Story at a Glance:
•Many important types of intelligence besides “intellectual intelligence exist.” Without them, we cannot connect to our deeper wisdom and are easily lead astray. Likewise, if our intelligence remains unbalanced, our knowledge will almost always be patchy and incomplete.
•A century ago, American education was hijacked by oligarchs like Rockefeller who replaced cultivating critical thinking and deep knowledge with training widespread compliance.
•Education trains us to have a very linear form of intelligence which often misses critical details because it lacks the ability to see the broader picture. This for instance characterizes many problems in medicine.
•Those trained to have excessive left brain thinking are often challenging to have a dialog with because they are both aggressive in asserting their ideology and simultaneously incapable of seeing anything which does not prove they are right.
•This article will discuss the importance of balanced intelligence and strategies for cultivating it.
Throughout history, many different types of intelligence have been recognized (e.g., physical intelligence and coordination or emotional intelligence). In contrast, our society worships a very specific type of intellectual intelligence that as far as I know has never previously been so highly valued by a society.
In my own experience, I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve interacted with who I know are much smarter than me, yet when I compare and contrast our ability to get things done, to correctly interpret data we are exposed to, help patients, or live a happy life, I come out far ahead of them. Likewise, I’ve lost count of how smart people I’ve met who simply don’t “get it” and frequently are misled by something quite obvious.
Modern Education
I’ve long noticed that the educational system builds up a very specific type of intelligence and reciprocally destroys the other ones (e.g., I found the more I was “educated” the more I lost the ability to think and access the deeper capacities of my mind). Because of this, at each level of my education, I was initially an enthusiastic A student, but then become disillusioned, switched to self-study, and in many cases barely passed my classes.
That skill set was immensely valuable during my medical training as it allowed me to devote myself to learning what would help my patients rather than be swallowed by the allopathic model. Likewise, both college and medical school followed a similar script. They only wanted you to replicate exactly what your teacher had shown you and harshly reprimanded ever presenting an independent approach to the problem.
Note: numerous medical school deans and residency directors I’ve spoken have lamented that the newer crops of medical school graduates lack the critical thinking which is needed for them to effectively function as doctors during medical residency—yet they simultaneously fail to recognize how their own actions are removing critical thinking from their trainees.
Ultimately, I was driven by a deep yearning for as much knowledge as possible. Since you’ll never have enough time to study everything, I gradually realized:
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/balanced-intelligence-and-knowledge