Some of this desire for exclusive control of knowledge survives. And even those who have the most selfless and democratic views about the information they control often unwittingly make what they know inaccessible by using a language, a style, or a method of exposition that a layperson cannot understand. Sometimes such obscurantism is inevitable, but often it is an unnecessary habit left over from the past, or a shortcut that makes one’s thoughts more accessible to the initiated while putting them out of anyone else’s reach.
