The Extra Parsec

An acquaintance of mine prides herself on being smart and having accomplished things in life because of being smart. But, to me, it’s obvious from listening to her words that her intelligence — her raw IQ — barely threatens to eclipse the average. That may sound brutal, but such a perception is exactly the point of this entry. So where do her accomplishments come from, if not her surpassing intelligence? Mainly, she just has gumption — the spark of passionate desire, the dedicated hardheadedness, and the sheer ballsiness to pursue her goals. But she rarely credits anything resembling such qualities; she prefers to credit her smarts which I believe just aren’t anything to write home about.

From casual observation, I’d say this is true for a lot of people, too. Among the “smart kids” I knew from high school and college, very few of them truly seemed to possess exceptional intelligence. What was chalked up as raw Brain by teachers, parents, and the individuals themselves actually seemed to me a glorious, diverse palette of other virtues that went strangely unrecognized, or rather misrecognized as simple cognitive ability.

Collectively, we seem to revere intelligence extremely highly — higher, I’d argue, than any other virtue that has application outside the confines of our private lives.

This has certainly been my own judgement over long periods of my life. What could be more valuable than being innately smart, I thought at one time, since it is the one virtue that can give birth to all others? At other times in my life, being a smart kid was the only aspect of myself I didn’t altogether hate; I valued intelligence because, I thought, it was all I had to cling to in this world, all I had of worth.

But of course not all virtue can be born of raw reason. Our postmodern science fiction is replete with stories of passionless, superintelligent computers receiving their most powerful enlightenment through a proverbial Android’s Holy Grail: the smallest drop of human emotion. And early Romantic works like Frankenstein also express that side of our culture that believes in the danger of embracing our rational intelligence too zealously, neglecting our other faculties. Clearly there has existed a thread of our culture that has recognized over-valuing of intelligence ever since the Enlightenment vaulted intelligence to the primacy of our values.

But the Enlightenment, I’d argue, in addition to being an historical term not without a twinge of irony, never really ended. We’re still living it. We pour gobs of money and manpower into an educational system that produces the occasional poet and ridiculed philosophy major, but mostly recognized academics like lawyers, scientists, journalists, and doctors. And as a result, our doctors have ensured that we’re living longer than ever before.

But aren’t most of those long lives still lived in quiet desperation?

A conversation with another friend yesterday partially prompted this post. “There are many more important things to have,” I told my friend, “than smarts.” “Like what?” she asked me. I fumbled a couple of trite-but-true poetic virtues, but then a big one struck me: humility. Humility is the central ingredient to Taoist values. It’s also the key to Christian repentance, forgiveness, and compassion. And it’s also that virtue that encourages us to recognize our lack of understanding of the universe — that virtue without which even the most brilliant scientist might be prone to embracing a fallacious hypothesis. Humility is the virtue that, nowadays, I would find far easier to argue as the one virtue from which all others are born.

But we certainly don’t teach humility in schools. Nor do we teach compassion, or peacemaking, or selflessness, or awareness. I believe we don’t teach them in schools because, to varying degrees, virtue always implies a value judgement, and we’re collectively offended by any value judgements in public or government-sponsored arenas like schools. The only value judgement our schools tacitly teach kids is the value of being smart above all else; anything else is outside schools’ purview.

But more to the point, are other virtues really in demand? Ask yourself when you last looked at someone, deeply awed, and said, “Wow, that person is so humble.” See? No one cares about humble.

No one cares about “humble” because “humble” doesn’t get you stuff. Humble won’t let you rise to the top of a corporation, or let you patent a new hybrid fuel engine, or let you release a multi-platinum album. “Humble” does not lead to power, fame, or glory of any kind. People don’t talk about the humble, because there’s probably not much to talk about; they’re quiet people whose actions have largely invisible consequences. The humble seem powerless. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I say the opposite: absolute power is wrought by absolute corruption. But if power and corruption are mutually exclusive with humility, then what could humility possibly get you?

Humility lets you sleep at night.

Christ so famously said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” I’ve always been somewhat puzzled by this, since the meek have no desire to possess the earth in the first place — that’s what makes them the meek. But the greater message of the Beatitudes — that the humble underdogs are more receptive to God’s saving grace than any others — is something I recognize as absolute Truth. And though I make the point in the context of Christianity for the sake of high-profile recognition, the virtue and its rewards span all faiths — even a lack of it.

What finally got me thinking about all this enough to write about it was a walk to the mailbox yesterday evening. Inside I found my new Mensa membership card. I had renewed my old membership over the web during a bad night a couple weeks ago. I had been depressed, stewing, and a little drunk. I had felt like I couldn’t do anything right, but at least I was smart, damn it. I even had a test that said so. A quick renewal fee charged to my credit card, and five to ten business days later, and I had a card that said so, too. Beer and brains was all it took to give me worth to the world.

And, in truth, intelligence does have worth. But intelligence can accomplish little good as a virtue respected solely for its own sake, without the greater context of humility, compassion, and whatever other virtues you care to recognize.

More importantly, intelligence has no bearing on our worth as human beings. Intelligence recognizes worth in only that which has reason to be. Ultimately, no matter one’s faith or lack thereof, the only answer to “why are we here?” is the fulfillment of our great ministry to one another. That ministry could be of God’s love or of secular humanist love, or any of the other shades of color that come from the great box of faith and philosophy crayons (heh). Without our great ministry we are utterly reasonless. Intelligence cannot give our lives worth; only our other virtues can do that.

That’s why, when I consider a person’s intelligence to be not among her outstanding virtues, I don’t see that as brutal. That person happens to be a wonderful, well-rounded human being. I can learn much just by quietly paying attention to her, and I’m already a better person just for having known her. Her life enriches my own. But these are not opinions formed through relentless logic, nor should they be.

No matter how intelligent a human being is, he can never find worth in his own life or in those around him through the means of reason. No matter how smart he is, he must lay down the craving for intellect and embrace his humility before he can end his life’s quiet desperation. No matter how sweet the fruit of knowledge tastes, he must forsake his appetite for it before he can walk back into Eden.