On explaining something to somebody

 To explain

something to someone is first of all to show him he cannot understand it by himself.

the parable of a world

divided into knowing minds and ignorant ones, ripe minds and

immature ones, the capable and the incapable, the intelligent

and the stupid. The explicator's (explainer0 special trick consists of this

double inaugural gesture. On the one hand, he decrees the
absolute beginning: it is only now that the act of learning will

begin. On the other, having thrown a veil of ignorance over

everything that is to be learned, he appoints himself to the task.

such will be the principle of enforced stultifica

tion*

To understand this we must rid ourselves of received images.

The stultifier is nor an aged obtuse master who crams his stu

dents' skulls full of poorly digested knowledge, or a malignant

character mouthing half-truths in order to shore up his power

and the social order. On the contrary, he is all the more effica

cious because he is knowledgeable, enlightened, and of good

faith. The more he knows,

the more he is enlightened, the more evident he finds the

difference, the distance between him and them..

 

Now the task for the pupil is clear, his only goal

to understanding

that he doesn't understand unless he is explained to by someone who does understand, a 'teacher'
Excuse me, as the thought of teachers makes me go off and titter in the corner tee hee hee.