Unintelligible Is Always Admired By 'Over-Intelligent'
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
21 February
2023
" What's unintelligible is often admired
by 'over-intelligent' people."
Persian Maxim
" I Make Things Intentionally Intricate
Yet,
Fools Will Always Appreciate
Likewise, Obscure Scriptures Are Read
By
Those Whose Thinking Is Dead "
-11th-century
Arab atheist Al-Ma'arri, translated from Arabic by Bayard Dodge
Sahal Ho
Hayaat Toh Kya Maza Hai
Daanista
Ise Dushwaar Banaya Jaaye
(There's no
fun if life is smooth/ Let's make it difficult ! )
-Nashtar
' Nishapuri '
I've always
found truth and sarcasm in this age-old maxim, ' You always admire what you
really don't understand.' The great Italian auteur Federico Fellini's most
inscrutable ' Eight and a half ' is a universally admired movie without being
comprehensively understood by anyone.
Jean Paul
Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness' is very obscure, yet casual readers as
well as the bibliophiles world over praise the book to the ninth clouds. Ludwig
Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus' is the most difficult book ever written, yet readers
dare not criticise it, lest others should look down upon them! So are almost
all the movies made by Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. They're admired because
very few have actually understood their classics.
This is a
common human tendency to praise when we don't dig and divine a phenomenon.
Years ago, an American historian Frank Avois aptly described Jiddu
Krishnamurty's philosophy as 'unintelligibly popular.' Just look at the irony
behind this subtle phrase: Unintelligibly popular. The main reason of Jiddu's
popularity was actually his sophistry (misleading logic), which is difficult to
grasp but sounds good like Socrates' philosophy.
New
findings prove that Socrates' immense popularity is because of his nebulous
philosophy. The serious students of Greek and western philosophy find Socrates
to be ridiculously intricate and 'exasperatingly meandering'. Yet, he's more
popular than Plato, the actual philosopher of the western world. Unintelligible
things appear very fanciful to us.
There's an
explanation to this universal proclivity. When we admire a seriously complex
thing without understanding it, we know that others have also not understood
it. And the human mind draws a certain kind of perverted pleasure by running
down others with a refrain: You don't know? (suggesting your ignorance).
Somewhere, we all love to underrate others and feel superior. When people say
that they love western classical music, rest assured, they're lying, unless
they're advanced students of western classical music. Because, they can't even
understand the subtleties of a pianissimo, let alone analyse and play it on a
piano. 'A single symphony takes a millennium to understand and appreciate,'
wrote Kishore Chatterjee, India's foremost analyst of western classical music
in his book 'Beethoven's Friends' (Niyogi Books, 1200/-).
So, the
next time you see someone admire a potentially difficult piece of art, request
him/ her to explain it. The person will never meet you and try again to feel
you intellectually inferior and creatively challenged.
-------
A
regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative
religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/unintelligible-admired-intelligent/d/129156
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