Is Wisdom measured by age?

Hello wonderful people! I will be discussing the idea of wisdom. This shall be discussed within the African context. I hope you find it interesting as I will try to tell you how we view somethings here!

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The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance. Benjamin Franklin

In my latest post, I talked about the importance of respect as far as Africans are concerned. I also talked about the order of birth which suggest superiority of one person over the other by virtue of coming to the world first. You can read more here as this serve as the foundation for this.

Wisdom is the quality of good judgement, knowledge, ability to make rational and critical decisions. It is a quality that not everybody possess. Just like the saying: common sense is not common.

There is what we call sagacity or sageness in Africa. This idea was actually explicated by Kenya scholar, Odera Oruka who believes that not all aged Africans can be regarded as sage. Sage as discussed by Oruka means aged people with wisdom and good understanding of African traditions and customs. 

Oruka maintains that to reach sageness, certain things must be fulfiled. For Oruka, a sage is:

* One who lives a good and moral life

* One who died naturally – not from sickness or mysterious death

*       One who has children – no barren individual can be regarded as a sage

* One who is very old with grandchildren

So the above must be met before one can be regarded as a sage.

On the idea of wisdom, the Africans believe that it is a quality that only aged people possess. This is evident in most of their proverbs and adage. To explain better, let me use some of those adage within the Yoruba (an ethnic group in Nigeria) context.

They have adage like:

Bi omode ba laso bi agba, ko le lakisa bi agba – no matter how many cloths a kid has, he cannot have rags like the elders.

Ohun ti agba ri lori ijoko, bi omode ba naga, ko leri – whatever the elders see while sitting, a kid cannot see it even while standing.

Ohun ti agaba ri ti oju e fi ko wole, ti omode ba ri, oju e a fo – What an elder have seen with his eyes, if a kid sees it, the eyes will go blind

All the above are literal interpretations to fully understand the idea behind those adage. These are some of the things we are quickly told as kid when we try to correct or make suggestions to the elders.

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As a young kid, you cannot possibly recite a proverb in front of the elders without possibly seeking their permission first. The idea of respect for the elders is something that Africans cherish so much.

While i was an undergraduate, with my little knowledge of philosophy then, I find it very difficult to agree with my mom on somethings especially when the idea of ‘fallacy’ was very new to me as an undergraduate. I would say to her: mom, that is wrong. Why not look at it from this angle. But she doesn't take any of it. Her responses were: I was born before you, I gave birth to you, I sent you to school, what I have seen you don’t know half of it so you cannot possibly tell me what to do! So they believe they know more than you. Even when we make any decision, they already anticipated the outcome because whatever we do, they have seen it before or something that resembles it and as such they have their conclusions.

They know things as elders but they don’t know all things. What most of them have is orality. The ideas passed to them by their forefathers. Things with similarities do not always turn out to be the same thing. What some of us know cannot be overlooked. 

Age has nothing to do with wisdom. It is a combination of so many qualities. It Is high time we started getting involved as youths and show them that we are equally capable for the task. When they say we are leaders of tomorrow, you wonder when ‘tomorrow’ will come or what they mean by tomorrow. 

This could be why we do not have youth president. We are always told: It is not for the kids. This is because they think we are not capable of the task ahead. Age should be respected because we are African but it shouldn’t deny us of a chance to show what we can do or achieve.

Wisdom is a quality that every human being can possess irrespective of their age whether old or young. It is a mater of how we build our intellects, books we read, things we pay attention to and many others.

What do you think? Is wisdom something only the aged possess? 

Please drop comments below.

Thanks for reading. Its your boy @smyle the philosopher.