Abstract

Wisdom has many faces, but perhaps the most familiar would be that of an older man with a strong, kind face, a steady expression, a profound beard, and eyes at once serious and laughing. So Yeats imagined some Chinese sages — “their ancient eyes, their ancient, glittering eyes were gay.” So too we might imagine a Confucius, Moses, Socrates, or Einstein, and so film directors have played on old associations when depicting figures like Gandalf or Dumbledore. In anthropomorphizing wisdom as an older person, we are no different from the vast majority of cultures, as elders are usually considered wise: the grandparents, veterans, senators (from Latin senex), the ancestors who were there at the beginning of the tribe. “You cannot put a wise head on young shoulders” goes the Irish proverb, and so too we talk of “modern science” but of “ancient wisdom,” as if wisdom could best be found among those peoples whose civilizations matured over centuries, like the ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, or Greeks.