academic language is often purposely obfuscated

nobody's addressing the bigger issue tho - ryan et al do you really believe there aren't environments that can, in theory, give people incentives for being inscrutable?

i think the point made earlier about academic writers aiming for precision rather than clarity rung true - that's what those pile-up sentences are all about, trying to make an idea watertight and shutting off loopholes

and they're not naturally adept enough with language to be able to edit it into comprehensibility at the same time, and yeah in an environment where there's no impetus to do that anyway

The stupid thing is that editing into shorter sentences would often help with clarity; oftentimes the biggest problem I have with reading academic writing is that the ideas are conveyed in so many overlapping/nested clauses that I half suspect the authors learned to write from studying German syntax.

lex: that depends on what you're interested in! judging by your above posts id say id be just as interested in anything someone might suggest for you because im not well read in those areas.

DJP is right too. It happens to your sentences when you try to write about this stuff. You start to pile on clauses.

You start to pile on clauses.

As I constantly try to remind myself, edit!

I do wish academics would spend more time honing their writing, but to address the "incentivize" question: i think if anything academics are in an environment that prizes novelty (originality) and being prolific. you'd be surprised how fast they are expected to churn out books and articles. that more than anything could be the source of the "problem," such as it is.

http://img.gamesbox.com/games/images/pilupsanta.jpg

*APPLAUSE*

'Journalistic' used to be the term of abuse I'd hear in the literary academy for stuff that (from an academic perspective) struck the wrong balance between acknowledging complexity and using clarity and/or liveliness to engage the reader.

the fact that they prize novelty just adds another incentive to craft 'difficult' writing tho

do you have any particular recommendations?

i am so setting myself up for a fall here but nm

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:31 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

continuum press has a great big "book of 20th-c philosophy" that i highly recommend... its green. let me see if i can find it

this is one of the most condescending things i've read one academic say about another in a long time (from nussbaum on butler, above):

It is difficult to come to grips with Butler's ideas, because it is difficult to figure out what they are. Butler is a very smart person. In public discussions, she proves that she can speak clearly and has a quick grasp of what is said to her.

just like a capable young student! or a foreigner! no cognitive defects here! a real sharp young lady.

it's condescending to have the opinion that she can articulate her ideas clearly when speaking but not when writing?

yeah i don't...feel comfortable with that nussbaum dismissal. also nussbaum writes more clearly than butler, but her recent work has been pretty whatever.

ryan et al do you really believe there aren't environments that can, in theory, give people incentives for being inscrutable?

Not at all -- surely such an environment is theoretically possible. I can't say that I can think of a real-world environment I'd describe that way, though. It may be that in certain precincts of the financial industry there's an incentive to construct instruments whose actual nature is difficult or impossible to figure out from the legally mandated description.

actually, wait, i am not talking about her From Disgust to Humanity book, which i didn't know about

If novelty is prized above clarity...

http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=116963

^^ this is the book i was talking about. looks like its out of print but you can pick up used copies for not too much. dunno why its only showing hardcover, i have a softcover version. anyway its arranged as an encyclopedia, like 50-60 entries for thinkers, thoughts, concepts, schools, etc. all of them like 5-10 pages. high readable, perfect for reference, or just dipping in and out. full disclosure: my thesis advisor wrote a bunch of the entries.

this is one of the most condescending things i've read one academic say about another in a long time

it's what makes that piece so amazing! she goes in.

if nussbaum wanted to say that, djp, she could have. she chose a wording which back-handedly suggests that butler is on the bubble as to whether or not she's sharp enough to get a cashier's job at burger king. 'a quick grasp of what is said to her'?? cmon.

given some of nussbaum's prose (i know someone who once called it 'waterlogged' and that seems dead-on) i don't think she's really in the best position to go around sneering about the writing of others.

speaking from my own position (young academic trying to get a foothold) i am pretty insistent on revising and editing my own body of work to be as clear as possible. because of my vulnerable position im trying to reach as wide an audience as possible without losing the precision of my argument. this is actually something i've struggled with a lot.

