While there may be no royal road to science, may we not at least expect a pointer as to what is road and what is not? Even the proposition that there is no such road can, obviously, be clearly put.
It occurs to me that maths is absolutely clear - the fact that most don't understand most of the language can't be helped. If the idea is to ascertain how much matter is dark matter, I'm happy to let motivated physicists check each others' observations and sums and report their assessments. Their reports must, however, be expressed so that I can understand them - because that's what those reports are for. To be widely understood.
Critical social / political economic theory of the Marxian variety necessarily and deliberately conflates theory and practice. We are both the object and the subject here. We must be able to understand, or we will either act inappropriately or not at all.
I actually reckon Jameson has a bit of Marx about him: lots of hard stuff (some of which I dare say need not be so hard) interspersed by a few sledgehammer-clear sentences or paragraphs to drive the point right into your cellular structure.
Jameson's point that proliferating social codes (he calls this 'postliteracy') reflect a new mode of domination ('faceless masters') - simply because they obviate collective apprehension, comprehension and practice - is a biggie. And, unless I'm hilariously wrong, not hard to grasp on a cursory glance at the first two pages of his famous Postmodernism essay. In other words, Jameson is not defending his own prose here, just sinking an ironic slipper into the soft underbelly of what passes for social theory these days.
Jameson himself may offer few shining examples of the high-modern style, but that doesn't mean he's not a very thoughtful and stimulating advocate for same.
And what about this Jamesonism for a crystal-clear drop of prose aimed at the mid-riff of swooning postmodernists: ' ... the culture of the simulacrum comes to life in a society where exchange-value has been generalised to the point at which the very memory of use-value is effaced'?
Post-modernist culturalists understand their own pronouncements clearly enough to drive home their point in the very act of extracting financial benefit (ie. You can sell a lot of books these days without having written there-in anything of any earthly use).
Playful irony indeed ...
Cheers, Rob.