CHOMSKY: ... I don't think there's any such thing as literary theory, any more than there's cultural theory ... A great physicist of the modern period could write a book that you could give to your twelve-year-old kid and she'll understand it and learn something from it. In fact, I see it myself all the time.
Q: What's the reason why literary theorists can't do that? Is it because there's nothing there?
CHOMSKY: That's my assumption. Either there's something there that's so deep that it's a kind of qualitative change in human intelligence, or there isn't a lot there. And it's not just literary theory. If somebody came along with a theory of history, it would be the same. "Theory" would be a sort of truism. Maybe "smart ideas." Somebody could have smart ideas and say, Why don't you look at class struggle? It's interesting. Or, Why don't you look at economic factors lying behind the Constitution? Pick your topic. Those are interesting smart ideas. But you can say them in monosyllables. And it's rare outside the natural sciences to find things that can't be said in monosyllables. There are interesting, simple ideas. They're often hard to come up with, and they're often extremely hard to work out. Like you want to try to understand what actually happened, say, in the modern industrial economy and how it developed the way it is. That can take a lot of work. But there isn't going to be anything too complex to talk about ... the theory will be extremely thin, if by "theory" we mean something with principles which are not obvious when you look at them from which you can deduce surprising consequences, check out the consequences, and then confirm the principles. You're not going to find anything like that.
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, cian wrote:
> Could Chomsky's aversion to theory not just be a scientist's aversion
> to the untestable theories that one gets in the softer social
> sciences. Most theory in the latter seems to be a mixture of cultural
> assumptions, mixed with the writer's prejudices. I imagine Chomsky has
> no problem with hard psychology - but the stuff that supports a lot of
> social theories tend to be very squishy.
>
> On the subject of communication, I'm kind of in two minds. I have some
> sympathy with those that say that this stuff is written for a
> specialised audience, rather than a general audience. Plus, difficult
> ideas do not lend themselves to clear writing. Jargon is the hazard of
> any profession. However much of the jargon that gets used in abtruse
> political/socialogical academic theorising seems poorly defined, and
> rather ambiguous. Plus a huge chunk of it is utterly redundant (ie.
> the same points could be used with less rarified language). Often when
> you cut your way through the verbal thicket, you find a paucity of
> ideas at the heart of it. I rather suspect that the language is often
> designed to hide the lack of originality in the writer's thinking,
> than to aid communication with fellow professionals. Or to disguise
> flawed thinking. And can anyone explain to me why Empire had to be so
> bloody difficult to read. The ideas at the heart of it were not that
> complex. Interesting yes. Complex, no.
>
> The sheer pointless, mind, of writing about theories for
> political/social change in a language inaccessible to all but a few I
> shall tactfully ignore.
>