Butler, say, is in the position of not giving any fucks about that stuff. she has a tremendous amount of freedom and license (that she has definitely earned).

given some of nussbaum's prose (i know someone who once called it 'waterlogged' and that seems dead-on) i don't think she's really in the best position to go around sneering about the writing of others.

― j., Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:07 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this is pretty much what i mean. it's become kind of boilerplate-y.

idk the full scope of this cos i don't read this stuff, but i did read in one of the glosses/obits of derrida's death that the style of his writing isn't 'against' clarity or ease of transmission, but is attempting to circle around the same concepts in several different ways at once. the writing isn't building from a to b to c, but is more meditative, circular, poetic even. there is a performative aspect to it, at the 'expense' of the demonstrative, if that makes sense.

this seems like a slightly different issue than 'the writing is dense because the subject matter is dense'

Just out of curiousity, what's the next sentence after that "can speak clearly" one?

Not at all -- surely such an environment is theoretically possible. I can't say that I can think of a real-world environment I'd describe that way, though. It may be that in certain precincts of the financial industry there's an incentive to construct instruments whose actual nature is difficult or impossible to figure out from the legally mandated description.

finance: http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/2669.html
business
academia
dating
politics

Ah - got it: "Her written style, however, is ponderous and obscure. It is dense with allusions to other theorists, drawn from a wide range of different theoretical traditions"

she has a tremendous amount of freedom and license (that she has definitely earned).

( •_•) i would say both

( •_•)>⌐■-■ of these clauses should be

(⌐■_■) interrogated

if nussbaum wanted to say that, djp, she could have. she chose a wording which back-handedly suggests that butler is on the bubble as to whether or not she's sharp enough to get a cashier's job at burger king. 'a quick grasp of what is said to her'?? cmon.

I am sure the context in which that excerpt comes from lends a lot more vitriol to that excerpt but, reading it her out of context, it scans like you are piling baggage onto it and then yelling at Nussbaum for it. I mean, the excerpt says "Butler is smart; she understands people quickly and can impart her ideas to others when she speaks to them"; it seems obvious to me that Nussbaum is setting this up as Butler being more than smart enough to make the choice make the deliberate, alienating choice to apparently write as impenetrably as she can.

xp: Okay in light of the sentence that immediately follows, your objection really comes across to me as isolating context so that you have something to be mad about.

also xp: lol goole

idk the full scope of this cos i don't read this stuff, but i did read in one of the glosses/obits of derrida's death that the style of his writing isn't 'against' clarity or ease of transmission, but is attempting to circle around the same concepts in several different ways at once. the writing isn't building from a to b to c, but is more meditative, circular, poetic even. there is a performative aspect to it, at the 'expense' of the demonstrative, if that makes sense.

this seems like a slightly different issue than 'the writing is dense because the subject matter is dense'

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:08 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think both or all of these things are at play? in derrida certainly. not everyone is quite as 'playful' as derrida, or as good a writer. the circularity thing -- he tends to start and end his pieces with the same image or riff -- is oft-imitated but there arent as many ppl as smart as JD imo. but derrida is also dense, packed w/ allusion, meaning, reference. i guess maybe that makes it doubly hard.

yeah i think derrida is kind of a special case. i am not a huge fan, but he is a great writer.

was

the shift back in that sentence to talking about style just discreetly passes by the fact that the wording of the previous sentence made it do more than talk about butler's verbal style. it's a question of the use and abuse of rhetoric, which is surely relevant. i'm sure butler or someone like her could do a lot with the implicit yoking of clarity to intellectual capacity (in fact that's pretty much one of the main themes of the adorno passages she likes to cite when defending herself against criticisms like this one).

http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=116963

^^ this is the book i was talking about. looks like its out of print but you can pick up used copies for not too much. dunno why its only showing hardcover, i have a softcover version. anyway its arranged as an encyclopedia, like 50-60 entries for thinkers, thoughts, concepts, schools, etc. all of them like 5-10 pages. high readable, perfect for reference, or just dipping in and out. full disclosure: my thesis advisor wrote a bunch of the entries.

