Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - NYTimes.com: Professors, We Need You!

it's hard for me to read this through. nothing we haven't heard forever,
since existentialism was born, since post-structuralism was born, since
deconstruction was born, since postmodernism was born, since every
philosophically grounded body of knowledge was born we have heard this
cries to make the language comprehensible to the non-specialist. and
anyone who has worked to understand the specialized discourses realizes
what is lost when trying to translate the complex into the simple and
straightforward. same for psychoanalysis. same for physics, same for
every science on earth that developed its own specialized vocabularies
in order to meet the intellectual needs of its discipline. medicine;
even sports has its own discourse.
that's really what it is all about. no more than that; no snobbism, no
elitism, no disdain of anybody. just simply work.
and then this politics that says, the only language that matters is the
language of politics.
well...duh (how about making poetry accessible and intelligible? ok, mr.
chinweizu, it's you or soyinka all over again) (how about the
complexities of rhythm; let's make all rhythms one, something we can all
play, all follow. how about making all architecture simple so we can all
fix our broken walls, why should we have architects? why should we have
thought? we can let politicians think for us. wait....what shall we call
their language? the common language for the common man? why should we
have more than one language anyway? nothing is harder than learning two
languages, nothing is harder than learning a foreign language. africa
has 2000 languages, polyrhythms. time to throw out 1,999 of them, and
learn to speak the ONE TONGUE of pragmatism: Realism.
enough.)
ken

On 2/16/14 10:17 PM, emeka1...@gmail.com wrote:
> >From The New York Times:
>
> Professors, We Need You!
>
> Academics are some of the smartest minds in the world. So why are they making themselves irrelevant?
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html
> Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
>

--
kenneth w. harrow
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
har...@msu.edu