Essay: Triangle of Knowledge

The process of a Presidential election, including the party selection of nominees, the campaign, the individual citizen decisions on why to cast a ballot, and the filling of key cabinet posts by the eventual winner, all address what is a fundamental distinction--almost always ignored--between three similar descriptors: 'intelligent', 'smart' and 'well-educated'. In fact, these are very different things. Not only should they not be used interchangeably, but to do so allows nefarious agents to blur and pervert the traits we look for in a person ('elitist', 'snob', 'pointy-headed liberal'), particularly in one as important as the President of a nation.

Together, these three traits of 'smart', 'intelligent' and 'educated' combine to create knowledge (what in the original Greek was philosophus, or 'lover of knowledge'), a trait that even the most jaded political operatives dare not mess with--we all want leaders with wisdom. We may turn our noses up at the idea of a 'philosopher-king', but we all respect people who who are wise.

Here's how these words differ:

• Intelligent: this is the capacity to learn. You can not fit six gallons of water into a five gallon bucket. Some people have a greater ability to understand and know things. And intelligence itself has many components: there are people who almost intuitively understand an algebraic equation, but can't write a simple sentence--and vice versa.
  
  


• Educated (or for our purposes, 'well-educated'): this is an issue of simple opportunity. Perhaps the most naturally gifted physicist in history lived her life in some backwater of the third world, never entering a classroom of any kind--her gift was lost to civilization. On the other hand, when we describe someone as well-educated, we talk about achieving a level of accomplishment (diploma) in educational institutions of varying repute. (The value of education almost entirely derives from the wisdom of the instructors involved, but instead we tend to value education by mistakenly assuming the wisest instructors dwell in the institutions of highest repute--'Harvard', or 'Stanford', instead of the 'community college'). In any case, the purpose of education is to open up minds to things that otherwise would have remained ignored, and the goal of an educator is to perform that function in a memorable and meaningful way.
  
  


• Smart: This is the most mercurial of the three terms, a potion composed of experience, observation, intuition, analysis and application. It is hard to become smart in a short amount of time, because experience is such a vital component. It's what gives birth to such expressions as, 'if I knew then what I know now...', and 'youth is wasted on the young'. But the keystone to understanding smart is that it can exist in some people as a perfect antonym to intelligent. The two do not necessarily go together.

It may be useful to consider a 'triangle of knowledge', with knowledge as the desirable centerpiece, and its degree of achievement reflected by how intelligent, educated and smart an individual may be:

Let's assume the above is the profile of a person with base-level wisdom. The 'smarter' or 'more intelligent' or 'better educated' a person becomes, the further they will push that respective tangent of the triangle closer to the middle...and subsequently achieve a greater degree of wisdom. In this sense, someone who has reached an extremely high level of wisdom will have moved each of the tangents closer to the middle, so that the triangular 'profile' of that person would include an inordinate expansion of the knowledge center. It might look something like this:

But to repeat, this is an ideal...an intellect benefiting disproportionately and simultaneously from a very good education, a very high intelligence and all of the factors that make him very smart about the world.

The far more common reality is that people do not increase each of these components proportionately. In fact, the pursuit of wisdom at any given time forms a personal triangle that is seldom equilateral...almost always what mathematicians would call 'scalene', in that each of the sides is a different length, representing how far education, intelligence and 'smartness' have moved us toward knowledge. Think of it as a distinctive 'fingerprint'. Here's an example:

This person is well developed in both intelligence and education, but for some reason 'just doesn't get it' in the real world. I have a particular person in mind for this profile--Condoleeza Rice. Her level of academic accomplishment is beyond question, and could not have been reached without superior intelligence and the access to extraordinarily well-regarded educational institutions. However, her abysmal performance as both national security advisor and Secretary of State (and with 'abysmal', I'm being kind), betrays an apparently inherent disability to analyze people and situations in the real world, and apply appropriate steps. In that sense, she's simply not smart.

Similarly, were we to put together the 'fingerprint' for George W. Bush, it would be similarly scalene, but the distant attribute in the triangle would be intelligence, not smart. Obviously, he has walked the grounds of excellent educational institutions and unquestionably understands how to work the levers of power in the real world. But by his own admission, and the testimony of those closest to his administration, he has insisted on 'trusting my gut', and all but banned the intellectual give-and-take which is the foundation of developing intelligence. He is a man whose dyslexia likely opened him up to ridicule and separation during his education, and perhaps led him to avoid similar embarrassments in the future. Much of the failure of his eight years...from the Iraq invasion to Katrina to the financial meltdown...resulted from 'outsourcing' whatever intelligence was necessary to the few he trusted, regardless of their own wisdom, and demanding blind obedience to his 'gut' from everyone else.

Of course, this 'fingerprint' is not the entire story for any person. Character matters, and frequently overpowers all aspects of wisdom. A vice president suffering from megalomania, a governor corrupt enough to offer a Senate appointment to the highest bidder, make irrelevant any combination of smarts, intelligence and education.

Which leads us, finally, to speculation about the incoming President. His resume and academic performance certainly speak to both education and intelligence. His reputed insistence on disagreement among advisers as a means to set policy make him the polar opposite of Bush. And criticisms aimed at him for not selecting enough 'new faces' within his key cabinet posts is not a sign of backtracking, but rather a healthy respect for those who have become smart by experiencing the chaos of government and circumstance, reconciling conflicting constituencies, and simply confronting adversity.

What remains to be determined about the Obama White House is how much policy and history might be determined by the nature of his own largely secreted character. Does his insistence on 'inclusion' create risk by allowing wolves into the hen house? Does growing up without a father lead to an over reliance on a 'heavenly father'? Does barely a decade in public office create a vacuum of experience...and if so, who will he turn to first to help fill that vacuum?

Obama's degree of wisdom for his age is unquestionably impressive. Throughout the campaign, opponents fired repeatedly at his character...and hit nothing. Combined, this is largely what inspired his movement--beyond policy and 'change', he is the person most of his supporters want to be, or wished they had become.

But the troubles he faces, aside from the overwhelming docket of doom left on his desk by his predecessor, seem likely to come from his void of experience on the level of management. How 'smart' will he be here? America may no longer be the 'greatest nation on Earth' (or maybe it still is), but there is little argument that at this moment President of the United States is still the most important job on Earth. As we step into a New Year, we should give thanks that no matter what he has yet to learn, the first one through the door is one who already has so admirably fulfilled his triangle of wisdom.