During one of these afternoon sessions—in a discussion about a codification depicting Porto Mont with its little houses lined up along the beach, facing the ocean, and a fisherman who walked away from his boat holding a fish—two of the participants stood up, as if they had planned it, walked to the window of the school where we were, looked at Porto Mont in the distance, and faced the codification that depicted the village once again and said, “Yeah, this is what Porto Mont is like, and we didn’t even know it”
Up until that point, their “reading” of that locale, of their private world, a reading made extremely close to the “text,” which was the context of the village, had prevented them from seeing Porto Mont as it was. A certain dullness had veiled Porto Mont. The experiment they were conducting, of “taking some distance” from the object, the Porto Mont codification, allowed them to make a new reading, one more truthful to the text, to the context of Porto Mont. The taking of distance that the reading of the codification afforded them brought them closer to Porto Mont as a text being read. This new reading re-created their previous reading; that is why they said: “This is what Porto Mont is like, and we didn’t even know it” Immersed in the reality of their small world, they were unable to see it. By taking some distance, they emerged and were thus able to see it as they never had before.
To study is to uncover; it is to gain a more exact comprehension of an object; it is to realize its relationships to other objects. This implies a requirement for risk taking and venturing on the part of a student, the subject of learning, for without that they do not create or re-create.
For this reason also, as I have said so many times, teaching cannot be a process of transference of knowledge from he one teaching to the learner. This is the mechanical transference from which results machinelike memorization, which I have already criticized. Critical study correlates with teaching that is equally critical, which necessarily demands a critical way of comprehending and of realizing the reading of the word and that of the world, the reading of text and of context.
This critical way of comprehending and realizing the reading of the word and of the world lies, on the one hand, in not dismissing simpler language because it is based on concepts developed in day-to-day experience, in the world of sensory experience. On the other hand, it also lies in moving away from the concept of “difficult language,” impossible language, as development occurs around abstract concepts. This critical way of comprehending and realizing the reading of text and context does not exclude either variety of language, of syntax. It does recognize, however, that writers using scientific, academic language cannot become simplistic even though they must attempt to become more accessible, clearer, simpler, less closed, and less difficult.
No one who reads has the right to abandon the reading of a text because it is difficult, because he or she does not understand the meaning for example, of a word such as epistemology.
Just as bricklayers require a collection of tools and instruments, without which they cannot build up a wall, student-readers also require fundamental instruments, without which they cannot read or write effectively. They require dictionaries, including etymological dictionaries, dictionaries focusing on verbs and those looking at nouns and adjectives, philosophical dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias. They need comparative readings of texts, readings by different authors who deal with the same topics but with varying degrees of language complexity.
Using these tools is not, as many may think, a waste of time. The time one spends when one reads or writes, or writes and reads, on the use of dictionaries or encyclopedias, on the reading of chapters or fragments of texts that may help a more critical analysis of a topic, is a fundamental component of one’s pleasurable task of reading or writing.
When we read, we do not have the right to expect, let alone demand, that writers will perform their task, that of writing, and also ours, that of comprehending the text, by explaining every step of the way through footnotes, what they meant by this or that statement. Their duty as writers is to simply and lightly write, making it easier for the reader to attain understanding but without doing the reader’s job.