"This mileau do have some good points like critics should avoid needless
jargon, jargon which [makes] pubs like Art in America incomprehensible."
I've made general complaints before about general complaints against jargon, but another approach suggests itself. As far as I can remember, there have been *no* complaints, on any of these lists, against particular instances of jargon. Such particular applications of the term would, of course, have to be backed up by identifying the particular offending words and showing how "simpler" language would have been equally accurate. When there is no particular instance in front of us, but merely an abstract complaint, the *word* "jargon" is itself an instance of word
replacing thought -- that is, "jargon" itself is jargon, and particularly offensive jargon, in such usage.
Instances lifted from such stereotyped and boring sources as the SWP or Sparts don't count. The instances have to come from sources which, *aside* from the jargon, would be respectable sources. Also, if the content is nonsense, it is nonsense to whine about the style. If someone is *wrong*, it is intellectual cowardice to hide behind criticism of his/her style. Why should we (or anyone) care if Jesse Helms or Pat Buchanan or Al Gore spouts bad rhetoric?
In the present case, does *Art in America* have anything important to say? If not, Sam's complaint is misdirected. If it does have something to say, it is still hard to take Sam's charge seriously without his translating an incomprehensible (but important) sentence into comprehensible English. If he can't translate it, how do we know whether it is style or content that makes it incomprehensible? And if nothing in the journal is important, why is he filling up space with references to it?
Carrol