where have all the sages gone?

It’s been said the 18th century political philosopher, Goethe, was the last person who knew everything (he, of course, would believe this a moot point in line with his thought that “Knowing is not enough”). This makes it sound as if the man was no man at all but some immortal savant. In reality, this quip imagines that by the year of his death in 1832, “It was no longer possible for even the most brilliant mind to comprehend, let alone integrate, what was known.”

Before the printing press and the Enlightenment, and certainly before the internet era, the world produced what were called sages. These were the people who were sought out for wisdom for any problem. Their words carried weight. Their existence brought flourishing. They were commonplace because of a few reasons:

First, they existed because they were lauded and part of a system that aspired to their position in society. Knowledge and the pursuit of wisdom were paragons for the everyman to pursue and laud. Examples of great thinkers molded the models for virtue and a telos of life pointed towards the heavens (or at least away from our man-made hells).

2008 to whenever our current technological crisis ends will be enshrined as an era with no saints or sages…
Whether this and its appended divine vocation of irrelevance is to be a boon or curse upon our pages of the historical record is yet to be seen.