The left: still dying (was Re: European Unions)

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema crdbronx at erols.com
Sun Apr 8 09:24:39 PDT 2001


Though I mostly agree with Yoshie on this point, there is still something off-putting about the deliberately bad writing of many academic texts. It is important to distinguish a technical vocabulary, as of Marxism, psychoanalysis, or whatever, from obscurity. A technical vocabulary exists to express thoughts for which there are no other precise words. Obscurantism has no legitimate purpose. Part of my daily work involves helping patients understand what doctors are saying. A medical vocabulary involves making precise distinctions between various kinds of empirical observations. But using the initials "CA" to imply "cancer" is just a way to avoid saying "cancer." Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema

Carl Remick wrote:


> >From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
> >
> >Justin writes:
> >
> >>I just love American left anti-intellectualism. Who needs a buncha
> >>pointy heads sayin things good plain folk cain't unnerstan, anyway?
> >
> >It makes sense *for the Right* to put out anti-intellectual
> >propaganda ...
>
> Why? Somebody just the other day posted to the list a comment indicating
> that the right now commands the high grounds of intellectual effort, what
> with conservatives' ample funding of bulging-brain think tanks, etc. I
> think the comment is absurd, since conservative "thinking" is never more
> than sophistry, served up by cartoonish figures like, say, Myron Magnet.
> (If you want a good laugh, see:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29108-2001Apr2.html)
>
> As for supposed lefist "anti-intellectualism," we have to maintain the
> always -- throughout the ages -- critical distinction between true
> intellectual achievement and idle pedantry. E.g., Pope: "the bookful
> blockhead ignorantly read, with loads of learned lumber in his head," "words
> are like leaves, and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is
> rarely found," and so on.
>
> Carl
> _________________________________________________________________
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