What You Really Need To Know

I will always value what my Latin teacher, Ms. Higgins, taught me because there are times when Latin does a better job than standard English in determining what the words really mean in greater detail.

Aristotle named something that should be recovered. An example is the way the word wisdom is sometimes used to express the goal of something that is important to learn. But Aristotle indicated that Sophia is the wisdom that is needed to get the right answer to something on a test. But Phronesis is something different. It means practical wisdom that is the capacity to know what is right and solve problems.

You can’t find it in a phonebook, AI resource, cell phone or computer. It is the kind of reason where you must learn how to solve problems on your own.

I have seen this first- hand in a family gathering at my son, Adam and his spouse, Courtney. Their farm, Unbound Glory Farm. They practice regenerative farming that uses the natural ingredients of the soil and seed to produce incredible vegetables. They have a Pizza business as well that is made in a five-thousand-pound oven flown over from Italy. They reflect that word Sophia, wisdom from a book, as she graduated from Penn and he from the Honors Program at Temple. They are well read and know more than the average person of what is going on in the nation and world.

Unbound Glory Farm

Regenerative farming is organic on steroids as it takes farming to the next higher level. They are self-taught. Various universities are now teaching regenerative farming including Yale students and their professor who made a trip to their farm to see how it works. This year they had 60 applicants for 3 summer intern positions.

Farmers fight the unpredictable weather that we now have and operate on a tight margin. They also fight the high prices of everything including our gasoline and food prices.

Adam and Courtney work sunup to sundown seven days a week. I asked my son a direct question. “Why are you doing this? We love it” was the response. The area of Connecticut where they are located is stunning in its beauty. Pomfret has two private schools, Pomfret Academy, The Rectory School, and Woodstock Academy, a private/public school where local resident’s children go free. There is also a technical school. Two graduates of EA did post grad studies at Pomfret Academy.

Pomfret is one of those rare communities where people take care of one another. It’s the embodiment of small-town USA in the 50s.

A few blogs ago I wrote about how higher education is failing America which was a study done at Yale University for being so information based and not seeking problem solving which is what the world needs now and in the future. A few days later inside the Yale Alumni Magazine I saw an advertisement for the University of Michan. They communicated in their why you should come here was a list of statements that all had problem solving as the basis for their curriculum. Obviously, some universities have read Aristotle and are balancing their curriculum between Sophia and Phronesis, problem solving as well as how to develop the ethics knowing right from wrong. Aristotle’s ethic is that we learn to do the right thing by doing the right thing repeatedly. Right now, regenerative farming is the right thing in farming.

Phronesis is the way of life on a farm. I was standing in the building that my son built for his pizza business. It was tenoned and mortis joint construction supporting posts and beams. Members of the community helped in handling the heavy timber. In our area we would think of the Amish community raising a barn.

I had a lot of questions as I stood in the building that houses the Italian pizza oven. In essence, every question I had, my son’s response was “I haven’t figured that out yet.” But there was certainty in his voice that he would. Isn’t that kind of feeling we would want a student to have because AI is not the answer to all the questions that I asked including the friends in the community who helped him lift the heaviest beams.  AI can’t create a community. It can’t handle emergencies when they occur when you don’t have time to read about what AI would do. Can AI build real intimacy between and among people?

My daughter-in-law is the same way. I can’t imagine her saying, “I will just give up if I can’t figure something out.” She is smart and lives by the words NOT YET which is the key phrase when you know you have the wisdom found in Phronesis.

How often are you and I using that phrase, NOT YET when confronted with a problem that looks insurmountable. Cancer researchers say it and feel it every minute of every day. We need to have BOTH SOPHIA AND PHRONESIS EMBEDDED IN OUR CULTURE.

If you want to see how it works, talk to a farmer preferably living in a small town that knows how to form a community where a neighbor will help you in the execution of getting  things done.

Ben Sasse, former Republican Congressman and college president who is dying of pancreatic cancer said in a “60 minutes” interview, “we should not seek answers to our national challenges yearning for the title of President, Congressman. or Secretary of State. We should seek titles such as father, friend, husband, wife, neighbor as the highest calling.” He indicated that our thinking is too small. Congressman Thune, Head of the Republicans in the Senate, indicated that when we were trying to solve problems Ben Sasse thought in the now, but also considered the past, and looked to the problems that we should work on now but should focus on the future problems and their solutions as well. I would say that we are focusing on Sofia and not enough of Phronesis. That is the wisdom that is calling us to be a greater nation.

As an aside, Ben Sasse is one of the few Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment. Now that’s wisdom!