The left writers folks are complaining about aren't really hear to listen, are they? If they are, then why pussy-foot around? In the name of civility? You think it's civil and polite to be talking about the left in general, when you're really talking about specific people here and their inability to write what you expect them to write? If that's it....? That's exactly the kind of game that will peg you as a member of management and not at all on the side of the so-called workers people are hoping to impress.
Also, I do think it has to be acknowledged that writing never comes easy to anyone. It comes easy to everyone here, comparatively. But, even the best writers among us will probably admit that their best stuff is physically draining. When I've written stuff that has blown people away, it's stuff that left me exhausted afterwards because you get into a groove where you can't stop and it requires that you draw on a reservoir of passion that can leave you weeping and spent.
At 08:56 PM 12/1/03 -0800, joanna bujes wrote:
>(I'll put a K in front of Kelly's post.)
>
>K)Let's take Doug as an example. Most people on this list believe Doug is
>a stellar example of clear, relatively jargon-free writing. In my
>experience, most people I've worked with would find Doug's work
>difficult--whether they're the CIO of a Fortune 50, a degreed professional
>who reads Harper's, or a butcher.
>
>J) I don't think Doug's a good example.
My point stands, however. Whatever you want to select as an example of "clear writing" I think you'd be surprised at just how difficult it is for most people. My point is not that people are stupid, my point is that it is a very parochial view. If you've ever subjected your writing to critics among "the masses," creating a space for them to reveal where they got lost or what they don't understand, most people here who pride themselves on their clear writing, will realize that we're still writing for a select few even if you use practice instead of praxis, supposedly instead of ostensibly.
> His writing is clear, but it's also sarcastic, witty,
I'm not sure why witty and sarcastic would be a problem--though perhaps you aren't saying that.
>and relies on an assumed "common" background with his readers that some
>potential readers would not have. There's also a lot of irony that might
>prove confusing to the many readers.
Yes. But here's my point about condescension. I think there is a place in between assuming that common body of knowledge--and coming off as know-it-alls--and writing "down" to people. It's what I call didactic writing. Didactic writing is often ridiculed, but i think it needs to be rescued as a tradition of writing that is, for lack of a better word, uplifting.
This is something I only started fleshing out 18 months ago. It was actually something I was putting together for my job, a rationale as to why our writing was superior to the kind of hand-holding Powerpoint writing that assumes monkeys as users. I abandoned all that in my bid to put a stop to working for free, however, so it needs to be worked out. Bear with me. Indulge me.
Didactic writing is educative. It assumes a reader that wants to learn. It assumes what I'll call reading-learners. It assumes writing that encourages what Adrienne Rich describes as "claiming an education" rather than passively receiving one. It is writing that involves the reader, brings them in, and nourishes a thirst for knowledge that the reader is already aware of or in the process of becoming aware of.
Rich's metaphor counterposes the idea of staking a claim, of making an active effort to learn against a pedagogical tradition that Friere calls the "banking model" where students passively sit by while experts dump knowledge into the minds. The kind of writing that's effective here is writing that should require a little bit of work on the part of a reader. Not work that has no reward, but work that rewards the reader because it encourages them to allow themselves to be hungry to learn more. It is the kind of writing that allows a reader to see herself as more than she was when she started reading. It is "charismatic" in the older sense of that word.
(i'm aware that this sounds hopelessly idealistic and possibly even, err, Helen Steiner Rice. :))
I'm convinced that part of the problem is that we think that readers shouldn't be stopped dead in their tracks in order to figure out what something means. I think the strongest feature of didactic writing is the fact that it slows the reader down. It forces them to stop and take it in. It forces them to think, to wonder, to take time to make connections, to savor the words, and yes, to pick up a dictionary, and look up a word. What are we so afraid of? Why such a utilitarian approach to writing? The information must be conveyed straigtforwardly, quickly, as efficiently as possible? Why? Becuase if they pick up a dictionary, they might lose interest? Because they might feel intimidated.
No. I wouldn't be here had anyone I'd read or worked with had assumed that I couldn't handle being exposed to hard, complex ideas, to writing that made me work, slow down, claim my reward from the engagement. I would have had no reason to see myself as moving beyond where I was, no reason to desire more, no reason to believe I was capable of more.
So, how is this accomplished? Certainly not through bloodless power point style writing. It's also certainly not achieved through Das Kapital-thumping exhortation that makes people feel guilty, reproducing the cycle.
It is accomplished, I think, when it's assumed that the reading-learner better understands and _retains_ when rational cognition as well as sensory cognition is stimulated. Alliteration, metaphor, lyricism, cadence, etc.--all of these have long been used to evoke that sensory experience. Didactic writing encourages readers to slow down, enhancing that sensory experience.
Where does that come from--that cadence, that poetry? Martin Luther King Jr had it. Ehrenreich has it sometimes. Molly Ivins has it. More, those are just writers we probably have in common. It comes from passion--anger, laughter, outrage, pessimism, optimism, care, love. I don't mean to mystify this as some special talent that someone magically has or is born with, but I don't know how else to describe whence comes the ability to write prose in such a way that, when you read it out loud, it's moving, beautiful, engaging.
that's about all i feel like exploring, for now.
I don't mean to snip all that you wrote out and ignore it. I don't have much to add. We agree.
Sure, the kind of relationship between writers and readers needs to be more collegial, not one where putative experts "talk at" people. Indeed, I snipped some of that from the draft of a paper I presented. It's the only thing I had readily available, a draft sinceeverything else in storage). It was an ethnography about the experience I described in that post.
The people I worked with, when they described what they loved so much about the material, used phrases like "talking at" and "talking back". What they were describing--and sometimes lacked the words to describe--was their ideal of what political participation ought to look like.
Talking at" is the language of experts and politicians who talk at people, uninterested in what citizens have to say.
"Talking back" is the language of citizens where goal isn't to convince the other side, but to build solidarity
"Talking with" refers to their ideal-- what political participation and voice _ought_ to be like. They measured "talking back" and "talking at" against their ideal of "talking with."
The problem is that they also wanted this ideal form of political dialogue to be more like sitting around "chatting" on someone's porch while the fireflies light up the neighborhood. They described the ideal as "chatting" so frequently that it was striking to listen to the interview tapes and read the transcripts. And this, I think, is a remnant of a society where, as I said, the goody-goody, I'm-Okay, You're-Okay, it's just my opinion approach to dialogue is dominant. We're fighting that every step of the way and it simply isn't something that individuals can do much about. That doesn't mean we need to sit idly by and wait for the revo, of course.
Kelley