Why talk about ancient Wisdom? After all, our world today is very different from how it was even a hundred years ago, let alone thousands. This is something I asked my father because he was always reading the Bible and quoting proverbs to me. He said that this wisdom was built up over a long time and by learning it we could avoid making mistakes that were identified long ago by people who learned them before us. This is true.
However, while technology is changing rapidly, and society can change in a few generations, the biochemical reactions and emotional responses of the human organism do not change and have not changed for thousands of years. That means that observations as to how people react to situations and how they emotionally sabotage themselves remain unchanged for thousands of years. The human being has been around for a long time. In fact, science tells us that there has been no fundamental change in the human organism for thousands of years. In other words, we are who we are today, and it is biologically the same as the humans who came before us for thousands upon thousands of years.
I remember my district superintendent, a progressive, asking me who my informing theologian was. I said that it was John Wesley, he spoke to me deeply and had much to say to us today. The superintendent asked, “Don’t you think we have learned a lot since John Wesley’s day?” To which I responded, “Sir, I read the news this morning before our meeting and from what I read it seems we haven’t learned anything since Moses gave us the Ten Commandments. We are still stealing, killing, committing adultery, acting out in jealousy, and turning away from the Divine.” [For more on the effect of our education system and learning from others see: https://sabersedge.online/learn-from-the-failure-of-others-or-fail-yourself ]
He did not like my answer and our relationship went downhill from there. This is a trait of mine. I tell the truth as I understand it. I have changed my mind several times in my life as I learn new data. And I accumulate new data at a rapid rate. I read about 4 books about science, psychology, political science, history, or international relations each month and I don’t understand those who say, “I haven’t read a book since I got out of High School.” I have read hundreds upon hundreds of books since High School and I have not even scratched the surface of accumulated human knowledge. I have told my kids that I cannot die until I have read all of my books. Since I bought 6 books last week, that is never going to happen. My sister had a book bag with a quote from Erasmus (one of her favorites,) “When I get a little money I buy books. If there is anything left I buy food and clothing.” [For more on my method of study see: https://sabersedge.online/our-life-is-filled-with-dissonance-and-resolution ]
I have read that many Americans haven’t read a book after college – in other words, they essentially stopped learning when they were no longer made to do so. This reminds me a great deal of a man who came up to John Wesley after a sermon and said to him, “The Lord has told me to tell you that he isn’t impressed with all yer book learnin’” “I know that, but thank you.” John Wesley answered. Then as the man started to turn away he said: “But sir, although God has not specifically told me to tell you this, I don’t think God is impressed with your ignorance either.” [For more on ignorance and brain washing in modern society see: https://sabersedge.online/what-can-you-do-with-stupid ]
This is all relevant to us today because we know from scientific studies that many of our reactions are determined by our genetics and biochemical processes and, as I have said, these have not fundamentally changed for a long time. In the 1960s there was a big debate about: “is it nature or is it nurture?” In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, there were a myriad of scientific studies trying to answer that question. It was important because some sociologists and psychologists were insisting that we were entirely culturally determined, this goes back to Immanuel Kant and his insistence that our minds are born as a “blank slate.” Since disproven. This does not invalidate Kant as a great thinker. He thought according to what they knew at the time. He and others have believed that our sex roles, our behavior, our attitudes, and our reactions were all created by society and could therefore be changed and perfected. This is the very heart of progressivism. However, the science of the matter became more and more clear although also more and more unpopular in some social science circles. While society and how we are raised do affect us the larger effect was biologically and genetically determined. In other words, it was neither nature nor nurture but both. [For more on how we have domesticated ourselves and broken with the natural world see: https://sabersedge.online/what-can-the-world-teach-us ]
In fact, a study by the University of Tennessee, which was never published in a scientific journal because they were afraid that unscientific people would draw the wrong conclusions, determined in studies of foster children raised in foster homes that the criminal histories of the youth more closely matched the criminal histories of their biological parents than they did their adopted parents.
