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I agree that the work of Lacan, Derrida, Baudrillard, and their contemporaries do deserve study and contemplation. I've done it, and I learned a ton from it. T
by adpoe 10y ago
I agree that the work of Lacan, Derrida, Baudrillard, and their contemporaries do deserve study and contemplation. I've done it, and I learned a ton from it.
The problem that these generators address is much more circumscribed.
Rather, it is poking fun at the people who do not understand these literary giants, but claim to.
This kind of obscurantism is often used to hide the fact that the author doesn't fully understand what is going on.
A hallmark of deep understanding in any field is the ability to simplify complex concepts and relay them to a reader efficiently. (I'm not a physicist, but Brian Greene can explain String Theory and particle physics in a way I understand. Why can't someone do the same with Lacan?)
For example, Zizek is excellent at this. (As are many others.) If you read his papers, they do not sound like this. He uses the buzz-words necessary, but he makes straightforward arguments. And IMO, that's why he's been successful--he's helped get Hegel, Lacan, and other writers' complex philosophical ideas out to a very wide audience, efficiently--by writing good, quality prose.
Compare that with much of what comes out of undergrad/grad student writing classes, and I submit that there is a huge difference. And that's what this is poking fun at. Just my 2c.
At its deepest level, it is a question of inequality: some people are able to BS their way to tenure, fame, etc., by writing like this--because they understand the system better than others who weren't as well groomed through upbringing, good mentorship, or other circumstances. Writing this way is a strategy for certain people who know how the game is played: it has worked, and will continue to. But that's a problem, and it's one worthy of mockery.
- guitarbill 10y ago> Rather, it is poking fun at the people who do not understand these literary giants, but claim to. I'd go a level deeper, and say that these "literary giants" also suffer from "obscurantism". Maybe it's academia, or the fact they're trying to express a truly new thought (if that's possible nowadays), but comprehensibility suffers by using long and obscure words. They also say "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", so to expect undergrads won't to also do this is unrealistic.
- algesten 10y agoI have a close friend who is doing a postdoc in these areas. I've reviewed a lot of text and talked a lot about the concepts. The language may sometimes use long and obscure words, but it is for a reason, and it it precision. The thoughts and philosophical underpinnings are very nuanced and precise. Synonyms exist in most languages, and english has a lot of them, and their only motivation is to express nuances.
- guitarbill 10y agoLanguage will always have some vagueness associated with it, logic or maths don't. But logic and maths aren't great at expressing thoughts. (Maybe art is, but I'm not ready to make that argument here.) I believe long words are a poor substitute for carefully chosen words. It's possible you think long words mean carefully chosen, that's usually not the case in my experience. Very few people actually bother to look up the exact meaning, but use those long words how they think what they mean. So length buys you nothing. Along those lines, are you sure you mean precision and not accuracy? As long as descriptions of your thoughts are accurate, though not precise, that should suffice to convey them accurately and "truly" after a few tries - papers are long enough for some repetition :) EDIT: And that's the most charitable interpretation. Using long or uncommon words to either obscure meaning or try and appear more eloquent are real dangers (c.f. "autoethnographic"). After all, why use "verbose" when you could use "sesquipedalianism"? I will admit that long words are fun, but in the same way insect collecting is - not appropriate or even interesting for everywhere and everyone.
- algesten 10y agoWell. I'm not english native, I think I mean precision. :) For me great writing is to convey a specific thought succinctly. A lot of the writers mentioned here aren't expressing something radically new like Plato or Descartes, but rather taking a small step describing nuances from a previous thought – hence precision. Also, like computer science, I believe the field is entitled to a language describing concepts that aren't directly available without further studies.