Wisdom versus wishdom

One of the pitifully few consolations of old age is supposed to be that, as the Old Testament Book of Job puts it, ‘with the ancient is wisdom; and in the length of days understanding.’

But with every passing day I find myself less convinced of this, and increasingly if regretfully inclined to the contrary view that, as the late, great American skeptic and critic H L Mencken so aptly expressed it, "the older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."

In fact, if there’s one lesson that life has taught me, it’s to distrust all doctrines, dogmas, ideologies and other such alleged "truths".

Especially those "truths" whose proponents, or rather propagandists, are most at pains to threaten dire penalties for those daring to doubt or outright disbelieve them.

Thus the older I get the more inclined I am to dismiss such typical examples of intellectual bullying as "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Bible, Psalms 11:10) and "He that doubteth is damned" (Bible, Romans 14:23) in favour of the proverbial Ancient Greek proposition that "wonder is the beginning of wisdom" and the observation by Miguel De Unamuno (1864-1936) that "life is doubt, and faith, without doubt, is nothing but death."

In all conscience, however, as long as I’m arguing here for doubt, wonder, questioning, skepticism or whatever as the path to wisdom, I have to admit to awareness of De Unamuno’s wry remark that "a lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about."

And since surely some foolish Malaysiakini reader who knows what he (or she) is talking about is already on the point of reminding me that as desirable as doubt might be in principle, it can also be dangerous or even deadly in practice, I might as well get in first.

Starting with conceding that, yes, just as disrespect of or doubt in the supposed gods of ancient Athens proved fatal to the philosopher Socrates, and doubt in the biblically-proclaimed relationship between the earth and the sun decidedly dangerous to Galileo, doubt in allegedly "sacred" and indeed "divinely-inspired" books can prove a death sentence in many theocracies and other "religious"-majority countries today...