robinson - The Monday Morning Memo

“It has seemed sometimes that the little men in scientific work assumed the awe-fullness of a priesthood to hide their deficiencies, as the witch doctor does with his stilts and high masks, as the priesthoods of all cults have, with secret or unfamiliar language or symbols. It is usually found that only the little or stuffy men object to what is called ‘popularization,’ by which they mean writing with a clarity understandable to one not familiar with the tricks and codes of the cult. We have not known a single great scientist who could not discourse freely and interestingly with a child. Can it be that the haters of clarity have nothing to say, have observed nothing, have no clear picture of even their own fields? A dull man seems to be a dull man no matter what his field, and of course it is the right of a dull scientist to protect himself with feathers and robes, emblems and degrees, as do other dull men who are potentates and grand imperial rulers of lodges of other dull men.”

- John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez, p. 73, (1941)

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