the task is now to actually flesh this out and explain how these people are duped and, better yet, explain how wojtek and acceptable theorists manage to escape the structural forces that turn everyone else into social dopes. I'm not saying it's not possible; I'm making the same complaint Doug has been making: to quote Beetlejuice, "Nice fuckin' model!" <honk honk> Where's the beef?
At 11:25 AM 12/4/03 -0800, joanna bujes wrote:
>Thanks Woj. Anyone who has spent 10 minutes in academia (in the last 25
>years) knows this. It's interesting though, that this was not the case (at
>least in literary studies) before the mid-seventies.
First, do you think a first year student would not be scratching her head about what Woj wrote? it was filled with all kinds of jargon. It's also pretty interesting how Michael Dawson accused Woj of using a jargon phrase that pointed to nothing a few wks ago. Woj would deny that. And yet, every time Woj uses that phrase, he has to draw on the "bird in the hand" expression so others will get it. And, it turns out that there is some debate as to whether the phrase is even a good one for the task! I mean, come on, we're right back to where we started: reflexivity alert!
Second, people have been writing about this in academia--the professions more generally--since dogs ruled the earth. OK. I engage in hyperbole, but it was long before the pomogators started mucking around. There's a whole sub field--soc of professions--that shows how the professions manage to build and maintain their power by creating specialized languages that keep people out.
Randall Collins shows how physicians amassed huge amounts of political power on the basis of a claim to expertise that was essentially based on nothing --and what we now know was thoroughly wrong beliefs!
Robert Jackall's _Moral Mazes_ shows how the corporate world has a specialized language and how those who succeed are the people who manage to communicate what they want done without ever saying it in such as way as to have to take responsibility for their commands. That way, someone else can be the fall guy. Anyone who's worked in the corporate world for five minutes knows that game.
It's not that I'm unsympathetic to these criticism about language. I am. I live mainly in a world where people don't understand, so I understand them very well, on a gut experiential level. Rather, what astounds me is that we're right back to what I was saying before: even what folks think is clear writing is writing that excludes plenty of people. If that's the case, then maybe worrying about what people are WRITING FOR OTHER ACADEMICS (because they are NOT writing for "the people") is missing the mark. I wish someone would answer Miles. If these people aren't pretending to be "for the people," then the criticisms are not serious. If these people don't care about creating social theory for "the people" then what does it matter?
I can understand wanting to engage in social critique: this is a process by which people are rendered powerless unless they belong. What I can't understand is the refusal to subject your own writing and ways of thinking to the same analysis. _WE_ participate in it.
kelley