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The scripture in the BoM indicates the folly of educated or well-read people at times — that “when they are learned they think they are wise”. I know that many of the people here are learned. How do you think this scripture applies to you? If it does? As Ben Cartwright in the series Bonanza said to his son who wanted to go to university — “I don’t mind if you get an education as long as it doesn’t interfere with your judgment”. Do you think education interferes with our ability to act with judgment, or to be effective in our pursuit of spirituality and self-actualization as it pertains to religious matters? Does it create an egocentricity or sense of superiority/pride/self-confidence that makes us feel we can question everyone who claims to have inspiration or power in our Church? Other deficits? SilentDawning wrote:The scripture in
the BoM indicates the folly of educated or well-read people at times — that “when they are learned they think they are wise”. I know that many of the people here are learned. How do you think this scripture applies to you? If it does?…Do you think education interferes with our ability to act with judgment…? Does it create an egocentricity or sense of superiority/pride/self-confidence that makes us feel we can question everyone who claims to have inspiration or power in our Church? Other deficits? My guess is that this was more of an issue in 1830 than it is now because there weren’t as many people with as much formal education back then compared to the way it is now so the few that had more education than others could easily let it go to their heads in a big way. Nowadays I see many people without any college degrees that already think they are smarter and know better than anyone else so I don’t know that making the connection to education is really the best place to put too much blame at this point.
It is definitely possible to have impressive academic credentials or even knowledge and intelligence that are way above average without being very wise in general but that doesn’t mean that being ignorant and simple-minded is likely to improve the situation in most cases. I see wisdom as being the ability to make efficient and practical use of knowledge, to piece together what things mean, to ask the right questions, and to sense what is most important to focus on or not. Experience “in the trenches” is one way people gain a level of useful wisdom that is often lacking in individuals that are best described as “book smart.”
I know a lot of highly educated people that I don’t believe are wise at all – but I can say the same thing about a lot of people who lack formal education. Personally, I tend to think it depends on how we define “learned”. I prefer “open to understanding” – and lots of modern education isn’t geared to do that.
Since I am fairly well-educated, I have had to make a conscious effort not to get calcified in what I believe – to remain open to the possibility that I am wrong. That, imo, is the larget potential down-side of being “learned” – NOT the learning itself, but rather ending up close-minded. I also think that can happen with regard to members being “Church learned”, if you will.
I agree with Ray’s point about becoming calcified in one’s opinions, set in your ways, close-minded. I think another caution is that we can mistake knowledge for wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience, something you generally don’t get from a classroom alone. And lastly, I think we can get stuck in our heads living in past or present, in a state of mental evaluation, forgetting that we really live in the present, here and now, grounded in reality. A life of the mind isn’t really a life lived so much as contemplated. It’s very easy to get sucked into our internal worlds. I have been going through a period of late of very intensive study and learning…hence my posting here has become much less. In so doing, i have become estranged from those around me. This shows a lack of balance, and indeed the Middle Way is entirely about balance. My study has been about affective neurology, the way we process emotion, with the thesis that there is a strong neurological basis to what we call testimony and spiritual experience. Curiously, the line between rational knowledge and emotion is quite blurry in the most recent studies of the brain, and in fact our learning is completely dependent upon the emotional physiology of the brain. Without our emotional center, we cannot learn.
The nexus of the rational and the emotional is found in parts of the brain that are associated with decision making: the anterior cingulate cortex and the prefrontal cortex. These are the seats of “judgment” or “wisdom”. Thus, emotions are properly put in context, and learning retains a moral compass.
In studying this topic, I have made a remarkable and obvious conclusion. We cannot, by ourselves, truly connect our emotional self with our intellectual self. Our emotional centers in the brain are more connected to our nonverbal facial expressions and body signals than they are to the cortical centers of our conscious thought. We relay more emotional information to others than we perceive in ourselves. We even have mechanisms, “mirror neurons”, that can mirror the subtle nonverbal signals we perceive in others onto our own understanding of the emotional context, such that, when two or more people are authentically communicating together in person — truly, authentically being one in that moment, then the feedback loop between our emotional center and our cortical consciousness is also one and complete.
Jesus, whose name is “I AM”, said, “For where two or three are gathered in MY NAME, there I AM in the midst of you.”
Jesus said, “Ye are gods, to whom the Word of God comes.”
Thus, the “counsels of god” are when the emotional and spiritual connection is made within ourselves AND through the enlightened, authentic connection with others in the moment. This connection is often called “spiritual”. the ancient chinese word for it, “shen”, also means “god”.
In this moment of realization, I came to understand that all my deep learning over the past few weeks, distancing myself from loved ones, was to set aside the “counsels of god”, the spiritual process of meaningful loving communication with my loved ones and others. I had become so unbalanced in my desire and obsession for learning that I was well off the Middle Way.
So here is a case of learning definitely leadng to wisdom…. so, how do you feel about your conclusion that much of the LDS theology is a control mechanism, as you said in another thread? Feel free to answer it there…was it due to a disconnection from God and others? I personally, when learning, feel a deep connection with myself and sometimes even with God. Yesterday I was writing an essay on the drivers of trust and perceptions of ethical stewardship in business leaders from followers. I was totally alone and when my daugther came home, shut her off so I could wait for the intellectual nuggets to fall out of my brain and on to the paper. It’s a process that requires absolute concentration and seclusion, and it took me six hours just to create a thesis paragraph. Yet at the end I felt connected to God, and wondering if I could have been a transformational leader in so many contexts, but simply didn’t for reasons I won’t go into.
SilentDawning wrote:So here is a case of learning definitely leadng to wisdom…. so, how do you feel about your conclusion that much of the LDS theology is a control mechanism, as you said in another thread? Feel free to answer it there…was it due to a disconnection from God and others?
