Not long ago, I was giving a lecture to my students, citing the work of a known academic. After I finished and we moved into a discussion, one of the listeners asked me: “why do these people write in such a complicated language? Can’t they explain it in a more simple way? It is very irritating!” I have noticed that this is a common complaint. It is true, as Einstein said, that he who truly knows the subject should be able to explain it to a 6 year old. However, I believe the existence of a sophisticated language is not merely an indicator of snobbism, but rather an invitation to foster the complex thinking.
When Ido’s podcast with Huberman came out, I read many comments that were accusing him of using a language that is too complicated and that this is an attempt to “appear mystical”. For me, who had a direct experience of most of the things he talked about, all he said made perfect sense, and the parts that did not I took as a direction of where I should be looking for further investigation. I found the discrepancy interesting, and I thought about it a lot.
The complexities of language support the cognitive capacity to juggle with difficult concepts, to build new ideas and expand the net of knowledge that one already has. It is important that we are able to communicate on many different levels, and by simplifying the way we communicate, we indeed can reach more people. However, I believe that reducing the language to its simplest form also reduces our ability to think. This is precisely what George Orwell described in his timeless novel 1894: by withdrawing words from the language and by adding more ambiguous terms, the Party was able to control the way people thought. In the North Korean language, for example, they do not have a word for friendship, thus, the concept does not even exist in their worldview. The first thing that totalitarians want to control is language, because capacity to describe the phenomena observed in the world with a greater variation brings us closer to understanding it, therefore developing greater autonomy.
In the recent years I have detected this tendency in relationship to everything. I blame it on the rise of social media and its fight for people’s attention. We moved from reading books to newspaper articles, to Instagram captions, and now not even that: people need single words or phrases appearing on the screen in order to sustain their attention. This simplification of communication deludes the ideas it is ought to communicate, because there is no space for them to be expressed in any form of due complexity that they deserve. It happened in the race for bringing more and more information to the masses, yes it resulted in a decline of their intellectual capacity.
Here is an unpopular opinion: I truly believe that certain knowledge should not be accessible for everyone, it must be earned. At the very least, people should make an effort to understand the language that is more complex than their daily dose of Instagram. For a simple reason that if there had been no process of acquisition, it is not going to be valued, not because of intrinsic lack of worth in a person. As with many things in life, if we are not ready to hear certain ideas, they will either not make any sense to us, or even worse: will be interpreted in a very perverted way. Across various ancient traditions and still in certain contemporary martial arts practices, a student should have passed certain stages of apprenticeship in order to receive deeper layers of knowledge. This structure has multiple reasons: working hard for something makes one appreciate it more, and also, certain things cannot be understood unless there is a prior experience. Today, in the attempt to “democratize” knowledge, what we really do is deprive people from the opportunity to walk the path on which they can truly develop and find answers to the questions that nobody else can but themselves. It is true that learning is not a linear process, especially within complex systems, but maturity is obtained solely through ongoing efforts, and only at the end of a deliberate practice and digging for understanding one can find true wisdom. Not through watching endless YouTube tutorials.
I realize that we cannot put the genie in the box anymore, the technology is here to stay and it is a good thing in many ways, but on the other hand, I think it hurts us more that we dare to admit. In addition to the obvious downside of inability to maintain attention and a myriad of mental issues in the general population, I think we have lost sight of the fact that overload of information is not making us any good. We collect the data, but we do not make any sense out of it. We receive the gifts we are not prepared for, and that we have not worked to obtain, and this is also detrimental in many ways. The Dalai Lama stopped teaching advanced meditation practices in the West, because he realized it doesn’t make sense to teach it to the people who are not ready to do 20 years of preliminary practice prior. I believe he is onto something, and we should consider that maybe the traditional ways are not all outdated, but there is wisdom in them that we do not want to see, simply because it suggests long term commitment and not a quick magic trick that many people seek. I am not suggesting that we should withhold access to knowledge, I am getting at the necessity to bring back the understanding that in order to grasp certain concepts and ideas one needs to make a considerable effort first.
In our pursuit of knowledge dissemination, let us remember that while embracing simplicity widens the reach of information, looking to create a respectful coexistence between accessible expression and profound insight ensures that we not only endlessly impart information but also nurture the seeds of genuine understanding and wisdom. Finding the balance between the two is a good goal to have.