To the extent he can give wise counsel and escape a whipping he is a wiser man than I. That, too,is practical wisdom. I panic listening to the video. If this is what wisdom and virtue sound like, in counseling America's wealthiest families, what does that make me? A world class fool, at best, a sorry excuse for a fool at worst. My friends tell me that Wealth Bondage should be a musical. Maybe I can get Keith to coauthor the libretto or score the songs. But if he is getting paid for wisdom already, he may not have an incentive to create a work of art, holding the mirror up to nature as Horace did in the Court of Caesar Augustus, or as Brecht did in the Weimar Republic. One thing about mirrors is that I never look in one. To see what I have become creeps me out. How did I come to this? How did I who in my youth once loved literature, philosophy, and theory as the highest form of fun become so gaunt and disconsolate? Was it my selling these moral consulting services to wealthy people, to make a living? Did I prostitute wisdom for filthy lucre and access to the mighty? Hell no! I can't even give wisdom away. And the closest I ever got to power was the time I fell asleep drunk in the street and was run over by Mayor Bloomberg's motorcade. I think it was the bum wine and losing my teeth, and maybe the endless lobotomies, that have made me look so antique. I could figure now in a moral fable: "Consider, poor Phil, this walking ruin, naked before you, trembling with cold and the effects of alcoholism, his eyes shifty and red, ashamed even to look at you! Beware! Here is what happens to those who fail to put higher education to good account. Be wise, like the good counselor, the wise and trusted advisor to wealthy families, Keith! Be like Keith!" And then Keith could walk on looking sharp. I am good with it, if I get to sleep indoors while the gig lasts.
Wow! I'm not sure I understood what Keith is saying, but what I understand is that in addition to the charity industry and the philanthropy industry and--Lord knows, the academic industry--there is a wisdom industry and he's probably its Frederick Winslow Taylor.
Posted by: dqkelley | February 03, 2014 at 03:37 PM
The demand for wisdom is relatively stagnant to declining, yet the supply increases exponentially, what with the internet and all.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | February 05, 2014 at 03:15 PM