The Human Condition: Intelligence versus wisdom

By DR. DANIEL SCHNEE on September 22, 2021.

I have great news: you’re not stupid.

Statistics dictate that the average person isn’t, if IQ tests are to be trusted. I believe these tests can be a good indicator of general math and language skills, but are slightly problematic in one particular way.

Hypothetically, if you finish an IQ test extremely fast, with a perfect score, you are considered a genius. But if you finish over a long period of time with a perfect score you are not a genius. Thus, if people achieve various scores over varying amounts of time, it is time itself that ultimately decides who is smart or average, though the exact nature and meaning of intelligence has never been fully agreed upon by various experts.

This also plays out in the workplace. Many brilliant ideas or innovations have come from people who would not be considered a genius if their IQ test was the sole measurement of their abilities. Some people take 10 minutes to be a genius at work, some take months and years. Many geniuses in the arts have average IQs but extraordinary instincts which they hone through intense effort. Some geniuses have one brilliant idea in their lifetime and some smart people have several brilliant ideas over a career. You can be a so-called “average” person and have a genius-level idea, thus you don’t even have to be a genius to be a genius.

There are even geniuses that are stupid. How can that be? If speed is not a factor then, their stupidity would seem to be something apart from their measurable intelligence.

In my travels I have met actual geniuses who changed the world with their ideas: classical composer Philip Glass, jazz icon Ornette Coleman, performance artist Laurie Anderson, and others, and all of them have admittedly done things that in hindsight were major mistakes. And across the board these were decisions based on trusting the wrong people, saying the right thing but to the wrong people, making erroneous choices, and so on. All of these mistakes were not the result of a lack of intelligence, but of judgement and insight, in other words: wisdom.

Geniuses, people with Ph.D.s, average people… all can lack wisdom, because it is not based on intelligence. Wisdom involves our experiences in life: our dislikes, our biases, and other things that can usurp our intelligence and make our choices in its stead. Brilliant actors join weird cults, billionaires marry gold-digging spouses, automotive engineers design a car with such a fragile fuel system it often explodes during a mild fender bender (the Ford Pinto), and so on.

Since intelligence is no guarantee of great success in business or life, it is wise to then make sure we develop wisdom itself, especially our emotional wisdom. Highly intelligent people often dismiss the wisdom of human connection: of sharing, relating, forgiving, listening, snuggling, and all the things that bring us into contact with wisdom and its various lessons. Service to others, especially the weak and sick, reveals the deep wisdom of selflessness. Intelligence is a trophy, wisdom is a hug.

Intelligence is wonderful and necessary, but we are now living in a time where we must keep wisdom as precious as diamonds and gold. To do so is true genius…

Dr. Daniel Schnee is an anthropologist who studies Japanese creative culture

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