Why are intellectuals so dumb?  It’s not a question of intelligence but of courage.  They refuse clarity.  Their entire craft is built on avoiding plain speech.  When you strip away the jargon, their ideas lose their authority.  They know this.  That’s why they bury every thought in words meant to impress their peers rather than illuminate truth.

They don’t write for the public.  They don’t write for truth.  They write for approval.  Their work is designed to earn citations, tenure, and applause from their own circle.  They seek recognition within a guild that rewards conformity over honesty.  The goal isn’t to say something dangerous or true, but to say something that signals loyalty.  They live in a world where cowardice pays.

Nietzsche saw their fear: they are more afraid of being understood than misunderstood.  To be misunderstood gives them an aura of mystery.  If people don’t grasp their words, they can pretend to be profound.  To be understood, on the other hand, would expose them.  Clarity strips away the illusion and reveals banality, contradiction, or nonsense.  So, they cling to obscurity like armor.

This’s why they worship complexity.  They inflate the simple until it looks impressive.  They take what could be said in a sentence and stretch it into a book.  They turn the obvious into the convoluted.  They juggle jargon to hide how illogical they are, hoping that complexity will be mistaken for depth.  Their words aren’t a pursuit of truth but a performance of expertise.

Jargon is their camouflage.  If it sounds technical, people assume it must be rational.  If it’s obscure, it must be profound.  This trick keeps them safe, but the safety is an illusion.  Their arguments are cardboard structures dressed in marble wallpaper.  They look impressive at a distance, but at the first touch of plain speech, they collapse.

The dumbness of intellectuals isn’t in their lack of intelligence.  It’s in their lack of courage.  They’re unwilling to risk being clear.  They’re unwilling to be judged.  They don’t seek truth, because truth demands clarity.  They seek the appearance of truth, because that’s what secures their status.

They want to be seen as thinkers without doing the dangerous work of thinking.  They prefer recognition to reason, titles to truth, complexity to clarity.  So, they remain trapped, forever afraid of the one thing every genuine thinker embraces: to be understood.

Reference

Friedrich Nietzsche; Thus Spoke Zarathustra