Kristopher Jones: True Wisdom Echoes Queitly Through Time

August 15, 2009

True Wisdom Echoes Queitly Through Time

The rancor and tumult of the present too often drown out the wisdom of past. Bernard Baruch was one of the wisest Americans you probably have never heard of. He made his fortune on Wall Street at an early age and devoted the rest of his life to serving and advising Presidents through WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, McCarthyism and the good times of the fifties.

He contributed an essay to Edward R. Murrow's series "This, I Believe" that should resonate through the generations...

"Because I place my trust in reason, I place it in the individual. There is a madness in crowds from which even the wisest, caught up in their ranks, are not immune. Stupidity and cruelty are the attributes of the mob, not wisdom and compassion."

His words resonate with me. You can read and hear his entire "This, I Believe" essay here. It's worth your time.

Whenever I'm troubled by the events of my day, whenever I feel deeply that something is not right, I search the past for this kind of wisdom. The kind of reason that rings true across the generations. The tea-baggers and the birthers and the mobs that are trying to drown out the public discourse (and therefore democracy) on health care would do well to withdraw from the mobs for a moment, quiet themselves, and engage in calm, introspective reason.

Bernard Baruch took his meetings with great men on a park bench in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House. I'll take his brand of intelligence and reason over today's incitement and rancor every day and twice on Sunday. The mob mentality, which cable news and syndicated radio amplifies, only serves to make us all "morans."