The reason this wasn’t published was they were afraid we would make something like what is found in the sci-fi movie GATTACA (or that movie where they arrested people BEFORE they committed a crime for the crimes they hadn’t done yet). There is a big difference between saying children tend to follow their genetics and saying that they are determined by their genetics. In some ways, using the excuse that we are culturally “made” to commit crime is the modern version of the medieval cop out “the devil made me do it.” We still have a semblance of free will but different people have different biological and genetic challenges to overcome or potentialities to fulfill, likewise we all have our own environment to challenge us in our quest for becoming something more than what we are currently. [For more on our ability to change ourselves and who we are see: https://sabersedge.online/choose-to-be-the-hero-the-world-needs-today ]
Our genetic and biological makeup is significant and the genes we inherit and the chemicals from the sexual hormones that cause our body to develop certain di-morphic traits, all affect us in a myriad of ways. I remember reading a book The Alchemy of Love and Lust by Theresa Crenshaw and several books that studied human primates and compared them with similar primate societies in other species. These studies used the same zoological methodology on humans that are used on animals throughout the animal kingdom on the human animal. These studies all dramatically contradicted the “it’s caused by society,” “the patriarchy,” “the culture,” or other culturally conditioned arguments. Of course, modern Cultural Marxists simply ignore science so they don’t have to deal with it. Even the arguments of right and wrong which some pseudo-scientific dogmas have said were culturally determined have remarkable similarities throughout cultures from the most primitive to the most far-flung across the world. In other words, in nearly every culture, it is generally taboo to marry your own children, kill someone from your own social group, steal from someone in your own social group (including taking someone’s wife or husband without permission,) or act in a myriad of other ways that human societies have determined is not conducive to the survival of the group. With few exceptions, societies have settled on monogamy as, while maybe not a biological tendency of humanity, a simpler safeguard for society that has fewer pitfalls than other options. [For more on the manipulation of language see: https://sabersedge.online/wake-up-america-act-today-or-be-slaves-tomorrow ]
In the book Alchemy of Love and Lust she admitted that she was a psychologist raised on 1960s theory and believed that gender roles were culturally conditioned (it is amazing to me to watch this disproven idea re-emerge in society once again,) and she was determined that her sons would not be raised in a narrow cultural mindset and they would be “enlightened” and play with dolls and learn to cook. I was surprised when I read what she wrote (largely because I too was a progressive who believed in this unisex myth at the time.) She wrote: They did play with dolls. They used them as weapons. [For a discussion of the “patriarchy myth” of “women have never been portrayed as leaders” see: https://sabersedge.online/blood-and-courage-the-heroes-we-grew-up-with ]
She realized that there was something else going on than children being conditioned by some nebulous cultural patriarchy. Her boys were rough and tumble, aggressive, and bold – even though they could be sensitive and loving as well, they acted dramatically different from her daughters when she had taken great pains to raise them in the same way. She knew that something other than culture and nurture was happening here so she began studying the biochemical processes of the human organism. She found a myriad of chemicals produced by and that flood the body and the brain that produce specific responses in us and produce the gender differences that are obvious in male and female bodies. These are not conditioned by culture but by the chemicals and hormones associated with gender. From before we are born the sex of a child can be determined in the womb and bones can be found tens of thousands of years after the person has died and from the very bone structure itself it can be determined whether they were fundamentally male or female.
This is because humans, like virtually every other species on Earth, are di-morphic. This means the species is naturally divided into male and female and there are tendencies to the genetic and hormonal makeup of each that can be altered but never completely changed. I know this is controversial today but it is only controversial in people who don’t understand the biochemical processes involved (or in those who have profits they want to make in their medical or therapy practices by telling people what they want to hear.) The science is clear and denying science doesn’t do anyone any good and may even bring our survival as a species into doubt. Since over 85% of every species that has ever existed is now extinct the odds are not in our favor to begin with – we shouldn’t be mucking with it. [For more on the nature of male and female see: https://sabersedge.online/is-the-nature-of-male-and-female-unclear ]
Our modern society, especially if you grow up in the cities and don’t have access to nature and the natural world, can conceal the fact that every organism exists in a struggle to survive. If capitalism and money did not exist and we all “went back to nature” we would have a very difficult life. We would expend back-breaking effort to build our own shelter, scratch out and plant crops on the earth, and hunt down our meat in the woods. Indeed, we would also have to defend ourselves from other people who thought that it would be easier to steal our stuff than it was to do the work of survival themselves. This is as old as human history and we call them bandits and marauders. The ancient Anglo-Saxons called the “feond” which in modern English became the word “fiend.”
