BUT much of what is called “theory” these days is unintelligible to anyone that didn’t go to grad school, even theory that “interrogate[s] the prevailing dominant ideology.” I get that a lot of calls for “simplicity and clarity” are dismissive, but I also feel that it’s a false binary to claim that “simplicity and clarity” are at odds with complex theoretical issues. It strikes me as a way for people to maintain their status as “intellectuals.” I mean, “mundane”? That words says a lot to me. My Tumblr dashboard is a testament to this. There are a lot of complex theoretical issues being hashed out and it’s being done in language that I would describe as simple and clear. I guess this just irks me because I find it a defense of academic pretension and ivory towerism cloaked as rebellion. I mean, I know this is a HUGE cliche, but “interrogating the prevailing dominant ideology” is just “fighting the man,” right?

—shadowofthebridge

I think it’s part of a very “us vs. them” dynamic that this book adopts without explicitly owning up to doing it.  I don’t think that academic jargon is fundamentally unclear; but I do think the worst of academics use it to obfuscate and exclude people, or even worse, to argue OVER people instead of talk to them.  Or to say absolutely nothing at all.

Orwell made this point better: “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.”

(via pcquotes, pcquotes)

need this one too

Yes. I agree. And Orwell is always interesting to me because he was very good at committing the very sins he was always railing against in his writing. (Hell, look at my response, with all those “false binaries” and whatnot. I DO IT TOO!). So yeah, academic jargon is not fundamentally unclear. And yeah, I want to make it clear (ha!) that I’m not arguing against complexity or using words that someone might have to look up in the dictionary.

(via shadowofthebridge)