[lbo-talk] On the Limits of Rhetoric

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Mon Nov 29 00:32:38 PST 2004


Carrol Cox wrote:


>What the snipers your post don't realize (or perhaps can't realize) is
>that much of the writing they _do_ admire is done by writers/scholars
>who owe a good deal to the "difficult" writers the snipers get so upset
>with. Behind every triumphantly clear and persuasive work is a huge pile
>of dull, often wrongheaded, "difficult" writing. You can't have the
>former without the latter. The complaints at difficult writing resemble
>someone who loves beefsteak complaining about the acreage devoted to the
>raising of corn and soybeans.
>
While it is true that the simple, clear stuff comes last, not first... while it is true that everyone needs to throw a couple of books away before they come up with a good one (for example, Balzac, Shakespeare)...while it is true that one needs to get a certain amount of garbage/verbiage out of the way before seeing one's way clearly, it does not follow that for Orwell to write clearly there needs to be a lot of obfuscation around.

You're translating a phenomenon that describes one's person path from verbiage to clarity into one that describes bad faith or lack of skill as a general condition that makes good writing/composition possible. But this is simply not true. Having a lot of good writing around, like having a lot of good music or good painting around, raises the bar -- gives everyone a better common vocabulary and makes it more likely to write/compose wonderful stuff.

The verbiage/obfuscation that has come out of academia in the last thirty years has depressed the level of writing (and intelligence) and removed the ideal of a common public discourse from our consciousness.

It has narrowed both discourse and audience. No giant stands on the many bowed shoulders of academicians chasing stardom or tenure in the last thirty years. There has been no Dante, no Casirer, no Orwell, etc.

Joanna



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