[lbo-talk] RE: The postmodern prince

kelley at pulpculture.org kelley at pulpculture.org
Sun Nov 30 19:45:34 PST 2003


At 06:26 PM 11/30/03 -0800, Miles Jackson wrote:


>I have mixed feelings about this "clear writing" imperative.

As a writer, I've written material for the degreed upper echelons of Fortune 50 companies. Among other things, I translate complex technical material into material they can understand. Sometimes, I write material that they sign off on as their own. You'd be amazed at what illiterates and philistines they are.

As a sociologist, I worked on two large research projects where the goal was specifically about "giving back to the communities" by producing material they could read and put to use creating social institutions and practices to deal with plant closings, toxic dumping, etc. We carefully edited and massaged what we wrote with readability in mind; our jargon meters were finally tuned.

E.g., I wanted to write in one piece that we published, "Later, Frank expounded on his 'ass kisser theory,' arguing that U.S. business decline can be directly linked to the rise of a strata of sycophantic managers ..." Sycophantic got axed, of course.

I was also once one of those people Joanna and Jon would like to reach.

To say that I have mixed feelings is an understatement. I don't want to be rude, but those who advocate clear writing may not be interacting with their readers very often. If you do, then you get a very clear sense of just how illiterate even the more educated folks are. You also get a sense of what we think of as clear writing isn't perceived that way at all. It's not about the words. It's about something else.

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.

I think most people miss the mark when they worry that "we" talk past our audience. What puts our audience off is our facility with language in general. People are intimidated simply by the way we use words. It's not about twenty-five cent words. It's the way we link simple words together, the way we make them work for us, the ease with which most of us can convey our thoughts. It's even about the tendency we have to eschew the goody-goody, I'm-OK, you're-OK, it's just my opinion approach to dialogue that characterizes 99% of social interactions about anything other than the weather.

As a person who used to be among the great unwashed y'all are trying to reach, I don't think you do anyone a favor by patronizing them. ONe of the most amazing things I've ever seen happen, what keeps me optimistic through all of this, was the experience I had on one of the projects mentioned above. To make a long story short, we put together a citizens forum on a plant closing in a rustbelt community that had been going through plant closings for twenty years--decades, actually. Our citizens were from all walks of life.

The project director wanted them to read from a variety of political and social science/humanities perspectives. The readings were round about ways of considering the question, "What is the meaning of work?" With that question in mind, members of the forum read about 12 articles from the Harvard Business Review, the Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, _Social Problems_, and so forth. We got together over the course of a month and read them. (There's more to the story...)

I was pessimistic. I figured that these folks would have very little time. They were already giving us so much, it seemed like an unusual burden.

But, these folks blossomed. They loved it. They took it and ran with it, linking the abstract question "What is work?" beautifully with the readings and with the actual crisis that faced their community. They, too, loved it. I did further research on that experience, to find out what they responded to and what they enjoyed so much:

"Andrea and Gail disagree about the strategies that should be employed to fight the radioactive waste dump. Gail supports conventional political strategies: ttending hearings; educating the community, voting, letters to the editor. Andrea dismisses Gail's approach as "politics as usual." She thinks that the only way to fight the dump is to radically disrupt the political process. Andrea and a splinter group within RAD have performed street letter in front of the state capital building and attended public hearings dressed as mutant dairy cows and radioactive families that, oddly, looked like The Simpsons. Despite their differences, Andrea and Gail continue to believe that it is important to create new forms of political voice that emanate "from the people." They recognize, of course, that they have not secured a permanent political voice that has any parity with powerful interest groups. Yet, both believe that their efforts are "worthwhile" because, as Andrea maintains, "you have to start somewhere."

Their faith in alternative forms of political voice and action has been tested by the closing of Crown Typewriter, once the area's largest manufacturer employing over 4000 people in the 1970s. The announcement that Crown was relocating its facilities in Mexico was met with little protest. For over a decade, Crown blamed their economic difficulties on unfair foreign competition and high state taxes. Their rhetoric had successfully mollified most in the community. Those Crown employees who were disgruntled were reluctant to make their views public, fearing that they would be terminated and lose their severance benefits, which included two years of government-subsidized retraining and transition support.

Andrea and Gail agree that Crown should be held accountable for its actions. Yet, they find it difficult to articulate just why the community should have a role in Crown's decision-making or how accountability might be enforced. Andrea firmly supports the democratization of corporate decision-making. Yet, she fears that such demands might only drive industries out of the community. Gail rejects this view, arguing that accountability will come with a society-wide reinvigoration of an ethos of commitment: People should be less concerned with the pursuit of "material wealth" and would be "better off" if they "learned to live with less" and "to do more for others."

Both Andrea and Gail see their political involvement as a way to exert some control over political decision-making. They are adamant that there needs to be some way to make the voices of citizens heard as well as heeded. Still, they lack a language with which to express their nascent recognition that decisions made in corporate boardrooms affect their fate just as much as those made by politicians. Still, the most poignant moments of these conversations occurred when these women discussed the importance of public dialogue and engagement. Andrea, for example, maintains that public dialogue is a fundamental component of human life:

"It seems important to have some sort of dialogue. Otherwise, you just sit at home and shake your fist at the t.v. When you talk there's this feeling that we are, you know, acknowledging one another. I'm allowed to speak 'cause someone else thinks I should, even if they don't agree with me. A human being that is led to believe that they make no difference, their existence means nothing. Having someone listen, respond, and argue with you makes your existence meaningful."

The eloquence of Andrea's plea for a forum within which people might engage in public dialogue stands in sharp contrast to the claims of a cadre of experts who ritually rebuke the working-class for their apathy. <...>



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