As part of a seminar series we have been given texts to read, and this paragraph really jumped out at me. The piece in question is talking about the way in which institutions – in this case, a university – can unknowingly, yet deliberately, push a set of notions that are not in the best interests of all who participate in that institution’s overall goals. It is a warning to everyone to avoid accepting anyone’s perception of the limits or perameters of an idea, even your own.
“Injustice, based in all its forms, on a concept of elitism, continues, not
because the technological means are not available, to provide food, shelter, and
freedom from material want for all, but because minds, which have for centuries
been moulded and preformed to come to terms with the actuality of scarcity and
therefore of injustice and elitism and division, find it difficult to come to an
awareness of the distortion of their own barbaric formation.”
Sylvia Wynter, (1968–9) ‘We Must Learn to Sit Down Together and Discuss a Little Culture – Reflections on West Indian Writing and Criticism’, The Routledge Reader in: Caribbean Literature
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