Years back in Bonn I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Prof Hugo Sonnenschein (currently the Adam Smith Distinguished Service Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago). His research was technical yet through examples and the use of simple language he was able to communicate the essence of his research to all who were present. Many of us, including me, had no idea before the lecture as to what he would talk about. Yet we walked away greatly enriched by the knowledge he had communicated to us. This is the stuff that, in my opinion, contributes to communication and cross fertilisation of ideas.
‘All That Can be Said Can be Said in a Simple Manner’
Ludwig Wittgenstein, a student of the great Bertrand Russell, did pathbreaking work in the philosophy of language. Wittgenstein, who was never emotionally or occupationally stable, moved away from his first love, aeronautical engineering and arrived unannounced in Cambridge in 1911. He started attending Russell’s lectures, often challenging him and finally earning his respect.
One of the startling conclusions that Wittgenstein drew from his research was the following: all that can be said can be said in a simple manner. However, there are many things which cannot be said at all and any attempt to depict these thoughts/images through words results in miscommunication and confusion.
Wittgenstein’s research was a product of great reflection carried on for decades in different environments: a sudden impulse drove him away from Cambridge to enlist as a soldier in the 1st World War; he continued his wanderings thereafter working as a gardener and school teacher, finally returning in triumph to Cambridge in 1929 with his work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in hand.
John Maynard Keynes, probably the most influential economist of the 20th century, who knew him from his earlier stint at Cambridge mentioned in a letter to his wife that he had met “God on the 5:15 train”. This was most probably a reference to Wittgenstein’s intellectual powers and purity of thought.
Move Over Jargon, the Heavyweights Tell You
Wittgenstein is not the only thinker who has mulled over the subject of simplicity in communication. For example, Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, worked out his own method of education in which the teacher had to try to explain everything to her students in non-technical language, free of jargon. As long as jargon remained in the lectures there was scope for improvement through contemplation and introspection.
The objective of ‘simplicity in communication’ is the key to linking academics to the larger community of people. Even today the academic community is often an island located in a sea of uncomprehending people. This is certainly not an ideal state of affairs.
The intellectual is a part of the community, as much as a plumber, an electrician, a bureaucrat and a politician. He/she has to serve the community and should ideally try to convey the essence of his/her research idea and its practical relevance in simple words. There should be an effort to refrain from the cultivation of superiority over people from other walks of life (you can manage without the intellectual but not without the farmer or the electrician and the plumber).
The Bubble and Walls of Academics
My recent experience with young doctoral scholars (from reputed academic institutions) in an advanced stage of their doctoral research has, in many cases, saddened me. They are either unable or unwilling to explain their research agenda in a few non-technical (simple) words (this runs totally counter to the Feynman method of education) and resort to all sorts of technicalities which only people researching in their narrow field would understand.
Narrow walls often get erected in academia: the economist thinks he is superior to the sociologist; the theoretician considers the empiricist as inferior with the latter accusing him of being out of touch with reality; and they end up fighting over who is doing more relevant research instead of forming a symbiotic relationship.
Co-authors often huddle together to find out how they can dress up their arguments in the most complicated mathematical language so that others are suitably impressed, either through painful inclusion or exclusion. This is utterly puerile.
The intellectual's job is to observe the material world, organic or inorganic, and the spiritual world, try to make sense of these and help in the dissemination of the insights generated.
Often we fail to comprehend the full meaning of our own research but our job is to ponder over it so that a simple meaning emerges. As Steve Jobs remarked, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. We need not be ashamed of it.
(The author is a Professor at the Department of Economics, Centre for Advanced Studies, Jadavpur University. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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