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{ 2008 06 08 }

Corollary

I have often heard it said that any concept, no matter how complicated, can be explained to an interested and motivated 15 year old — if only you understand it yourself.

There is a corollary I think people forget, however: if someone attempts to explain something, and doesn’t succeed, there can only be one of two reasons:

  • the explainer doesn’t actually understand what they’re saying, or,
  • the explainer would prefer you not to understand what they’re saying.
Posted by Charlie on Sunday, June 8, 2008, at 19:03 (@127). Filed under Maxims. Follow any responses to this post with its comments RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

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  1. On Obscurity | Explorations | 2008-Jun-10 at 15:01 (@959) | Permalink

    [...] is still on my mind today; its an extension of the thoughts below, and the orwell piece “Politics and the English Language“, which I strongly commend to [...]