As multilateral bank leaders meet, where is the
wisdom the world needs?
Anthony Rowley:
The trouble is that we do not seem to consider
ourselves accountable, either to future generations or any power outside
humanity. There is no obvious anchor in the sea of information and knowledge in
which we risk drowning…
At the very least, a little humility is needed on the
part of the many people – at least in the Western world – who seem to consider
that the march of “progress” is something that should not be questioned. Never
mind that this march has led mankind into ever more terrible and
technologically empowered conflicts, into the potential destruction of the
earth’s climate and the spoiling of the environment.
The show must go on, it seems, at whatever the cost –
unless we pause for reflection on the need for balance and for elevating wisdom
to at least an equal place alongside information and knowledge.
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“O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention,
endless experiment, brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; knowledge
of speech, but not of silence; knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, all our ignorance brings
us nearer to death, but nearness to death no nearer to GOD. Where is the Life
we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where
is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
- T.S. Eliot (The Rock, 1934)