Knowledge and Wisdom

  Education leads one to acquire information. Wisdom is knowing what to do with it.

   Contrary to the elitist, aristocratic view that intelligence is genetic and innate -- a product of having smart parents, and only those of "good breeding" should be or can be educated -- there is a more widespread view that education must be available to all, with no regard to parentage, ancestry or wealth.
   We all know people who have attended college and acquired diplomas, but who really don't know squat. Or they have lived sheltered lives, secured by wealth and staff, and have not encountered the realities of everyday life.
   Being smart may help you get rich, but being rich doesn't mean you're smart. Many of the ancient Greeks believed that "excellence was innate, transmitted by heredity and reinforced by upbringing." (Richard Toye, Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2013) This aristocratic view was challenged by the Sophists, Toye notes, who taught that the art of persuasion could be learned by anyone. Unfortunately, the techniques of rhetoric were -- and still are -- misused and abused by those who will go to any length to win a debate, and the Sophists and rhetoric got bad reputations.
   Someone who graduated from both Harvard and Princeton may have shown a level of intelligence, in that he has the ability to acquire information. But wisdom is a different thing. Politicians should have wisdom first. Someone with intelligence will know that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, but may not be wise enough to know it does not work well in a bowl of breakfast cereal.
   Democracy requires a knowledgeable, educated electorate. An aristocracy does not. So, to preserve its elite position, those of an aristocratic bent oppose education for those who are not of the same "class."
   This opposition may not be flagrant, but it's there, nonetheless, even as the so-called elite deny it -- at least not overtly. But deny it they do, by their actions.