiography West provides one powerful clue to his fearless roots. He was asked how a black kid of modest beginnings managed to graduate Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, home of the intellectual elite, in three years. Here’s his response:
The Sacramento (Bee) ran a long article on me with a big picture. They went over to interview (my) Dad. They told him they needed thirty minutes to ask a battery of questions about how he had raised his children. But Dad being Dad broke it down beautifully. He said, “I don’t need thirty minutes. Fact is, I don’t even need one minute. I can give you the answer in four words. Be there for them. Give your children all the time they need.
“That’s it?” asked the reporter.
“That’s it,” said Dad. “Be there for them.”
And he was. He always was.
For the wiring of wisdom and learned fearlessness, it apparently helps to start with a wise parent, one who fully recognizes the need to make and keep the “irrational commitment” to consistently be someone your kids can radically rely on. Not a job for the faint heart of hearts.
Wonderful post. Reminds me of the excellent book by Rick Hanson, Buddha’s Brain. Are you familiar with it?
http://www.rickhanson.net/writings/buddhas-brain or
http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Practical-Neuroscience-Happiness/dp/1572246952/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274031152&sr=8-1
Wisdom is in apprehending a situation and allowing it to unfold; knowing when it is your responsibility to influence the unfolding and when it is someone else’s, or simply the way it is.
Wisdom is calm, full, philosophical, and cares deeply about the events and their outcomes while seeing not only the bigger picture, but the biggest picture and choosing one’s own steps and the advice to others very carefully.
There is no timidity in the steps or advice, and chuckling at the foibles of ourselves (collectively and individually) comes easily. It is an ironic chuckle and, I believe, wisdom is the essence of what Kieran Egan, PhD, Simon Fraser University, and international author and speaker, calls “Ironic Understanding”. In this type of thinking (the Ironic), there is no understanding without access to all the forms of how we know. We see the irony of how the world works and it makes us wise.
There are ways to teach people to understand in this way. For many people, the only access to this type of thinking has been through universities and philosophy (whether religious or secular, most of which happens at university.) It needn’t be that way, and for those that are hungry for wisdom there are many connections one can make online to sate that hunger. Wisdom is becoming less rarefied and mentors to entice to the next nuance of wisdom are available in ways they previously were not – often depending upon where you lived.
Thanks, Mark, for another day of intellectual stimulation.
I loved your wise and articulate response to Mark’s blog today–thank you. You are clearly one of those mentors, and I’m wondering who you are.
Wisdom and Integrity have always been a great mystery to me. I value them both highly. Your writing this morning is of great interest to me in my thinking about these qualities.
A quote from Spinoza lodged in my brain many years ago. “Thought should not lack the heat of desire, nor desire the light of thought.” It’s been a light for me as I’ve navigated through life.
I have been meaning to let you know for awhile how much I appreciate your writing, thinking and wisdom reliably here every Sunday morning.
Thank you for your wisdom on how we can be more committed parents and individuals.
I think wisdom is the knowledge of how something works (eg. one wise in the way of clay (a potter) or one wise in the way of words (a poet))
I think compassion comes in when someone desires to be wise in the ways of people. Most people I think are emotionally or values driven – though intelligence is of great value to either of these.
Wisdom may increase with age for some. Often what increases with age is habit and rigidity in my observation. I think wisdom must involve learning.
There’s lots of good evidence that we are not primarily intellectual creatures – that it is so often and resolutely ignored is proof that we are not primarily intellectual creatures.
Thanks for a great post on such an important topic.