[MD] irony and socrates

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
To make a judgment based on what college someone graduate from or the 
number of academic degrees attained would leave out a lot of smart people.

[John]
Mostly  a social phenomena.  I even had more than a few college 
professors hammer this home, that when you go to a really good 
school, it's not to get a really good education - it's to make really 
good social connections.

[Arlo]
This is a language deficiency issue. Personally I think it as "wise" 
versus "smart". Smart people are people trained in particular area. 
The have a wide range of knowledge about that field, they can offer 
insights into that field, and more or less can speak with authority 
on subjects in that field. Wise people are people who (a bit loosley 
defined) "get it". They are people who seen beyond particular subject 
fields, evidence great "common sense" and have the ability to point 
our gaze at the Void. Some people call this "book smarts versus life smarts".

We also have to be careful about "smart", as it sounds 
all-encompassing when it is not. I have a friend who is a brilliant 
(read "smart") mechanic. In this field, he is much smarter than I, 
and I am happy to cede to his authority on subjects in that field. 
But the smartest mechanic alive can't perform open-heart surgery, any 
more than the smartest surgeon alive can strip down and rebuild a 
combustion engine. "Smart" then is domain specific.

Of course people can be both "smart" and "wise", and that is the 
combination that shines. Wisdom without "smarts" ends up very often 
never being heard. "Smarts" without wisdom, I'd argue, is the very 
"intellectualism" being discussed. Of course, someone without smarts 
or wisdom wouldn't know how to build or bomb, of even if doing so 
would be a good idea.

Perhaps it is seen as a "can-should" split. A smart person "can", a 
wise person knows if s/he "should". People talk about this a lot 
regarding genetics. We "can" genetically tailor babies, but "should" 
we? We "can" build atomic weapons, but "should" we? We "can" 
supertune our engine so that our Mustang goes 120mph, but "should" we 
drive at those speeds? :-)