>
> I began at the U of C studying physics. Do you think that I
> "grudgingly admit" that technical language is necessary in this area.
> Or that someone engaged in studying Thucydides and his relation to the
> Athenian _demos_ must write differently than someone engaged in
> studying Shelley and his relation to radical politics? But a person
> who _tries_ to write like Josiah Ober will be better at explaining the
> Athenian polis than a person who aims to write like Foucault will ever
> be. A person who _tries_ to write like E. P. Thompson or Richard
> Holmes will be better at explaining Shelley or Blake than a person who
> _tries_ to write like Derrida. This is apart from whatever evaluation
> I have of the _world view_ of Ober, Thompson, Derrida, or Foucault.
> And it is also apart from what ever evaluation I have about the talent
> of the individual person or whether the person is successful or not at
> what she aims at, when she tries to write one way or another.
>
I have to say that this view of language use is strange to me. The
assumption is that the reading audience of any text is the entire human
species (or at least the literate individuals who speak a given
language), and if something isn't clear to the "average" person, then
it's obscurantist. This is unrealistic depiction of actual, everyday
language use. We speak a certain way in a certain context because we
"know" that's enough, even though someone not familiar with the context
couldn't make sense of it. --If a framer at a construction site asks
his bud, "Bring me some more nails", the bud knows exactly what to
bring. If you strip the sentence from its social context, it's
ambiguous: what kind of nails? Roofing? Double-headed? False plastic?
This is what I think Carrol was getting at with this "Bring me something I like" example: that sentence is in fact perfectly understandable and clear language in certain social contexts; in others, it's hopelessly muddled (say, a graphic designer trying to create a logo for a client she knows nothing about). Note that this is exactly the same with any of your examples above: among students of the social history of sexuality, Foucault's work is meaningful and significant. If you haven't participated in that academic discussion, his claims will seem like pointless jargon.
Miles