Very Inspirational Quote of the Month - Christian van der Veeke

Very Inspirational Quote of the Month

This newsletter's Very Inspirational Quote of the Month was picked by Christian van der Veeke:

Of Brains and Leaves 

Let’s take two children who come from the same milieu, raised in the same way. Let’s take two brothers, put them in the same school, make them do the same exercises. And what will we see? One will do better than the other. There is therefore an intrinsic difference. And the difference results from this: one of the two is more intelligent, more gifted. Therefore, you can clearly see that intelligence is unequal.

[…]

Let’s look then at your children and your therefore. One succeeds better than the other, this is a fact. If he succeeds better, you say, this is because he is more intelligent. Here the explanation becomes obscure. Have you shown another fact that would be the cause of the first? […] By saying “He is more intelligent" you have simply summed up the ideas that tell the story of the fact. You have given it a name. But the name of a fact is not its cause, only, at best, its metaphor.

[…]

The inequality of intelligence explains the inequality of intellectual manifestations in the way the virtus dormitiva explains the effects of opium.

From Jacques Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster (Original French 1987, English translation 1991), p. 47-48.