Stupid Ways to be Intelligent, Part One of an Infinite Series

Well, this is ironic: you don’t have to believe in angels to know that 

There is no skepticism among the angels; the skeptical doubt that the human intellect cannot really live with cannot even be faked by the angelic intellect. Regardless of the state of his will, an angel can no more feign doubt about the object-thing than the skeptic can feign doubt about the object-phenomenon…

Try as we might, we can’t really know what it is like to be another kind of intelligence, from angelic or celestial above to bovine or progressive below. There are hints, clues, and analogies, but human is human, and it doesn't get worse than that, nor can we exit our own nature (without divine assistance, but that's a different subject).

Having said that, intelligent beings of various stations do share a common element: intelligence. It’s just that intelligence has different forms, and to say form is to say limit. Only in God are intelligence-and-intelligible one, or rather, not-two. This is irrespective of whether one “believes” in God, for truth is that which is true even when we stop believing in it, precisely.

We all know of politicians and even human beings who are more animal than human. And yet, not only are they human, they are all too human. Their intelligence exhibits such traits as cunning, deceit, hiding, lying in wait, and self-preservation. 

And if you’re lucky, you have encountered a person or two with seemingly quasi-angelic intelligence, that is, an intelligence that “sees” directly into essences, as if there is no mediation between it and the intellect. 

Schuon comes to mind. Of course, this is not to imply that he was infallible, which would be absurd. But he did see metaphysics with a clarity that for most people would take a lifetime to attain, if at all — just as you could devote your life to being Michael Jordan, or Mike Trout, or Michelangelo, and reach an inevitable ceiling well before attaining the goal.

Back to what intelligence is. Soon we will be discussing this in tedious detail — when we get to Lonergan’s Insight — but one thing we can say about human intelligence, to paraphrase Steve Earle, is that it ain’t ever satisfied. This is very much in contrast to animals, but also to human beings who are indeed too easily satisfied, and arbitrarily stop asking Why? 

To a certain extent this failure is excusable, since most people do have to get on with it, and have neither the time nor the aptitude anyway. 

Indeed, one of the causes of our current Existential Crisis is hordes of college-indoctrinated and puffy pridelings with zero aptitude for higher things, i.e., the objects of a proper liberal education. That would be beyond their capabilities, which is why academia must devote whole departments to Studies of the Unreal. 

One would think that a degree in Unreality Studies would be easy, and it is, so long as one is confined to an unreal environment. In our day, the most unreal environments are academia, journalism, and politics, which is precisely why these fields attract the kinds of infrahuman intelligences alluded to above.

Thursdays are take-the-boy-to-school days, so I am almost out of time, but human intelligence is characterized by the pure and unrestricted desire to know. And like anything else in the world, it has its sufficient reason, nor is it in vain.

We'll continue this discussion tomorrow, unless too distracted by the baseball playoffs. Meanwhile, even disordered people can be accomplished artists, or we'd have far less art.

Last night I dreamed I made it to the promise land
I was standin' at the gate and I had the key in my hand
Saint Peter said "Come on in boy, you're finally home"
I said "No thanks Pete, I'll just be moving along"

Woh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
I ain't ever satisfied