The Dea(r)th of Intellectualism

Rudo is 24. She holds a degree in sociology from a state university. She works the counter at a bank branch on Jason Moyo Avenue, and she is good at it.

She can count a thick stack of notes by feel. She does not know who wrote the last book she was assigned at university, because she never finished it. She did not buy it. The photocopy was cheaper, and the photocopier ran out of toner at chapter four.

It is easy to call this a failure of character. The young are said to be shallow, addicted to phones, uninterested in ideas. The accusation is tidy and incomplete.

Intellectualism has not died of neglect by the young. It has died of arithmetic.

An original novel costs more than a week of transport. Data bundles for a research session cost more than a meal. The public library in most towns is a locked building with a faded sign. The lecturer who once ran a reading circle now runs three private lesson sessions and a side business. The ideas are still there. The conditions for having them are not.

There are exceptions. Debate societies, coding clubs and online policy forums exist, and some are excellent. They belong mostly to young people who already have data, quiet and a parent's backing.

The young are not blameless. Many have stopped expecting any room to reward depth, and so they stopped offering it. The reasoning is sound. The result is still a loss, and they take part in it.

Then there is the question of reward. Rudo watched an older sister finish a master's degree. The sister now works as a sales representative for a cooking oil distributor. Rudo watched an acquaintance build a following by shouting opinions at a camera. That man was paid within the month. The lesson was not subtle. Thinking carefully is slow and unpaid. Performing certainty is fast and sometimes lucrative.

A country teaches its young what counts by what it pays for. Ours pays for access, for loyalty, and for noise. It does not pay for the person who reads the whole report, checks the figure, and says the figure is wrong.

The dearth is real. Books are scarce, libraries are scarce, quiet time is scarce, and so is the belief that a mind trained on hard material will be worth anything. The death follows from that. A habit that is never rewarded does not survive a generation.

Rudo still reads. She reads headlines, forwarded messages and the long WhatsApp texts that arrive from relatives abroad. She reads what is free and fits in a pocket.

She balanced her till to the cent on Thursday. The sociology degree is in a folder at her mother's house, next to the school reports.

(Rudo is a composite character. The conditions described are not)

Simbarashe Namusi is a media expert writing in his personal capacity.

The Dea(r)th of Intellectualism