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A review by thogek
Wisdom: A Very Valuable Virtue That Cannot Be Bought by Jason A. Merchey, Jason A. Merchey
slow-paced
3.0
Merchey's _Wisdom_ makes for a mostly interesting read.
It's style can be rather (as he himself puts it at one point) meandering, and largely consists of a conversational tour of many many quotes on wisdom and related studies somewhat loosely woven together into chapters with somewhat loose foci. This can be interesting in the attempts to interpret and apply some of these quotes, and there are some overall good ideas about wisdom and its value in both an individual life and in a society.
OTOH, while Merchey's examples and explorations lean into many different subjects, they tend to show some significant bias when dipping toward anything remotely political. (Especially when ranting on Republicans, vaccine dissensions, a misrepresentative strawmanning of libertarianism, and the odd spectacle that is Trump.) Some of these examples are certainly fair, and he does show some degree of balance at times, but too often these sorts of political references seem to dissolve much of his purported understanding of wisdom into the very tribalistic biases he recognizes wisdom should transcend.
On the whole, though, an interesting read, with some good (if meandering) perspective on what wisdom is and why we should value and pursue it.
It's style can be rather (as he himself puts it at one point) meandering, and largely consists of a conversational tour of many many quotes on wisdom and related studies somewhat loosely woven together into chapters with somewhat loose foci. This can be interesting in the attempts to interpret and apply some of these quotes, and there are some overall good ideas about wisdom and its value in both an individual life and in a society.
OTOH, while Merchey's examples and explorations lean into many different subjects, they tend to show some significant bias when dipping toward anything remotely political. (Especially when ranting on Republicans, vaccine dissensions, a misrepresentative strawmanning of libertarianism, and the odd spectacle that is Trump.) Some of these examples are certainly fair, and he does show some degree of balance at times, but too often these sorts of political references seem to dissolve much of his purported understanding of wisdom into the very tribalistic biases he recognizes wisdom should transcend.
On the whole, though, an interesting read, with some good (if meandering) perspective on what wisdom is and why we should value and pursue it.