Fletcher and September 11:  The Dangers of Academia

by Peter Neisuler, MALD '02
 
In the academic setting, people frequently feel that they need to impress each other with their erudition and vocabulary.  Suppose an academic writer wanted to write, "Two plus two equals four."  That doesn't sound very sophisticated, so the sentence may come out as: "The number which comes after one, in some settings and under certain parameters, when combined with what is considered the cube root of eight, will result in a conglomeration which, for our purposes, we will call 'four'; with the understanding that this 'four' is not four thousand, or forty, or indeed, as some have falsely claimed, negative four."

This is perhaps an exaggeration; but as a Fletcher student knows all too well, it is not much of a stretch from some of the readings that we are assigned during the course of our studies.  In this context, a person who wants to make a simple point, which could be made in everyday language in one paragraph, will often twist that point into something convoluted, and then repeat it over and over again using different language, ad infinitum.  To a discerning reader, such convoluted writing does not indicate extra intelligence on the part of the writer. 

On the contrary, a sign of true intelligence (and writing skill) is the ability to get a point across clearly and simply, without excess verbiage.  Indeed, words have a tendency to confound meaning.  Poetry and literature avoid this problem by using words in the same way music uses notes, in a transformed manner unlike ordinary conversation. Furthermore, fancy vocabulary can be useful in certain instances if there is an idea, which cannot be expressed otherwise.  However, if you are simply transmitting information or explaining a viewpoint, there is no need to use transformed language.  Consider the sufferings of your poor reader.

The biggest problem with academic writing, however, is that it can combine with a dangerous way of thinking.  In a sea of jargon and buzzwords, an academic enclave can be created where it is easy to lose sight of reality in all its complexity.  We have a tendency in academia to package life, which is messy, into neat little ideological units.  If you are a Marxist, an Orientalist, or a religious extremist, you can paint yourself a nice clear black and white picture out of the confusing gray areas and confusing nuances that cannot be categorized in the real world.  This picture need not be disturbed by contrary facts as long as you stay in the library, the lecture hall, church, synagogue, or medrassa, where your ideas can remain untainted.  People and leaders mired in an all-encompassing ideology have committed the majority of evil acts on a grand scale, such as the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Holocaust, Stalin's gulags, Mao's Great Leap Forward (in which 30 million people starved to death), and apartheid. 

In our present context, I would add to that list the American excesses during the Cold War, the September 11 attacks against the United States, and the simplistic arguments of those who hold the United States largely responsible for those heinous crimes.  The above events are disparate, but they have in common a clear divide between people sitting in a room in front of a map or a text justifying atrocities and people down on the ground perpetrating or suffering those atrocities.  In all of these cases, simplistic, ideological thinking, which divides the world into neat categories, played a fundamental role in the destructive thinking and destructive acts that took place.

Am I therefore arguing that academia should not exist?  Of course not.  Otherwise I would have to quit Fletcher, but I like it here.  (Perhaps I may argue for shorter reading assignments but that would be futile.)  I simply wish to point out that in our context, it is easy to divide the world up into Good Guys and Bad Guys.  It is easy to fall into lazy patterns of thinking and writing.  It is easy to agree with ideologies that are not properly challenged.  And, on an ongoing basis, ignore the inconvenient and contradictory facts from our messy world. 

To say, reflexively, that "The United States brought the September 11 attacks on itself," while dismissing the horror of the event, is not much different from blindly waving the American flag and saying, "My country, right or wrong."  The United States is not a "thing" which scores points or has points scored against it.  It is conglomeration of people, people no better and no worse, in their nature, than people anywhere else.  If we lose sight of that, then we run the risk of becoming, in the words of Edward Albee, a group of "highly educated barbarians."

Peter Neisuler taught literature in Africa and in New York City before coming to Fletcher.  He plans to enter the Foreign Service on his graduation.

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