The current mantra applicable to all the fields, but especially to academics, is "simplify." Indeed, it is important to make complex concepts easy to understand. That process makes studies enjoyable. Absolutely accepted. It is, moreover, true of every experience. Let me give you an example. Not everybody can understand, forget appreciate, Picasso's "Guernica". Everyone can comprehend a Ravi Varma canvas, right?
My problem is with excessive simplification, and as a corollary, with the avoidance of all that is tough. Personally I feel that human mind is capable of analysing, sorting out most complex issues. It may take a little bit of time, but one sure gets it, may be, with some practice. Do not we manage any software package with a little bit of practice even if it appears tough initially?
Why constantly insist on simplification? Let me give you a parallel example. We do not always eat mashed food like a baby, right? Why, our system needs roughage for it to remain healthy! Our minds, our brains, too, need roughage, complexities, abstractions, conceptualisations. Why avoid all these super foods for the brain? Who is, moreover, going to gain what, profit how by simplifying everything for the majority? Is not it a new form of exclusion? Is monopoly of genuine resources and better opportunities hidden within this yen for simplification?
Yet another canard I find difficult to grasp is not declaring the toppers, the academic prize-winners in the name of, under the garb of, equality? Why? Why not pat the back of achievers? Do not we have the gold, the silver, and the bronze medals in the Olympics? Or is it the case that all the players are declared winners?
To begin with, it is necessary to remember that equity and equality are absolutely different from each other as concepts. True equality is not exactly allowed by Nature which is full of variety. In fact, Darwin's concept, too, despite its ethical lag, suggests a hierarchy of the weakest to the strongest! 'The survival of the fittest' is his theme song!
There is always a suspicion lingering at the the back of the entire procedure that by simplifying it for the huge majority, there is an indirect annihilation of the gifted by consciously demeaning them. When one insists that there cannot be any difference between climbing to the top of Parvati and Mount Everest, there is a demeaning of both, Mt Everest and the process of mountaineering. Excessive demand for eternal simplification could nip in the bud any demand for individual excellence which is the plinth of creativity, right? Beware of simplifiers and their sweet gobbledy gook talk of 'all are equal' because they are, in the process, positing themselves as 'more equal' to quote George Orwell's motto in the 'Animal Farm', a great mirror to society.
Pratima@ True, every flower is unique, each bird is special. They, however, are not equal, right?
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