Spinoza in 21st Place

Realize that most people in the street would not even know who Spinoza is/was. In fact I had to ‘wiki’ myself to recall some things I should know as a historian. 😉

Marc van der Woude, in an email to Open Source, February 1, 2007.

Spinoza certainly lives on our Spinoza show post, where ShlomoLeib, GodzillaVsBambi, and Allison are debating Spinoza’s philosophical goals, methods, and meaning. So let’s throw some more meat in the pot:

In 2004, the Dutch television company KRO asked the Netherlands to vote for “De Grootse Nederlander”, “The Greatest Dutchman.” The results surprised both the Dutch and the world: Pim Fortuyn, a controversial politician who railed against Muslim immigrants during a brief career that ended with his murder, came in first. Nobody seemed to notice that Spinoza, by many accounts the father of Dutch modernity, didn’t even make the top ten. He came in 21st, right after Queen Wilhelmina.

Marc van der Woude, who publishes a weekly religious newsletter out of the city of Utrecht, said on his blog that he voted for Erasmus. We asked him why he thought Spinoza was shut out of the winner’s circle:

Overall I would say that the poll gave a fair reflection of how the Dutch feel about their ‘heroes’ . . . that he made it to the 21st place is not bad at all for a philosopher.

Marc van der Woude, in an email to Open Source, February 1, 2007.