But, then, Wisdom -

FROM SLOW WISDOM AS A SUB-VERSION OF REALITY by Walter Brueggemann

It was very late in the 7th century BCE in the ancient city of Jerusalem.  It was late, only a few years before the destruction of the city when its walls were breached the Temple destroyed, the king deported and the political state of Judah ended. It was very late for the ancient city of Jerusalem because the city was being devoured by greedy corruption of which the poet Jeremiah could say from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain, they have treated the wound of my People carelessly, saying "peace, peace" when there is no peace.  

It was very late for the ancient city of Jerusalem because the city was under threat at the hands of the aggressive Babylonian armies of which the poet Jeremiah had God say, "I am about to bring against you a nation far away.  It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, it is a nation whose language you do not know."  Now, this is only poetry and the poet does not even name the coming enemy evoked by the will of God. The description of a language that you do not know that will eat you up sounds like Al Qaeda. But it is likely, in context, Babylon. More than greedy corruption and external threat the poetic tradition of Jeremiah dares to connect the two. Because of greedy corruption, therefore enemy threat.

The God who presides over the historical process in poetic imagination connects and enacts what we would analyze differently.   The outcome of such an odd reasoning is that internal anti-neighborliness yields external risk and danger.

It was very late in Jerusalem according to prophetic anticipation and if one were such a poet, if one were Jeremiah, what would one say about poetry about greedy exloitation and after poetry of external threat dispatched by holy resolve?   Well, this is what the poet Jeremiah says in the midst of that lateness.  "Do not let the wise" - here's our theme - "boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth."

The poet focuses upon the great triad of control and pride, the three facets of having one's way in the world, might, wisdom and wealth.

Might here means military force, the capacity to control markets and natural resources.  Wealth means the capacity to manage capital and impose requirements and restraints and leverage on all of the others so that the whole of the global economy is ordered to flow toward us.

But, then, wisdom.  We had not expected wisdom to come along with might and wealth. Especially because our theme is wisdom and the work of the university is wisdom. Who can speak negatively of wisdom when we remember our great intellectual inheritance from the Greeks?  But, of course, when wisdom is situated amid might and wealth something happens to wisdom. And, of course, that is what has happened among us. We have understood with Bacon that knowledge is power and we have transposed wisdom into knowledge that could control, that strange interplay between wisdom and knowledge has brought us the gift of the great scientific revolution in Bacon's time.  And in its wake the great technological advances that have moved toward control that is never disinterested. And before we knew it Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas have entitled a book "The Wise Men," a study of six of the titanic figures who have managed U. S. foreign policy with Niebuhrian realism and have produced the abiding superpower, ample wisdom, ample might ample wealth in order to be the chosen race in the modern world.

Perhaps inevitably the great universities have signed on with that wisdom, have entered into compacts of wisdom that has bought the universities the wealth of research grants and the power of connectedness. And now we are sobered as we are in this consultation, needing to take a deep breath concerning the way of wisdom-enlightenment-knowledge to which we have been pledged. That wisdom has led us to imense power and wealth.

But it has also led us to the sad picture of Lyndon Johnson in his last days concerning Vietnam with his head in his hands completely exasperated with ineffective power.  It has led to the verdict of the brothers Bundy, McGeorge and William, architects of that war who wrote at the end of their book, "We were good but we were not as good as we thought we were."  It has led to the departure of the wise men from the White House after conferring with the president about Vietnam and without a clue of what to do next.

It has led to the oil spills and to the Japanese nuclear crisis and to the widespread suspicion that our technology has outrun our capacity to think clearly. And it has left us with deep anxiety that seeks scapegoats along with the zeal to dispose of the others if necessary by violence.

And the poet says, "Do not boast about your might, do not boast about your wisdom, do not boast about your wealth." 

In regard to my previous posts today, Bob Dole never to my knowledge departed from his role as Nixon's attack dog against the critics of America's war in Vietnam and its illegal and genocidal expansion by Nixon and his resident genius, war monger, degenerate and weapon merchant to terrorists and dictators (hint: dictators are all terrorists) Henry Kissinger.  I have no doubt that if we hadn't left Dole would have been in favor of bouncing the rubble of South East Asia many times over for the past forty five years. 

I have been thinking of transcribing a lot of this talk for a long time, today I decided to start and see how far I get.