I would define wisdom, for my own purposes, as comprehensive emotional intelligence, combined with an openness to God, or perhaps the Transcendent, in whatever form that person feels makes sense to them.
I say this, because I am contemplating what this reopening will look and feel like. I think the world has grown colder over the last year, meaner, more petty, more self assured in destructive impulses, less patient, less kind.
Yet the self IMAGE of the Left–of the people pushing most of what I see as socially damaging, pernicious and completely unnecessary narratives–is they are the agents of kindness and inclusivity. As such, they are quite prepared to be cruel, and highly, vocally, and violently exclusionary.
Your politics are always bound to be a direct outgrowth of who you ARE, what you really know, what you really feel.
For myself, I am often a wreck. I do and say things I don’t like afterwards. But I am self aware. I know who I am and what I am doing. I think my reality testing as far as the world at large is pretty good. I see my flaws. I see where I can and need to grow, and work at it often.
None of this is necessary, or in important respects even permitted, to be a committed partisan of the Religious/Cultish Left. You are not allowed public doubt. You cannot question The Narrative. You are not permitted to be confused and thrashing around. You are expected to believe what everyone else believes, and say what they say, and hate the people who you exclude as the Other as a more or less permanent and necessary principle of social psychopathology.
All through this you can be a neurotic mess, but you can’t be that in front of conservatives. And in important respects your morality–what I would view as the vital core of a healthy Self–is GIVEN to you. All you have to do is receive it, repeat it, internalize it, and all is forgiven. Deviate, and you will be cast out and CANNOT be forgiven. Ever. Not for the crime of ideological deviancy.
We know so much. The Social Sciences have come so far. We can say so many intelligent things with reasonable confidence. How are so many of us so stupid, then?