Philosophy Now Forum

Too Smart to Understand

They admit they’ll never
know how much sand
lays upon the beach,
but they will not depart
from their belief in the secular art
of scientific ‘fact’ which,
though quite bland,
much of society can’t understand;
yes, they may be reacting
from their heart,
yet they are (not for their own good)
too damn ‘smart’
and thus closed to the spirit
—God’s own hand.
Though the intellectuals
will do naught but brand
the spirit as ‘hokus pokus’
and start muttering amongst themselves
how quite grand
they are, like a bull’s eye
hit by a dart,
and the large grants ready
at their command
and how God’s the donkey
pushing the cart.


Frank G. Sterle, Jr.
White Rock, B.C., Canada

Good question, because it has severe relevance to the criteria and curriculum of the western education system, which is now under the capitalist hegemonic umbrella mostly.
Other cultures emphasize firstly an emotional social intelligence, which is integrated within the various social institution's rationale of an holistic, thus egalitarian platform for all of its members' desires.

PS. Mainly meaning by other cultures those that do not have prisons. Societies that structure intelligence on IQ tests are mostly hierarchical, therefore, the consequence is exclusion defined by it as crime, and THAT IQ societies penalty is usually confinement of some sort, or a classified system of seperation from an elitist sector.