How to Read “Doctors are not cold, scholars are cold”
Isha samukarazu jusha samushi
Meaning of “Doctors are not cold, scholars are cold”
This proverb means that people with practical skills don’t struggle financially, but those who pursue only academic learning find it hard to make a living.
If you have technical skills like a doctor that solve people’s concrete problems, there’s always demand and your income stays stable.
Everyone needs a doctor when they get sick. On the other hand, even if you master academic learning like a Confucian scholar, it doesn’t directly solve people’s everyday problems.
So scholars often face economic hardship.
This proverb doesn’t deny the value of knowledge or education. Rather, it calmly points out the reality that even the most noble academic pursuits alone make it difficult to earn a living.
People use this saying when thinking about career choices or academic directions, or when discussing the balance between ideals and reality.
Even today, this lesson hasn’t lost its relevance. It conveys a universal truth: having specialized knowledge is important, but you need a perspective that connects it to society’s concrete needs.
Origin and Etymology
There are various theories about the exact origin of this proverb. But it likely spread as an expression reflecting social conditions during the Edo period.
The contrast between “doctors” and “scholars” is quite interesting. Doctors had practical skills to cure illness and met people’s urgent needs.
Meanwhile, scholars refers to intellectuals who mastered Confucian learning. During the Edo period, Confucianism was valued as education for the samurai class.
But making a living from it alone wasn’t easy.
“Not cold” and “cold” don’t refer to temperature. They mean financial hardship. Shivering from cold has long been used as a symbolic expression for poverty.
It described the state of not being able to afford warm clothes, housing, or sufficient food.
Behind this contrast was likely a debate between practical and theoretical learning. Edo period society valued skills and knowledge that were actually useful.
At the same time, the value of pure scholarship was also recognized. But the harsh reality was that scholarship alone couldn’t feed you.
Doctors could earn fees from patients. But scholars had to take on students or serve samurai families to earn income.
This proverb has been passed down as common people’s wisdom from keenly observing such social realities.
Interesting Facts
Doctors in the Edo period could earn relatively stable income if they opened a practice as town doctors.
But most scholars ran private schools or served as Confucian officials for feudal domains. However, official positions were limited.
Records show many scholars lived in economic hardship.
Interestingly, this proverb chooses “scholars” as the profession contrasted with “doctors.” But those who taught practical subjects like arithmetic or surveying could make a living more easily.
In other words, even within scholarship, the presence or absence of practicality greatly affected economic conditions.
Usage Examples
- My friend who can code found a job right away, but I’m still job hunting as a philosophy major. “Doctors are not cold, scholars are cold” is really true
- I’m thinking of getting certified and learning a trade. As they say, “Doctors are not cold, scholars are cold.” I feel anxious without practical skills
Universal Wisdom
This proverb has been passed down because it sharply addresses the complex relationship between value and reward in human society.
Throughout human history, knowledge and scholarship have always been respected. But at the same time, what supports daily life is concrete skills and practical services.
These two values don’t necessarily align with economic rewards. That’s the reality.
Why does this contradiction arise? It’s because human needs differ in urgency and universality.
The need to cure illness, build houses, or produce food is urgent and concrete for everyone. Meanwhile, the desire to know truth or deepen education doesn’t directly connect to survival.
So it tends to be postponed.
However, this proverb doesn’t simply recommend pure pragmatism. Rather, it reflects the human condition of wavering between ideals and reality.
The pure passion to pursue scholarship versus the practical necessity of making a living. How to balance these two has been humanity’s eternal challenge across time.
Our ancestors expressed this conflict through the physical sensation of being “cold.” It conveys a simple yet harsh truth: intellectual fulfillment alone cannot ward off actual cold.
When AI Hears This
The economic gap between doctors and scholars arises from differences in “provability of skills” in the market.
For doctors, the visible result of patients recovering proves their skill. In other words, better doctors naturally gain reputation and earn higher rewards.
This is “signaling” functioning, as behavioral economics calls it.
On the other hand, judging the quality of a scholar’s knowledge from outside is extremely difficult. People with truly deep learning and those with only superficial knowledge are hard to distinguish when they’re talking.
This information asymmetry creates problems. Employers can’t discern a scholar’s true ability, so they set compensation low as a safe strategy.
Then excellent scholars feel it’s “not worth it” and leave the market. Only second and third-rate scholars remain. This is called “adverse selection.”
The same structure exists as the “lemon market” where quality cars disappear from used car markets, leaving only defective ones.
Doctors can continuously prove their skills through daily practice. But the value of a scholar’s wisdom might not be clear for decades.
This “time gap in provability” decisively separates their economic situations. We see the system’s limitation: markets can only properly evaluate value that can be verified immediately.
Lessons for Today
What this proverb teaches you today is the importance of balancing passion and practicality.
Pursuing what you love is wonderful. But at the same time, you need to think about how it connects to society and who it helps.
The effort to find where what you want to learn meets what’s needed becomes the key to a fulfilling life.
What matters isn’t pursuing only practicality or chasing only ideals. It’s having the creativity to connect your interests and expertise with society’s concrete needs.
For example, someone who studied philosophy becomes a business ethics consultant. Or someone uses literary knowledge to become a copywriter.
Bridging scholarship and practicality is possible.
Also, this proverb suggests the importance of side jobs and multiple income sources. By separating pure academic pursuit from means of making a living, you might pursue your passion without economic anxiety.
Cherish both your dreams and reality. The process of seeking that balance is what creates a rich life.
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