Answered your first question in the other thread as suggested.Yes, I found that learning led to a realization, but it wasn’t until both my mind and heart were engaged that the wisdom occurred. I think there is a danger when we focus too much on the learning and not the spiritual side AND vice versa. There needs to be balance — which is the essence of the Middle Way of course. your question about being disconnected with god is the essential nugget to be learned from the topic of the OP: learning must be balanced with an acknowledgement of the spirit — this being arbitrated in the exact same mechanisms as the seat of wisdom.
The scripture in question doesn’t say that learning is wrong — far from it. it says that learning must be balanced.
SilentDawning wrote:I personally, when learning, feel a deep connection with myself and sometimes even with God. Yesterday I was writing an essay on the drivers of trust and perceptions of ethical stewardship in business leaders from followers. I was totally alone and when my daugther came home, shut her off so I could wait for the intellectual nuggets to fall out of my brain and on to the paper. It’s a process that requires absolute concentration and seclusion, and it took me six hours just to create a thesis paragraph. Yet at the end I felt connected to God, and wondering if I could have been a transformational leader in so many contexts, but simply didn’t for reasons I won’t go into.
I would love to read your thesis paragraph if you have posted it somewhere. Yes, you have keen insight in your posts, but as you say that you could have been a ‘transformational leader’, sure…but at what cost? I have sacrificed much to become a ‘leader’ in my professional space — and today I really question whether it was worth it. When we focus so much energy into our words and insight, and then grump at the very people who love us and need our support, are we really on the right path?The answer is not so white and black here — pursuing excellence in what we do is important, and sometimes we are appointed through skill and opportunity to do something that involves sacrifice of other things. But the answer as to whether we take things to the extreme is rather clear — the answers in life lie not at the edges, but in the balanced middle.
Quote:I would love to read your thesis paragraph if you have posted it somewhere. Yes, you have keen insight in your posts, but as you say that you could have been a ‘transformational leader’, sure…but at what cost? I have sacrificed much to become a ‘leader’ in my professional space — and today I really question whether it was worth it. When we focus so much energy into our words and insight, and then grump at the very people who love us and need our support, are we really on the right path?
Good point. I will post the thesis/introduction at the end of this post. It’s not really spiritual….it’s more academic and research-oriented, but in the process of formulating it I was exposed to the concept of virtue and benevolence in leadership.
Your comment about the price is well-taken. Transformational leaders in society like Ghandi did often neglect their families. It takes a huge focus to be a transformational leader; I know this as I almost lost my wife a couple times when I tried to be transformational as a YM president. It took a lot of time above and beyond the administration of the program, and she told me it was over the top…but when I left the position there was a huge surprise party thrown, testimonies in Sacrament meeting about the program, my leadership and how it had touched so many people from parents to youth. And the program grew and then I became a Stake Young Men’s President. So, when I think about becoming transformational again, I realize it’s a huge amount of work — not only do you have to be an administrator, you have to be thinking about the people in your stewardship, how to develop them, and looking at every decision as both an operational and symbolic decision — operational in getting results, while symbolic in creating the kind of culture and commitment you want in others. It is wearing….but worth it, provided you don’t pay the price by losing your family, your health, or other important things.
Here is the thesis statement — dry from a spiritual perspective.
Quote:
The problem to be investigated is whether Caldwell, Hayes and Long’s (2010) assertion about the relationship between image management, trust and ethical stewardship is verified by current understanding of Stage 5 Leadership. Caldwell et. al claim their data does not support the hypothesis of a positive relationship between these constructs because ethical, Stage 5 leaders are not self-promoting. Therefore, they claim, such leaders’ image management is not visible and measureable, although it may well exist. To assess their claim, this analysis starts by describing the methodology used by Caldwell, Hayes and Long, briefly defining the concept of a structural equation model – a useful exercise for the new student of business hoping to understand Caldwell’s conclusions. The analysis then moves to a brief descripton of the relationships in their structural model of ethical stewardship, as well as Caldwell et. al’s findings. The discussion reviews current thought about image management and Stage 5 leaders from XXXX and XXX. Based on this thought, we draw conclusions about the reasonableness of Caldwell et al’s (2010) assertion that a positive relationship between image management, trust, and ethical stewardship likely exists, but that the relationship is simply not visible.Stage 5 leadership is based on an article in the Harvard Business Review about a form of leaders UNLIKE Donald Trump and Jack Welch — they are not self-promoting, prefer to stay in the background, and are successful due to a combination of humility and force of will. They focus on building capacity in their organizations for the kind of culture they want (in my view through systems, behind the scenes work) and not on the force of their personality. Their contributions tend to survive long after they leave the position because their legacy is in what they built, and not the short-term impact of their charisma or personality.
I believe the Harvard people have inadvertently uncovered the pair of Christlike virtues known as humility and faith — pre-requisites for personal power you find in the Book of Mormon.
As I read this, I started realizing that I too have been like the Stage 5 leader. Many are humble because they doubt themselves. So they find they are constantly not promoting themselves because they believe they are always striving to be adequate to the task. I think there is an implicit reliance on God to help them be successful as they believe they can’t do it on their own given their shortcomings. That is humility. At the same time, they are driven to push through obstacles, perhaps driven by faith in their vision, or for religious people by their belief that God can empower them to achieve their vision in spite of the obstacles through miracles and his intervention.
That’s just me though. And as I reflected on the times in my life I was transformational, I had these characteristics. I haven’t used them much, except perhaps in my family as I seek to really have an impact on the lives of my children.
Thanks, wayfarer. I agree completely with your last couple of comments and appreciate you framing the idea the way you did.
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