― max, Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:03 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok i am picking this up on amazon today

generally speaking i have almost always had good experiences w/ continuum's secondary "guides" & "companions" & so forth.

JD is a good example of someone fully in command of his writing.

iatee-- i do think you are making an interesting point. especially in terms of Plato's "esoteric" philosophy and things like that. there does seem to be certain barriers set up designed to impede the novice or layman, to prevent easy understanding and "hide" the true meaning.

The "watertight" and "shutting off loopholes" issue is very real, I think. But there's a cultural issue there too -- it has to do with, in certain arenas, people not willing to read one another generously. If you're extremely paranoid about all the possible ways somebody would want to misread you in order to attack not what you're actually saying, but you personally (possibly for no other reason than egotism) then you're going to tend to drown what you're saying in lots of qualifiers and conditionals.

On the other hand, that should also maybe be a clue that what you're trying to do is too ambitious and general to begin with, and maybe instead of making vast statements which you then slaughter with a thousand qualifiers, you should directly make the more modest statements which are left once you've slashed away all the possible wrong imputations. But that's sometimes pretty hard, I'll grant.

If you're extremely paranoid about all the possible ways somebody would want to misread you in order to attack not what you're actually saying, but you personally (possibly for no other reason than egotism) then you're going to tend to drown what you're saying in lots of qualifiers and conditionals.

lol this is probably the most otm thing said itt about the humanities academy

the shift back in that sentence to talking about style just discreetly passes by the fact that the wording of the previous sentence made it do more than talk about butler's verbal style. it's a question of the use and abuse of rhetoric, which is surely relevant. i'm sure butler or someone like her could do a lot with the implicit yoking of clarity to intellectual capacity (in fact that's pretty much one of the main themes of the adorno passages she likes to cite when defending herself against criticisms like this one).

tbh, the argument that you don't have to be able to make yourself understood to be considered intelligent is one of the things that made me turn to sciences over philosophy, so we are basically arguing at cross-purposes

academics can be shitty to each other. i never "attack" someone else's argument, but try to argue im "using" it or differentiating myself from it. i hate the dick measuring.

you are being very good-natured itt, ryan

i'm sure butler or someone like her could do a lot with the implicit yoking of clarity to intellectual capacity

Dude, they are explicitly not yoked! The sentences are:

JB is very smart
JB can listen and talk real good
JB doesn't write good

the implication being that she can but doesn't.

If you're extremely paranoid about all the possible ways somebody would want to misread you in order to attack not what you're actually saying, but you personally (possibly for no other reason than egotism) then you're going to tend to drown what you're saying in lots of qualifiers and conditionals.

this is partly a culture-of-this-stuff too i think? like when you have whole books written about a person's use of a single word you are always going to be hyper conscious of your own word choice. you dont want this essay youve spent months working on to be dismissed or torn apart b/c you were clumsy

or xp what other ppl said

you are being very good-natured itt, ryan

haha, i kinda regret losing my temper a bit upthread. no one is being "obnoxious."

http://www.sfu.ca/~swartz/blood_sport.htm

iatee-- i do think you are making an interesting point. especially in terms of Plato's "esoteric" philosophy and things like that. there does seem to be certain barriers set up designed to impede the novice or layman, to prevent easy understanding and "hide" the true meaning.

yeah I mean - again - I don't think that 'obfuscation can be used as a tool by certain people/groups in certain contexts' is limited to academia. and the opacity in our financial sector is something that affects us all a lot more than 'judith butler is hard to read'.

i don't think i was making that argument, djp. i think both nussbaum and butler probably have points in their favor (e.g. there ARE problems with butler's prose, and there ARE certain assumptions and power structures coded into the prose that nussbaum favors). i was only pointing out a place where in the process of trying to smack butler down, nussbaum does just the kind of thing that motivates some of butler's choices about prose in the first place. and i think if nussbaum were trying to engage with more integrity she might not have gone for that easy backhand, because it detracts from the defense of the value of clear prose that she wants to make.