Can wisdom be bad?

Question

we had a big agrument in english class today about it our teacher said that wisdom can't be bad. is that true?

we were reading the native american story about grizzly bears and the great god punished them for creating people. couldn't that be wisdom?

Answer 1

Wisdom is not bad. However, wise people may differ on what is good.

E.g., compare. 'Opposites attract' vs 'Birds of a feather flock together'. Both are wise, yet disagree.

Answer 2

Wisdom is misunderstood. A wise person may not demonstrate the same behaviour in the same situation because he or she is doing what is called for in each individual situation. Discernment is a big part of wisdom.

Wise people have a great deal of tolerance and usually do not participate in the melodramas and hype that our society tends to create. Wise people can often be seen as non-committal and unpredictable.

Wisdom is not to be confused with intellectual knowledge. One has to do with the development of the individual's individuality and the latter has to do with the development of the person's mental capacities. There is nothing wrong with developing the intellect but it won't necessarily develop the integrity of the person or make them happy. And if it's truth that the individual is seeking, wisdom is the only path to take. If you follow the road of intellectualism you will only find more questions and become more disillusioned. Only if one persists, will they eventually come into wisdom and truth.

Answer 3

Wisdom is, by definition, good. It is the knowledge of truth combined with the correct judgement of that truth.

But knowledge is such a tricky thing. "Wisdom" does not declare how complete the knowledge of truth is. Perhaps the judgement would be different if other truths were realized as well, for instance.

For yourself, your wisdom could never be bad to you. This is because only the right actions/decisions you do/make could be due to what-you-believe-to-be wisdom.

So, in a way, yes. But in other ways, false wisdom can lead to bad things. For instance, the crusades. Christians thought it was right to go around killing non-christians for the sake of them being non-christian. They thought this done in wisdom, but really it was foolish.

Answer 4

Wisdom cant be bad for us, but for the government it can be bad if people have too much of it, one example was around the 60s in the U.S. when education in the US had reached one of its highest points, and soon the college students began to try to over throw the gov't...
And basically after that the money for schools was cut off dramatically.. lol
Well you will have a liberal U.S. history teacher sooner or later and you will see how that went, have fun

Answer 5

A little bit of knowledge in the wrong hands can be terrible. However, wisdom and knowledge are two different things. Wisdom comes with age and experience. It's a good thing.

Answer 6

Your teacher is right. Wisdom is using our knowledge to help ourselves and others. Knowledge can be bad or good. Wisdom tells us the difference and shows us the right way to use that knowledge.

Answer 7

Wisdom is about making judgements of complex situations in order to behave in as good a way as possible, so wisdom itself cannot be bad only an unwise decision can be bad.

Answer 8

Wisdom, being derived from wise, always means the best. Now who defines what is best? With every "good" their comes with it an associative "evil". Quick example: Low prices are "good" for the consumer but "bad" for the producer. It is otherwise known as yen-yang.

Answer 9

In chess, wisdom is how far ahead you plan your moves and how successful your executions of them. In life you may have many more pieces, many more moves, many more players -- opponents and allies -- playing on the same board, at roughly the same time, but the idea is the similar.

Answer 10

Wisdom is the reward for lessons learned. We learn as we live and life is wonderful, and wisdom is what helps us make less mistakes tomorrow-hopefully