The extreme confrontation of erudition with wisdom (but not vice versa) has been discovered in the research developed during more than 10 years in the field of Talent Development. The research was led by Peter Belohlavek.
Wisdom can be defined as the capacity of an individual to integrate idealism and realism with value-adding actions. The characteristic of individuals who achieved wisdom is that they had multiple masters that had an authoritative role in their lives. These roles are still in force and they still admire them.
Admiration and functional envy are the concepts that allow for achieving wisdom. Individuals who admire others’ achievements and deeds have the opportunity to achieve wisdom, but only if they pursue the objective of adding value in an environment. Functional envy drives individuals to achieve goals.
Individuals with conflictive relations with authority can never achieve wisdom. They might be extremely erudite, extremely hard workers but they will never be able to integrate idealism and realism with a value-adding attitude in their environment.
The apparent paradox of wisdom is the need for multiple masters. It is said that disciples are those learners who overcome their masters. But wisdom, defined as the space where an individual has been able to integrate idealism and realism with value-adding actions, cannot be overcome. What is the difference between Wisdom and Erudition?
Wisdom
Wisdom is a state that requires focusing on specific aspects of reality using questions to apprehend their nature, and having the necessary conscious knowledge of the environment in order to generate value.
Wisdom cannot be overcome because the nature of some aspects of reality has been apprehended and can be managed.
But it has to be considered that wise people do not consider competing with others to have a place in the world. They earned it and have it. That is why they remain masters in the field they are wise.
Erudition
Erudition is an addiction that drives people to build a parallel hypothetical reality where they consider themselves wise. It is a frequent addiction of rationally gifted individuals.
They are driven by envy which makes them accumulate data they use to judge the originators of the data while they try to demonstrate to others that they are wise.
This allows them to confront others in their hypothetical reality to feel that their judgments make them wise.
They need to manipulate in order to make their hypothetical reality prevail over actual facts.
Opinators: The pseudo-erudites
Opinators are individuals whose goal is to impose their opinions in their area of influence in order to obtain full recognition for their personal opinions.
They use their pre-concepts to deal with reality and blame others for all that becomes dysfunctional when failure follows their groundless opinions.
Erudites are their implicit role model, although they do not have the energy to acquire the knowledge in order to have rational information.
They suffer from innovation blindness, therefore they disregard any information that endangers the validity of their pre-concepts.
Opinators are fundamentalists in their field of influence who install “suspicion and doubt” on any action that endangers their subjective dominant position. When they are very smart, they are notorious manipulators.
Conclusions
Competing with a master in a field where s/he is wise is a demonstration of the prevalence of the need to gain over the need to add value. Multiple masters make wisdom accessible.
Erudition is not analogous to wisdom; it might be different or a fallacious “version” of wisdom. Wisdom implies action while erudition does not.
Achieving wisdom cannot be a goal for a wise person; wisdom is the consequence of the action of an individual but does not cause it. It is unwise to try to achieve wisdom.
That is why wisdom is a pathway with multiple masters. Masters are ordinary or extraordinary people who have achieved wisdom in some field. Look for them while you continue adding value.
To achieve wisdom you need to abandon your modesty and expand your humbleness. Wise people do not need to be right, just functional.
The Unicist Research Institute