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You seem to think incomprehensibility is a bad thing--and you are right, if one's goal is to understand, act, and thrive in this world. Your only tool would be
by abtinf 6y ago
You seem to think incomprehensibility is a bad thing--and you are right, if one's goal is to understand, act, and thrive in this world. Your only tool would be reason.
But what if one draws their self-esteem not from their own accomplishment, but from the feelings of others? Then, incomprehensibility is ammunition for the argument from intimidation. You simply threaten to attack the character of anyone who disagrees.
It takes the form of:
“Only a fool/deviant/sinner/idiot/ can fail to see that X argument is false/true.”
"Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize...that that’s a pretty narrow vision..."
The goal isn't to win the argument; the goal is to prevent any discussion at all. The only way to fight it is with moral certainty.
- azangru 6y ago> You seem to think incomprehensibility is a bad thing I do, but specifically, I would have thought that incomprehensibility is bad for spreading ideas. In order for ideas to spread, someone has to be willing to read these texts, overcome the hurdles of the dense language, and recognise something new, interesting and important; something they agree with. Incomprehensibility stands in the way of this process.
- abtinf 6y agoThen whatever else it is that is spreading, it is certainly not an idea and none of the requirements you listed could have happened.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoIt depends. If the idea is spread by people understanding it and agreeing with it, then incomprehensibility is bad. But if the idea is spread because people want to feel pride in knowing something beyond the reach of most people, then incomprehensibility is a positive. The obscurity makes it a kind of intellectual "Veblen good". But at that point, it's not being propagated based on its truth or usefulness, but merely as a form of signalling "I'm one of the smart ones". I suspect that at least part of the success of postmodernism is due to this.