Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

Among the virtues is wisdom. In times of disconnected narratives and little knowledge, countless sages of half-truths emerge, prophets with impure hands and lives, and there is an audience to applaud them.

So it is necessary to despise wisdom, to read little, to trivialize what is good and beautiful, to violate even the simplest reasoning about the preservation of life, justice and the dignity that every human being possesses, and it is no coincidence that the word of 2024 was “brainrot”.

Not just because we bombard our brains with bad food, but mainly because we abandon good reading, good culture and the good faith of someone who has really changed course.

The biblical figure who made this radical change of course, and was a wise man with great knowledge of Judaism and Greek culture, is Saul of Tarsus, who was born in this city in Cilicia in the year 5 AD and was initially a great persecutor of Christians, being held responsible for the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

He had a mystical vision of Jesus asking “why are you persecuting him” and was blinded on his way to Damascus (photo). Whether this was a metaphor or not is not the important thing, he was told to go and meet the Christian Ananias, where his sight was restored.

Blindness made him go beyond the limits of Jewish traditions, even with controversies such as the discussion with Peter about circumcision, but the Bible itself reminds us that we have eyes and cores that are uncircumcised (*Dt 10,16) and this explains the blindness of Saul, now transformed into Paul.

He will be important for the change in mentality that leaves the Jewish realm and goes to the Greeks and Romans, without him perhaps Christianity would remain a Jewish sect, and his wisdom deeply influenced Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, important thinkers for Christian thought and there is no denying the need for wisdom.

The religion of precepts, which excludes many and doesn’t allow many people to change course, is in rapid decline, and this applies to culture in general, with an urgent need for a spirituality that encourages true asceticism.

It’s not emotions, well-crafted and even elaborate speeches that provoke a “change of route”, but a clear awareness of the human and spiritual needs of our time.

It is not uncommon for those who propose these speeches to call for exclusion, for social disruption and see in this a “prophetism” that cannot be achieved by impure hands.

What is divine is transparent and clear, it comes with serene and clear language, with attitudes that prove a change of course, without example any speech is empty even if it excites and provokes emotions.

*Deuteronomy 10,16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”