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I don't particularly disagree with what the author has written about, but the jargon and complex wording is really annoying to read. If this were written on a
by 65 1mo ago
I don't particularly disagree with what the author has written about, but the jargon and complex wording is really annoying to read.
If this were written on a single subject, like engineering philosophy, then fine. But writing a multi-subject article requires simpler language so those who may be familiar with one thing but not the other can understand everything.
I find it hard to trust the intelligence of someone who uses words like "dichotomy", "meta-cognition", and "monocausal determinism" - language like this is purely performative. Let's not be performative, who are you trying to impress with your big words?
- JSR_FDED 1mo agoThe thing is, these words are both incredibly precise and compact. So I’m very happy that the author uses them, as it means I can get the meaning without lowest common denominator fluff or volume. Have I always known what these words meant? No, but it’s the reward for a habit of right-clicking every word and looking up the definition - which also stretches your cognitive capacity over time so it’s worth doing for purely selfish reasons.
- armitron 1mo agoYour particular interpretation of the author's choice in words tells us more about your psychological makeup than the author. Take the "meta-cognition" advice to heart and perform some self-debugging in order to determine what exactly in your psyche made you react in this way.
- grey-area 1mo agoYou appear to define words you don’t immediately understand at this point in time as ‘performative’, ie used only to show off. An odd position to take. If you don’t know a word just look it up, you may well learn something.
- 65 1mo agoI know what all of these words mean. My point is that these are esoteric words that don't fit into the article's purpose or for the article's audience. The author would have gotten his point across far easier if he were to have first contextualized these words, or defined them himself. Pedagogy is very important in writing. Without care for the reader, these words come off as performative.
- grey-area 1mo agoReally? Dichotomy is not a particularly complicated word, nor is it ‘performative’ for most readers.
- 65 1mo agoYou can very easily replace "dichotomy" with "difference" or "contrast", and if you have to, expand the sentence further given the context of that difference/contrast. I will wager most people do not know what dichotomy means, and since it has strong synonyms, I don't see the purpose of using it. And I've only ever heard people trying very hard to come off as smart use the word dichotomy, e.g. they're being performative. It's my opinion that you get your point across better with simpler language, even if it requires lengthening the sentence a bit.
- grey-area 1mo agoThat’s not what it means.
- arw0n 1mo agoWe use specific words in writing to mean specific things; there is no exact synonym for 'dichotomy' in the English language. The word is very common in academic and non-academic literature. Meta-cognition is a compound word, where both parts are widely known, and the combination should be pretty obvious. 'Monocausal determinism' is different, very specific, and probably only known to a minority of readers. Determinism, the idea that everything within a system happens exactly according to cause and effect, comes from ontology, which is the study of existence and our place in the world. Mono derives from old greek single. Monocausal determinism is the idea that everything within a system derives from a single cause. It is not a writers duty to be understood by everyone. Sure is nice, but more difficult to pull of, and often futile.