Comment on a Jewish Saying 1

"I'd rather be in hell with a wise man than paradise with a fool."

This is an old Jewish statement, which, as we all remember, has to do with the other fundamental declaration of Judaism of education. (The other two being of course the Fundamental Declaration of Monotheism, the Shehma for you Hebrew -knowing types; and the declaration of prayer.)

This emphasis on education is not only seen in the incredible number of rich people such as the Jewish stereotype of doctors, lawyers, and finance wizards, but also, uhm education advocates. I hypothesize that this emphasis on education has lasted into Christianity with infinite examples (Most of the Ivy league mottos are in Hebrew or Latin, more on Hebrew and language as yesteryear's internet later).

One of these guys actually made an appearance already on this blog. His name was Julius Rosenwald (got to check to see if this is right), who was one of the philanthropists toward African American education before it was cool to do so. He supported Booker T. Washington's campaign to build school houses in the South.

But another guy was Jonathan Kozol, who is actually still alive. He's a Civil Rights Activist for Education Reform. It turns out, even after 1954, we still have bad schools in America. He was a Rhodes Scholar. This should be a revelation for all of us. He has as much religious terminology in his works that I have read called Savage Inequalities and Ordinary Resurrections. Kozol is of course Jewish.

The saying, which I taught myself when I was in middle school in order to look smart, is actually a bit more philosophically complex.

Jarrett brings up Nozick's example of the happy man in his work Spinoza: A Guide for the Perplexed. Nozick's example here seems like a very familiar one, at least from almost all of popular culture that I've seen (This means you, Citizen Kane). Nozick's example is of a man who has all the riches in the world but is not happy versus the poor man who is very happy is supposed to somehow reveal that not having riches is the better of the two because the person gets to be happy, still.

But the question you should ask about all of these things, dear philosophers-in-training, is why you couldn't have it all. Why couldn't I be in paradise with a wise man? For Nozick's example, which is only supposed to show the worth of happiness anyway, ask, why couldn't I be happy with the riches?

The take on all of this is to choose your friends and maintain your personal course, regardless of anything. While Spinoza undoubtedly followed this rule to the last bit, there is some bad news for all of us. That is, where we are might be hell and/or paradise. Where we are might be poor and/or rich already. Self-determination is important regardless of bad and good things, and this seems to be a paradox. Shouldn't good things, and good circumstances and so on, be a determination of what is good? Spinoza would seem to side with this position, too, but we'll get to that later.