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I'm trying to struggle through the linked discussion of Kwasi Wiredu, and it's not encouraging. http://www.iep.utm.edu/wiredu/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/wiredu/

I'm trying to struggle through the linked discussion of Kwasi Wiredu, and it's not encouraging. http://www.iep.utm.edu/wiredu/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/wiredu/ Indeed, terms such as reflective integration and due reflection offer the critical spaces for the theoretical articulation of something whose existence has not yet been concretely conceived. ... This reading gives an entirely different perspective on acts and themes of resistance as panoptical surveillance in the age of global neoliberalism becomes more totalitarian in nature at specific moments. ... Another crucial, if distressing, feature of decolonization as advanced by Wiredu is that it always has to measure itself up with the colonizing Other, that is, it finds it almost impossible to create its own image so to speak by the employment of autochthonous strategies. I know there are Western philosophical traditions that embrace this kind of language (Derrida is mentioned frequently in the above-linked piece, and I also think of Foucault and Baudrillard), but I didn't study those in my MIT philosophy program either! Conversely, there are plenty of non-Western philosophers who embrace a clarifying analytical style over this kind of semiotic obscurity. Not that the latter isn't potentially insightful and fun: We're humans, after all, not computers.

marcus_holmes 11y ago
I totally object to this deliberately obscure style of academic writing. Having to re-read a sentence five times to decipher it doesn't make the author sound intelligent, it makes me suspect the author has nothing substantial to say. I'm working on my PhD now, and deliberately avoid citing papers with this style. I haven't got the time or energy to wade through pages of bullshit obscurity searching for nuggets of insight. I realise it's a fashion amongst academics, designed to separate them from the ignorant masses. It's working, but I don't think that's a good thing.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Obviously, not all academics write like this. Not by far. It's the hallmark of various followers of postmodernists like Derrida and Lacan. Particularly favored by far-left academics in departments of gender studies, multicultural studies, women's studies, etc. Multiculturalism is a wonderful thing, but not the brand that these frauds sell. You can read a pretty devastating critique of these pseudo-scholars in the book Fashionable Nonsense, which describes how two physicists made up a completely bullshit paper, full of utter nonsense, had it accepted for publication in one of the leading postmodernist journals of the time, and confronted a fierce but intellectually empty counterattack by postmodernism's supporters(this was in the 90s) [1]. 1. http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078 http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intell...
  - Chris2048 11y ago
    The leftist thing seems to be an attempt to ad academic legitimacy, borrowing the tradition of philosophy, while also making use of / abusing the tradition of ambiguity. The political advantage of this is never having to commit to saying anything concrete - a boon for practitioners of 'Motte and Bailey' rhetoric - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric... . That said, I find this is more the case with lit crit, than philosophy. Perhaps in Academic Feminism?
return0 11y ago
Not so much obscure as it is vague. And vague often disguises bullshit.

marcus_holmes 11y ago

I totally object to this deliberately obscure style of academic writing. Having to re-read a sentence five times to decipher it doesn't make the author sound intelligent, it makes me suspect the author has nothing substantial to say. I'm working on my PhD now, and deliberately avoid citing papers with this style. I haven't got the time or energy to wade through pages of bullshit obscurity searching for nuggets of insight. I realise it's a fashion amongst academics, designed to separate them from the ignorant masses. It's working, but I don't think that's a good thing.

jnbiche 11y ago
Obviously, not all academics write like this. Not by far. It's the hallmark of various followers of postmodernists like Derrida and Lacan. Particularly favored by far-left academics in departments of gender studies, multicultural studies, women's studies, etc. Multiculturalism is a wonderful thing, but not the brand that these frauds sell. You can read a pretty devastating critique of these pseudo-scholars in the book Fashionable Nonsense, which describes how two physicists made up a completely bullshit paper, full of utter nonsense, had it accepted for publication in one of the leading postmodernist journals of the time, and confronted a fierce but intellectually empty counterattack by postmodernism's supporters(this was in the 90s) [1]. 1. http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science/dp/0312204078 http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intell...
- Chris2048 11y ago
  The leftist thing seems to be an attempt to ad academic legitimacy, borrowing the tradition of philosophy, while also making use of / abusing the tradition of ambiguity. The political advantage of this is never having to commit to saying anything concrete - a boon for practitioners of 'Motte and Bailey' rhetoric - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric... . That said, I find this is more the case with lit crit, than philosophy. Perhaps in Academic Feminism?

return0 11y ago

Not so much obscure as it is vague. And vague often disguises bullshit.