Dino Nuggets of Wisdom: Confucius is No Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader

The maxims of our pasts shape humanity’s future. Confucius stated in the Spring and Autumn Period of Ancient China that “the antidote to despair is action,” and “the sins of the ancient burn the souls of the ancestors.” Each individual life is proof that the philosophers and sages of eras and dynasties prior to the mere imagination of these modern times held a degree of wisdom a normal person cannot compare to. 

Except, I lied. Confucius is certainly a paragon of Ancient Chinese philosophy; he is not, however, the man behind the abovementioned quotes. In fact, it was journalist Justin McElroy who coined the prior and Tumblr user @sanctumofwaluigi who did the latter (while in a Dungeons and Dragons session at that!) Both people who (albeit, assumably) are normal, everyday people that aren’t world-renowned thinkers and famed names. To give Confucius his well-deserved flowers, he did have quotes like “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself,” and “I am not bothered by not being understood; I am bothered with not knowing others,” among many. But Confucius was not born a sage; he was not a philosopher because he had status, he had a status because he was a philosopher.

At one point in history, Confucius, Aristotle, Plato and all the other wise men that usually come to mind probably sat in a corner wallowing in self doubt like any other teenager. They probably wrote down their thoughts in a shabby journal (or perhaps papyrus scroll, maybe a slab of rock) the way we busybodies do after a particularly long and cruel day. They most definitely neglected to sleep at night, thinking about all the what-ifs and how-comes, like every student who has to be up by 6 the next morning. 

Before the big names were big, they were normal, natural people who had the capability and motivation to put their brains to some productive use. Society has come to see philosophy as something of the past and (instead of something to be actively pursued) a field to be studied. As though the art of thinking is a gated community, as though the average human does not think what these men have preached centuries ago. For some reason, intelligence is seen as a trait that certain people in certain circles in certain walks of life have, and that it is out of reach for anyone without access to money, private education, or specialized mentors. I don’t deny that these certain people are intelligent, I deny that they are more privileged in the field of intellectualism than someone younger, poorer, less formally educated.

It is socially accepted that your average Oxbridge graduate will be more intelligent than your average high school dropout, and therefore we make the connection that a prestigious tertiary education will give you intelligence, or at least more so than a government-funded secondary education. This correlation, however common, is flawed; it is not because a person has attended world-class universities that they are intellectually capable, but that because a person is intellectually capable that they are able to attend world-class universities. Prestige is not the key to intelligence; your mind is not a video game character you have not unlocked because of a lack of champagne flutes and gold chandeliers in your immediate surroundings. You do not have to be born gifted to be intelligent — I would argue that you cannot be born gifted to be intelligent. The effort matters. 

While I will always push for advancements in public education worldwide, I will also continue to acknowledge that this education system gradually strips a student of the fundamental workings of the brain that cultivates an intrinsic want for learning. I will admit that learning about algebra and significant wars and mitosis is important, I will also assert that giving a child a confined database to learn from is what keeps the “average” person from believing they can be intelligent. Keeping a student away from learning about the more complex and convoluted parts of a subject under the guise of them being “too difficult” for them to understand is, to me, nonsensical. Is that not the point? To have no idea and then at least some? To figure out your way into a field you had no prior knowledge of? There is no use in learning something you already know; let it be difficult and confusing. To believe that you do not have the power to do something hard is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The effort matters, as long as you take the initiative.

This brings me back to the example of the Oxbridge student — or for that matter, any student attending a top university — and why we perceive them to be smarter. They most probably do have at least some knowledge and skill we do not, but so does a farmer in which fertilizers work best and a child in which Play-Doh color combinations go well together. We think that their effort and their expertise is worth more than someone else’s because of an institution affiliated with them. What we forget is that the institutions are tools, not an all-you-can-eat-buffet of everlasting wisdom. That latter bit is on you, you decide what to do with your time in school, college, work. This is not to say that higher education is not valuable, but it is to say that it is misinterpreted. An Oxbridge student is no smarter than a community college student, and a community student is no smarter than a fifth-grader; what makes a person intelligent (which, in itself, is an incredibly vague term) is not age or status or some secret third thing, it is a set of wholly unique and individual assets and experiences that are not confined to one structure. Higher education gives you a boost, through your peers, mentors, and a readily available catalog of materials to pluck ideas from. Intelligence, however, is not a guarantee. Consider it this nagging, blaring fire alarm you forget to change the batteries of. Intelligence is rarer a trait than it is an initiative. You must change the batteries.

I do not have studies and research backing up my claims about the nature of intelligence (and even if I did, it would be hypocritical in a way, using higher education to prove higher education is not the only path to intelligence.) I do, however, know of many elementary school students who have figured out what a hypothesis is, without even knowing of the word. They know the scientific method in practice but not in definition, as they flip their tiny worlds upside down to find the answers to their questions. And they emulate philosophers as they endlessly ask the whys to everything, even if it annoys you. I know that fifth-graders are more likely to change their batteries than a thirty-something employed person who has fallen into a system of binary — need to know, don’t need to know; useful, useless. 

Fifth-graders (or anyone that has not fallen victim to systematic education’s rigidity) think shower thoughts that are facsimiles of the proverbial sayings of ancient philosophers. They ask questions that resemble the dilemmas and fallacies great thinkers posed and the modern world has yet to solve. There is wisdom in their ability to wonder, just as there was in Confucius, Kant, Nietzsche, you name it. This is why I am so certain that Confucius is no smarter than a fifth-grader; not because I believe that he is childish and immature, but because I know that the maxims he presented are bedtime stories children make up. I know that children, immature and naive, are also wiser than they are given credit for. You do not need to have a long white beard and a dusty scroll of calligraphed nuggets of wisdom up your sleeve to be intelligent or wise; sometimes — most times — dino nuggets of wisdom are more than enough.