You went to grad school and studied modern philosophy? Imagine my surprise. Probably why you had trouble parsing a simple statement like "the best truths are simple truths." I'm sure most people got the concept.

Yes, Tom, this is why it takes 8-15 years of intense study to be really good at Physics, Math, Philosophy, Biology etc. Afterall, the truth is simple, right? Thayt-Thar eduuuu-caytion stuff is 'jus fer tha birds. Riiight?

There's education, and then there's education. A considerable proportion of modern higher education in certain fields seems to be concerned with training academics to blow gas at other academics. This keeps them off the streets and the welfare rolls, but an unfortunately high number of them start dabbling in politics, or worse, teaching kids how to blow gas.

It does take a lot of study to learn a field, particularly in the sciences. It often takes years of study to make a discovery. But if you look at the most remarkable discoveries in things like Physics, many of them turned out to be the discovery that the universe was simpler than people thought. Compare the multiple nested spheres required for the original concepts of the Solar System with the elegant and simple Copernican system, refined later by Newton and Einstein. Look at the paper describing the structure of DNA. Jacob Bronowski points out that many of the greatest discoveries were made by just asking a simple question no one had thought of before.

Sure there are significant things that require a long and complex explanation, but generally speaking, if you can't boil it down a bit, you might need to work on it some more.

Look at how you are trying to blow smoke over a simple idea like "individual." I know what an individual is, as opposed to a group. So does everyone else here. If someone is taking three pages to describe the concept, odds are good he is trying to "cook" the idea to fit his own agenda. I do know that the idea of "individual" rubs collectivists the wrong way, and is constantly under attack. Everyone I have run into who tried to deconstruct concepts like "individual" or "individual rights" was pushing collectivism of one sort or another.

Another example: When somebody is trying to convince you that the term "freedom" has no meaning, look for the chains behind his back.

Oh, for the enjoyment of the studio audience, a small bit describing the thinking of Heidegger:

Human beings truly exist, yet our "being-there" {Ger. Dasein} is subject to a systematic, radical uncertainty. Because we know that we will die, concern with our annihilation is an ever-present feature of human experience: Death is the key to Life. The only genuine question is why we are at all. Once we experience the joy[!?!] of dread, we recognize that our lives are limited—and therefore shaped—by death.

In just the same way, Heidegger argued, so Nothing is what shapes Being generally. This reveals the most fundamental, transcendent reality, beyond all notions of what-is slipping over into what-is-not. Even in the historical tradition, according to Heidegger, Nothing is shown to be the concomitant rather than the opposite of Being. The only genuine philosophical question is why there is something rather than nothing.

And this is just someone talking about Heidegger.

Kind of makes you want to drop a large brick on his foot. "There you go, Marty. You decided if you're there yet?"

The only other people I know who blow smoke like this are art critics.

Of course, Heidegger did have some shorter and pithier statements:

'Do not let doctrines and ideas be the rules of your Being... the Fuhrer himself and he alone is the present and future German reality and its rule.'

- Heidegger's rectoral address, 'Self-determination of the German University', May 1933

For fun, look up some of his other work in 1933 Germany.