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  • From: <activism98201@verizon.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] The limits of intelligence (was: generating hope)
  • Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:56:51 -0500 (CDT)

What's needed is wisdom.

I agree with Harvey that intelligence is no guarantor that things would turn
out right.

It's my (simple) understanding that wisdom is the ability to understand how
to properly apply intelligence.

I liken all of this to the phrase "a straight shooter." Well, one can shoot
straight, that's a plus, but if your aim is bad then that straight shot
(hitting what you're aiming at) ain't really going to cut it. Aim right and
shoot straight, that's wisdom exercised!


In this group I find a true quest for wisdom...


-mark


=====================
From: Harvey Ussery <boxwood@nelsoncable.com>

>
> I understand the comforting appeal in the idea that we can change the world
> and manifest whatever our hearts desire by believing that what we want is
> already true. But unfortunately some of the otherwise most intelligent
> people I know are stuck in ignorance and denial because of this belief.
> ~Doug
>

Taking this thought in a slightly different direction: Being intelligent
(and we could throw in well-educated) is no guarantee that one will "get
it right" where the Big Questions are concerned. The vast majority of
people these days grow up completely divorced from the growth of food,
therefore they cannot possibly think correctly about critical issues of
agriculture, soil loss, runoff pollution, food quality, on and
on--however intelligent they are. Indeed, I will hazard the statement
that, so long as one is estranged from the realities of food production
and the natural systems in which it takes place, then the *more*
intelligent one is, the more likely one will come up with
well-intentioned but disastrous solutions to the manifest problems
deriving from a misguided and polluting agriculture.

~Harvey





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