Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Doris Lessing: Questions You Should Never Ask a Writer

"A young friend of mine from North Yemen saved up every bit of money he could to travel to Britain to study that branch of sociology that teaches how to spread Western expertise to benighted natives. I asked to see his study material and he showed me a thick tome, written so badly and in such ugly, empty jargon it was hard to follow. There were several hundred pages, and the ideas in it could easily have been put in 10 pages.

Yes, I know the obfuscations of academia did not begin with Communism — as Swift, for one, tells us — but the pedantries and verbosity of Communism had their roots in German academia. And now that has become a kind of mildew blighting the whole world.

It is one of the paradoxes of our time that ideas capable of transforming our societies, full of insights about how the human animal actually behaves and thinks, are often presented in unreadable language."

Read the rest here...

 
Deep thinking by the late great Doris Lessing. Good night, you.

- Doris Lessing

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com

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