Did They Get The Wisdom?

Madame M:

Psychologists give us the short answer that we, in primal fashion, make quick, intellectually shallow, and emotionally pulsing decisions about “security” and “action” in favor of things that promise demonstrative and often speedy “results.”  Education, infrastructure, and environment, by contrast, are slow, seemingly non-urgent, harder to visualize results, and emotionally non-evocative.  We continually demonstrate the lack of wisdom needed to overcome this predisposition.

Ah, Madame taps on one of my favorite subjects and places: Finland.  They do things differently than us, don’t they?  How we “educate,” as you so aptly demonstrate, is, in contrast to the Finns who rate near top in the world, non-holistic, making us ill-rounded “specialized” future workers, without intellectual or social foundations (and making us less communal in the process).  The process is also faulty from conception as well.  For it also has the effect of disconnecting us from nature and the biosphere.  We then subsequently view those things as “separate” from us, and able to be manipulated as cost-free “commodities” to assume in the background but not to care for.  So the very foundation of EVERYTHING else—economics, culture, freedom, fulfillment, etc.—is perceived as optional for our concern.

If we are an experiment in seeding by a higher intelligent alien race, they must have written us off as a failure long ago for our lack of discernment.  Or maybe we are just children who will make a lot of mistakes, do a lot of damage, take a long time for the lessons to sink in, and then forget the lessons relatively quickly and start the process all over again. :)

As to prevalence of common sense by region, to my knowledge (which is not extensive on the subject), although psychological studies have been done, regional determinant studies have not.  What circumstantial evidence exists points to what one would suspect in advancing the case for Midwest common sense: reduced pace, fewer distractions, smaller communities, less “over-intellectualizing,” more connection with the life cycle/growth cycle/natural world, practical accomplishment emphasis—and the culture that forms from it, more reflective time, space—physical and mental—for thoughtful consideration, etc.

Of course, nearly as many writers have also expressed frustration with the visionless, rut-prone, anti-intellectual, pedestrian, “redneck,” character of a good deal of the Midwest population, as well. :)  So maybe we might tentatively say, with less backing other than some historical examples and some anecdotal support, that the rare national leaders that emerge from the area often show high degrees of common sense. No analysis whether they trace a Finnish ancestor. :)