Recently, I saw a Tik Tok video where this young fellow was complaining, “I have to work just to have money to pay for a place to live and to eat. That’s crazy!” I have never seen such ignorance in my entire life except in small children who had no concept of human society, history, or reality but this lad was in his late teens or early twenties. Perhaps this young fellow should go out into the woods where he didn’t have to deal with “capitalist society” and could live naturally. As my 21-year-old son said when he saw that video, “Capitalism is crazy? What does he think would happen in the woods? Nature isn’t going to care if he is hungry or cold. He would be completely on his own and have to fight for everything! He would have to take an axe and build his house by himself, then he would need food! After just a few days he would love to just have a job where he could pay for all of these things.” [See also: https://sabersedge.online/the-world-built-in-the-last-150-years-is-broken ]
Unfortunately, the theories of those who (like Karl Marx and others,) who thought that we were all products of “the system” have their books still floating around out there. Anyone who has not been properly taught the science of the matter can be attracted to these ideas – even though they have been proven false. This is why Universities used to demand that graduates (of even Liberal Arts,) take science, history, and other general courses so that they would have a well-rounded education and not be taken in by extremist ideas that were invalid. We seem to have gotten away from this “well-balanced” education where opposing ideas are weighed and measured logically against one another. This is why communism could never take hold in a developed nation. We were educated and could see its problems. However, modern cultural Marxism has taken over education from pre-school through college and produced the most ignorant and gullible generations ever. They simply haven’t been taught, and therefore don’t know what is what. This is not their fault but the fault of educators who had an agenda. [For more on Cultural Marsixm and Neo-Marxist agenda see: https://sabersedge.online/admitted-goals-of-marxists-in-america ]
For thousands of years, this is how the Western Education system (the education system that has produced the most scientifically advanced nations the world has ever seen,) has worked. While some may point at China and Japan as non-western nations it is only after they accepted Western ways and scientific methods that they advanced into the space age. This too is clear in history and, as a former counterintelligence agent, I can tell you conclusively, that most of the modern scientific advances of communist nations were directly stolen from the Western nations. Indeed, when Russian and Chinese scientists duplicated our technology they sometimes went so far as to reprint the US Patent Number on their copied tech. [For more on the Western Education system and how it worked see: https://sabersedge.online/awaken-the-lions-fixing-a-toxic-system ]
So human nature, as is relatively obvious if you study history. Has been unchanged for thousands of years. The stories of the Bible, some of them over 3000 years old, tell of adultery, betrayal, thievery, and greed that are as relevant today as they were then. Unfortunately, language has changed enough if you don’t understand the culture of that time you may miss a lot of the lessons there. Also, if you know and understand science you realize that human nature has been the same for hundreds of thousands of years. How long exactly?
Archaeology and other scientific endeavors have told us that ACH (Anatomically Correct Humans) or AMH (Anatomically Modern Humans) are said to have appeared on the scene, somewhat suddenly in evolutionary terms, 400,000 years ago. An Anatomically Correct Human skull was found in Morrocco dating back to 350,000 years ago. Another method of defining the ACH would define from the distinction between Neanderthals dating back 500,000 to 800,000 years. Whichever method of dating you use (or if you go with a young Earth theory created in 7 days by God about 3500 years ago) humans, as we know them today, have been around for thousands of years. This is not surprising because organisms, according to science, evolve very slowly. That means that the proverbs of old. Sayings of Wisdom that were derived from observing human interactions are as valid today as they were thousands of years ago because our biochemical and emotional reactions to situations are still the same – even though the details of existence may be different.
As such, we can learn from these sayings. Indeed, Benjamin Franklin wrote a book of wise sayings that gave him a reputation for being wise. Perhaps he was. He recognized this truth and therefore he translated Roman proverbs into modern English so that Americans could learn from this ancient Wisdom. Various truths are still repeated in our society by people who claim they don’t believe in but are unwittingly quoting the Bible. That is because a good portion of the Bible is Wisdom literature (some of the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and much of Jesus’ teaching,) is derived wisdom from observing human interaction over hundreds or thousands of years. Please understand, when I say Wisdom literature with a capital “W” it is different from wisdom with a small “w”. Wisdom is a particular class of writings derived from observable truths and is remarkably the same in every religious tradition from the Viking Havamal, to Muslim writings, to the Hebrew Bible, to Confucious, and Native American sayings. These sayings have guided human development for thousands of years. Learning, like civilization and technology, constantly builds upon what has come before. It cannot be cut off from its foundation without disastrous results. In the same way our individual changes and development can be hastened and facilitated by learning the truths already established in the hard won knowledge of proverbs.
One definition of a proverb is a short sentence, long on wisdom, that reveals a simple truth.
By learning these truths, truths that were observed over time and were offered to help future generations avoid the pain and suffering that went with the original lessons, we can avoid the same pitfalls and troubles and live a less difficult existence. Fortunately, my father taught me many of these and as I got older and obtained my advanced degree I learned more about this process of learning and human existence. Unfortunately, our failure to pass it on is resulting in people who are stumbling into the pitfalls that they could have avoided, if they had been taught these truths.
The simple fact is the arrogance and hubris of modern society have set us up for a fall by cutting us off from the wisdom that was accumulated, fought for, and hard-won, by thousands of years of humanity struggling to survive through trial in error. In the past 60 years, modern society suddenly decided it had nothing to learn from the Anatomically Correct Humans, who were biologically just like us, who learned to live, interact, and survive over hundreds of thousands of years. [See also: https://sabersedge.online/society-and-our-children-are-under-attack ]
In a sense, they are saying, I have lived 20 or thirty years and so I know more than the sum of human knowledge developed and accumulated over millennia. That is hubris and we are beginning to pay for it in our own suffering and the failings of modern society. [For more on how modern generations were robbed see: https://sabersedge.online/who-stole-your-education ]
