[lbo-talk] A Case for Difficulty and/or Prolixity

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Thu Dec 7 22:11:04 PST 2006


On 12/7/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Difficulty, perhaps particularly difficulty of complex syntax, _may_ in
> some instances be a _rhetorical_ necessity, by which I mean even though
> the content in question _could_ be expressed clearly it _would_ not be
> noticed at all if it were. The complex syntax can force a reader to stop
> to take in the meaning.

Interestingly, Chomsky opined that the more educated you are, the more indoctrinated you are, and the more theory you need to disentangle it all. In particular, that's the vibe I get from Doug's arguments.

This phenomenon of difficult unlearning is well-known my professional field, and leads to some of the worst infighting.

He claims:

"Johnb made the point that 'plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener'; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent 'theories.' Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, 'to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible' ('he' being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and 'frame of reference' issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions."

<http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html>



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