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

[Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema]

Not always easy to tell in practice. Still, there are some principles of sound
exposition and prose that are the same no matter what the material. I'm sympathetic
to a good bit of the terminology of political economy, and of psychoanalysis, though
in both cases it's possible to cover poor thought or ignorance with it. Critique of
such writing should work to expose this, as a deviation from a proper standard. A
lot of literary scholarship, however, seems intentionally and perversely obscure.
Wonder what Yoshie, who seems to be a lit person, thinks of this.
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema

Jacob Segal wrote:


> on 4/9/01 12:24 AM, Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema at crdbronx at erols.com wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> A good distinction, but where does technical vocabulary end and obscurantism
> begin?  The technical vocabulary of Kant, Hegel Heidegger is obscure but not
> obscurantism.  Why are contemporary left academicians criticized more
> harshly than the difficult writers they are commenting on?
>
> Jacob Segal