Whitlam, Freda --- "Editorial - Wisdom" [2002] ElderLawRw 1; (2002) 1 Elder Law Review 2

Wisdom

Freda Whitlam, A.M.

Among the ancient Romans and Greeks the old men—the senators and presbyters—were regarded as sources and keepers of wisdom. They were the survivors, the end result of the training to be respected citizens, fathers of families and of the state. They usually died before they reached sixty.

Slaves did the work. Senators were in charge, members of the leisured class who had the time and money to study languages, philosophy and rhetoric, to explore the expression of ethical relationships. They were skilled in negotiation and discernment between right and wrong, shrewd, judicious and prudent. Their wisdom depended on the lifetime pursuit of the right words. They also knew that the best expression of wisdom may sometimes be silence. Many a reputation then and now has been earned this way.

Wisdom, as a word, comes from Old English, not from the scholarly, classical tradition that has dominated our education system and given us the law profession. In fact, over the centuries many people, including scholars, have developed some distrust for classically trained, clever wordsmiths and smart debaters, who shape facts to suit their arguments. Sophistry for us means a subtle, specious method of reasoning designed to deceive. We no longer recognise a work like sapience.

Nowadays the word wisdom is used and appreciated only by older folks. Wise now belongs to old owls and, added to nouns like crack and gay, changes prejudically.

Yet our world need wise, professional people to listen, analyse, adjudicate and then to present a balanced, well-written, report. Judges, meeting this standard, are the most widely respected exponents of wisdom in our society.

However there is also an unlettered tradition of wisdom accepted and unacknowledged. It has grown over the millennia from observation, community sharing and ancestral experience. It is the wisdom of generations of craftsmen and mothers and storytellers around fires. It rises from grass-roots trial-and-error and traditionally is embodied in old women and men.

Despite unprecedented numbers of older people in our population this is the wisdom that we are rapidly losing now the economic rationalists are trying to turn us into customers rather than citizens.

Our universities are emaciated. One thousand Australian people make unsuccessful suicide attempts each week. The numbers of homeless have doubled in the last ten years. Of our richest people, 40% claim no donations to charity. Last year 8.7 million prescriptions for anti-depressants were filled. Drug companies don’t research devastating diseases of the poor like malaria and sleeping sickness, because they focus almost exclusively on the afflictions of the affluent.

Where is the wisdom in all this? Subtle pressures gag dissenting voices: threats of job loss and cutbacks, decreasing availability of government-subsidised legal representation, etc.

But President Kennedy said, “Each person only has to make a ripple. If we each do that, we’ll make together a wave whose force will knowck down any barrier.” One vote made Hitler leader of the Nazi Party. One vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.

True wisdom comes from each one of us living with and for others. The three things we crave most in life—happiness, freedom and peace of mind—come by giving them to someone else.

Robert Putnam has invented the term “social capital” to cover all the community bonds and interpresonal connections we make as we talk, volunteer, picnic, donate, play and plan together. We are doing these things less and less in the Western world. It is the older people—over sixty with time to live—who continue to volunteer and build up social capital.

For some of us wisdom is associated with a hunger for a meaning in and through the lives we live. We know that beyond our knowledge there is a powerful creature energy and reality which is wisdom and truth and love, setting a standard for us to reflect in our neighbourhood, making order and hope out of confusion.

There are no short cuts to wisdom—live long enough, think of others, listen, participate, love, dare—and you may be asked to speak up for wisdom.