(RNS) — While one might identify any number of concerning qualities of our current cultural moment — and our leaders in particular — one feature that really stands out is rampant childishness.
Childlike behavior among adults, especially those in positions of authority and power, is off the charts. I’m not sure how measurable such a phenomenon is across time and cultures, but I can say anecdotally (and many of my peers confirm) that when I was a child half a century ago, I never saw adults engaging in the kind of childish antics so common today.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy article asking, “What Happens When a Whole Generation Never Grows Up?” The article argues that “a mix of social and economic factors” has stunted the maturity of today’s generations of adults under 50 and expresses the worry that “what researchers once called a lag is starting to look more like a permanent state of arrested development.”
Chronic childishness is one feature of such arrested development — and it is everywhere.
Grown adults take on the personas of comic book, video game and anime villains. World leaders hurl playground insults and cruel taunts across international platforms. Women sport hats designed to look like sex organs. The world’s wealthiest and perhaps most powerful man wields a chainsaw on a national stage. The person in charge of homeland security plays with a flamethrower for clicks and kicks and giggles. One of Elon Musk’s young DOGE administrators has a nickname right out of a middle school locker room. A pastor tries to portray “manliness” by puffing a cigar while throwing gas around a dry field before sitting down in the middle of it while it burns. (Straight out of Beavis and Butthead, that one.) A Christian college recruits students by using the middle finger. Closer to home, a local school board member has been recently reprimanded after defacing the portrait of the outgoing superintendent but refuses to resign because it was all just a “joke.”
We really do need to grow up.
As the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
But if we live in a culture that doesn’t demand maturity of us or even teach us how to attain it, then how do we go about it?
Inasmuch as childishness is synonymous with foolishness, then its opposite is wisdom. The Book of Proverbs tells us that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. Hence, if we want to leave behind childish things, then we can begin — and end — by pursuing wisdom.
Confucius is commonly credited with an observation that is helpful in thinking about this pursuit: “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
The best (and least painful) way to attain wisdom is through reflection. We live in a time that encourages anything and everything but reflection. Reflectiveness takes time, space and quiet. In order to have those, most of us must seek them out intentionally. Merely creating space in our lives for reflectiveness is a step toward wisdom. And given the conditions of our day, that’s a bigger step than it might otherwise seem. Indeed, it might be a small step for each of us, but collectively, a giant leap for humankind.
What we reflect on and how we reflect are big questions upon which whole books could be (and have been) written. Reading such books is one way of becoming more reflective. But it’s not the only way. Journaling, talking with friends, praying — anything besides offering a hot take, on the one hand, or turning completely away, on the other (both options are entirely too tempting) — offer opportunities to reflect rather than react.
Foolishness reacts. Wisdom reflects.
We learn wisdom also by imitation. That might sound strange if we think of wisdom as a quality that comes only with age or a trait some people possess more naturally than others. Both of these factors may be true, but it’s also true that we can learn (indeed, we mainly learn) by imitation. The crux of the matter is who or what we have habituated ourselves to imitate most. The company we keep most, the entertainment we most consume, the habits we cultivate in both our work and our leisure time — these are all sources of imitation. Seeking out models worthy of emulation — whether actual people, or ways of thinking as laid out in books or podcasts, or (even better) holy Scriptures that are intended to tell us how we ought to live — is something we can choose to do. Or not. We are surrounded by models of behavior. We get to decide which ones influence us most.
Experience can confer wisdom, too, which, as Confucius points out, can be a bitter teacher. I say experience can confer wisdom because we have to be willing to receive the lessons of hard experience in order to gain the wisdom it offers. This brings us back to reflection. It’s never too late to learn from mistakes (not only our own, but those of others as well). Through observation, self-examination and reflection, we can discern what has gone wrong, what we might have done wrong and how we can do better.
In a world in which it is so easy to look out there, everywhere, on any given day or any given hour, and witness the foolishness (and, of course, worse) of others who seemingly hold so much control right now, it is easy to despair. It is easy to lament the foolishness of others rather than pursue wisdom ourselves.
Notably, the words of Paul quoted above about putting away childish things occurs in the context of the famous love passage in 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has just defined love as patient, kind, humble, selfless, hopeful and persevering. Such love is anything but childish or foolish. Such love requires and cultivates wisdom.
Like love, we need wisdom more than ever right now. And as much as we might wish to see both in others, the only person each of us can cultivate either in is ourselves.
