Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Knowledge vs wisdom and a disturbing skit....

I was puttering around KBW blogs and came across this brouhaha which made me realise that some people have different qualities. Some people have;
Knowledge:Organized or contextualised information which can be used to produce new meanings and generate new data.
While others have;
Wisdom: the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight.
( Feel free to pick your own definition from the myriad that are available on-line).
Knowledge does not mean that someone will always make the right decision, it merely means they have the tools to make the decision at their fingertips but doesn't mean they will. I don't see myself as an avatar of wisdom, I have more than once made mistakes; but I pride myself on the ability to learn from them. What I find astounding is how the arguments articulated by some of the people on this and other comment boards makes you wonder if they ever stepped into a university lecture room or even a high school classroom! Add to that heated passions and you have a recipe for chaos.
Knowledge and passion do not always make for good reasoning but Wisdom and a level head more often than not do, that is one thing I am thankful for learning after reading some of those arguments.
Another lesson that I learnt is that the hand that rocks the cradle indeed rules the world, some of the arguments being articulated slung were clearly learned at mother's bosom or on daddy's lap and knowledge has been used to rationalise and sanitise them. But at the end of the day whether you call it feculence or excrement, it still smells just as bad. One thing that education is meant to help us to do is to examine the beliefs and values we grew up with and realise their relevance or obsolescent nature, not rationalise all of them. Because we have to admit that not all the beliefs and values we have grown up with are positive.
At times we learn more by losing gracefully than an ugly win. As for the arguments, I am not going to point out who I think has knowledge or wisdom, while there are some characters there who lack both; feel free to make that decision for yourself.

I was flipping across channels the other day and came across this skit on one of the WWE wrestling shows.Call it over-reaction but I think that this skit is somewhat racist because it's just reinforcing the usual stereotypes about black males. But on the other hand this is a culture where many black males are proud to refer to themselves as thugs and doing time is often seen as a badge of honor so what do I know? Plus it is a well known fact that the owner of the WWE Vince McMahon holds nothing holy, he has even used the death of one of his popular wrestlers to set up a plot-line that has run for several PPVs. He was going to use a bi-sexual wrestler to set up a plotline that was to have a love triangle between 2 male wrestlers and a woman, so I guess I shouldn't get that flustered because with Vince at the helm it was inevitable!

8 comments:

Prousette said...

could I be?

Anonymous said...

For all the drama going down over there! (Thinker's Room)

That is most definitely racist. What will he come up with next? I think i made a good decision when I stopped watching wrestling. I think after WWF things went straight downhill.

walk said...

A simple illustration.

This whole thing about tribalism is fast degenerating into what Hon .Michuki termed a danger to state security. What was a frank discussion is now clearly promoting tribal animosity .I just hope that when M gets picked up he has a good lawyer.

The point I was trying to get across put simply is this .Kenya is like a marriage. When a couple comes together they come together as a man and a woman. bring the different qualities that make them as individuals but working together to make the marriage work. The marriage can’t work if both parties disregard that they are different and have different roles. It is this differences and the harnessing of the differences that makes the marriage work. The same thing applies to Kenya. Some people say we should do away with tribe and just be Kenyans .other like myself say first be proud of yourself and your community and bring that same love and contribute to Kenya. A famous pastor once said you have to be a complete man before you can go looking to settle down with a wife.

The same applies to Kenya. Be proud of where you come from .Then bring that to the table and contribute to nation building .diversity is not a disadvantage. It is a gift that should be harnessed .be proud of your community and your people. It is only those with narrow minds who equate pride in tribal heritage to mean a dislike for all others.

I will always be proud of my heritage .I hope you can be proud of yours

Anonymous said...

Shocked beyond words....

there is no way you can can even begin to articulate an arguement ..when talking to Mindset....it should be foregone conclusion to even debate anything.

Smh at that skit...

spicebear said...

joe, if you happen to read this, please let me know how that discussion became a threat to national security. an honest discussion about tribe is detrimental how? maybe i'm not getting it, please explain.

hey aco. i had several moments reading that thread where i wanted to bash my head against something. cos really, ugh!

that clip is most definately racist. i don't care that the new trend nowadays seems to be to refuse to be too PC cos it takes the humour out of things and some of us should just leanr t get our tickles back. it is what it is. by the way, black males being proud to see themselves as thugs and proud of doing time? they do exist but it has been exaggerated to an extent. but those are discussions for another day, i don't want to get into another one of "those" discussions today.

Acolyte said...

@ prou
With everyone busy it M's it was bound to happen!
@ aegeus
WWE is so low brow that it is an insult to watch.
@ joe
I will go to M's where I will see the response to this opinion you have posted.
@ msanii
Mindset always beats logic it seems.
@ spicebear
That discussion became too ugly for me at some points too.
The clip even though it is meant to be funny has racist overtones to me too.
I feel you on the discussion mood, a break is in order.

Quintessence said...

my mind refuses to grasp 'discriminatory isms' and further, terms like 'positive tribalism' which are seemingly oxymoronic in their very nature...i believe that if one's political and esp social/human capacity is immature then try as they may, their attempt to quantify their stance comes off as mere verbiage...

Girl next door said...

I just read that whole discussion on tribalism @ M's and a few things are clear to me.
1) Positive tribalism does not exist!
2) I'm all for the 12-step program: we've all got to acknowledge that we have a problem first then take it from there. Some people are still in denial. 3) why can't people discuss issues rationally without getting too personal?
4) some things/people may never change.