Professor Daniel taught philosophy at Haileselassie University in the 1960’s. His major challenge was not re–reading Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hegel and all the other famous philosophers and passing their knowledge and wisdom to his students, but providing satisfactory answers to intriguing philosophical questions posed by some of his brilliant students, particularly Abraham and Yosef.
Once Yosef asked him: “Prof. you taught us that the purpose of life is to live it, but the point is what is the purpose of living it? Daniel’s quick answer was: “To experience its pleasures and pains.” “But if the pleasures are nullified by the pains, can we say that life is a zero –sum game?” Yosef followed up his first question with what seemed like a stumper. But Prof. Daniel was not one to be stumped easily.
In fact, he liked difficult questions and this particular question, tough though it may be, was one he had posed to himself and thought he had already answered satisfactorily. So, his voice was relaxed when he said: “Well, the fundamental principle here is that conscious existence is better than non–conscious existence. Put simply, life is better than death. In existence, not all opposites nullify each other. Positive and negative electric current gives light.” To which Abraham added: “The pain of labour gives rise to the pleasure of having a child in females.” “Excellent, Abraham! I am proud to be your teacher.
Teachers get to be famous by tutoring students who later excel them,” Daniel congratulated Abraham without reservation. A faint trace of envy temporarily visited Yosef and he was pretty much inclined to say something like, “How is it that I always raise the basic issues but it is others who get the kudos?” But it remained an unexpressed thought and feeling within himself. His mind went astray for a second and began to wonder whether an unexpressed grievance might not calcify into a knot of a negative emotion that may some day turn into some form of morbidity.
Egged on by this potentially erroneous realization, Yosef felt like blurting out: “Now I know why you give Abraham A+ and me A- most of the time!” The words had formed in his head and were on the way to his lips but his brain suddenly froze them in their tracks. So, Yosef tried to raise another fundamental question instead: “For most of humanity, the experience of pain is greater than that of pleasure.
How can net painful conscious existence be preferable to painless non – conscious existence ?” Prof. Daniel thought for a moment and said: “I doubt if you can substantiate your statement, Yosef. If the allusion is to poverty, it is usually absolute or abject poverty manifested in the form of hunger and lack of shelter that directly and certainly inflicts pain on people, but people provided with the basic necessities of life are usually pretty contented and happy unless they succum to the trap of relative poverty.” “But, Prof. with all due respect, absolute poverty, relative poverty, disease and disability all inflict pain on humanity and that is why suicide has become a major phenomenon around the globe, particularly in the developed world,” Yosef said. All the while the rest of the students in the class were listening to the heated debate between Professor Daniel and two of their own classmates. One of them, Dawit, thought it was time to make an intervention of his own and said: “Professor, I think we need to make a distinction between pleasure and happiness. True, there is an intersection between pleasure and happiness, but there is a point beyond which pleasure actually becomes a corruption and, indeed, a debasement of happiness.” “Brilliant, Dawit! I am indeed proud to be your teacher.
As I often say, there are teachers who become famous by teaching students who later excel them,” Professor, Daniel said. At this point, Yosef began asking himself why Professor Daniel kept saying, “There are teachers who become famous …” He had found out that Professor Daniel’s IQ was quite high at 140, but his own IQ test result had shown an incredible 160, which he had dismissed as one big fat hoax. Professor Daniel knew the IQ test result of each of the students in his class, and was well aware that any one of them could one day excel him in achievement and success, be it in academic or business or in life in general.
He was a bit hard on Yosef not because he envied his higher IQ than his own, but he was experimenting with the impact of inspiration and encouragement, which are both environmental factors, on IO’s lower than that of Yosef’s. But there was a downside to Prof Daniel’s approach. Not giving credit where credit was due had an adverse impact on Yosef. Student Yosef never took IQ test results seriously. In fact he thought they were all a big joke. He believed there was no reliable measure to fathom the incredible mental capacities of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Mozart, Picasso, Shakespeare, Newton, Einsteien, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc. Nobody could say with certainty what part of their genius was due to genetics and what part due to nurture, but there is no doubt that it is such geniuses that helped transform the world we all live in! In any case, Yosef felt that Prof. Daniel’s presumed psychological experiment on the impact of moral encouragement and inspiration on intellectual performance was basically flawed because it was based on environmental bias rather than on environmental equalization.
So, Yosef made a promise to himself thus: “If Prof. Daniel is not going to give me my deserved moral incentives in class, I’ll stop racking my brain to come up with fundamental issues which have given rise to many of the exciting discussions and debates in class and in fact in the university as a whole.” However, Yosef decided to give the professor one more chance and posed the following question in the next class: “What is the difference between talent and ability?” Prof. Daniel appeared to be somewhat nonplussed at first but was able to quickly recover his composure and he said: “Yosef, you have asked a very good question.
Why don’t you try to answer it yourself.” Yosef accepted the challenge and replied “ Well, they are both abilities, but talent is much more natural than ability, which is more of an acquired skill.” Prof. Daniel knew beforehand that Yosef was going to hit the nail on the head and he did, but was restrained in his praise and said: “OK, that’s a pretty good answer. Anybody else wants to try?” Abraham raised his hand and was given the floor. He replied: “As Yosef said, talent is more natural but raw talent is nothing unless it is converted into a virtuosity with training.” “Brilliant, Abraham!” you are a real genius!” exclaimed Prof. Daniel effusively. Yosef’s face contorted with rage and envy, but he managed to remain calm despite an urge to blurt out some expletive. Meantime, the class session came to a close and the students dispersed. Yosef went straight home, dumped his bag somewhere in his study, and went back out to a nearby bar and started drinking and smoking. A bar lady approached him and said: “Why don’t you try this. It will give you extra power and strength.” “What is it?” asked Yosef. “Nothing particularly hard. It is not even cannabis. It is just a joint of marijuna,” the bar lady replied. “Ok, I will take it”, Yosef said and started puffing it.
He felt high and happy and said to himself: “This is a much easier way to be happy than through seeking the truth via philosophy.” He staggered home late in the evening and rang the gate bell. His father opened the gate and let him in, rebuking him: “You ought to know better than to get drunk in the face of approaching school exams.” To which Yosef replied: “y-o-ua-r-e absolutely r-i-g-h-t Dad, but I- a-m exercising my constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness!” “Oh! Where is all your lecture on the difference between happiness and pleasure, son? What did happen to you, Yosef ? This is not the pursuit of happiness. It is pleasure –seeking which may cause you to end up in rehab!”
The Ethiopian Herald April 12/2020
BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
