Chomsky: 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.
I don't think this is a matter of logic. In fact turning it into a matter of logic shows a lack of logic.
Johnb says "If 'plain language' then not enough to change frame of reference."
Chomsky says: "If you wish to change frame of reference for listener then question frame of reference with plain language."
Then he says in his experience 'plain language' leads to change of frame reference and complex verbiage and non-existent theories is not the "right reaction."
I personally never found that you can get a person to sign a union card by referring to non-existent economic theories.
I have also found that people who have graduated from say law school are much more highly indoctrinated than people I have met in the slums of Rio or peasants in El Salvador. I think that it is simply a good guess that one (small? big?) function of _formal_ education is indoctrination. Chomsky says it matches his experience and I must say that it matches mine. That is not to put my experience above yours. He uses his experience as an illustration of the point that 'plain language' is enough to change a frame reference and why.
More on my experience: My experience is that when I read Derrida or much of Butler I have to strain to make sense and then often it is just non-sense. In my worse moods I begin to thing that it is an intellectual con game. I say to myself, I love James Joyce; I can understand quantum mechanics; I can understand law from classical Athens circa 400 BCE; I can even read Kant with some amount of understanding; then why does this stuff seem either absurd, unbelievable, banal, or like religious mumble-jumble for me.
I also say that I know that others get something out of this and perhaps I am really stupid. I don't rule out this alternative. After all I suffer from extreme dislexia and maybe the same complex of cognitive deficits that makes me dyslexic also makes it easier for me to understand Einstein or Neils Bohr than Derrida or Lacan. So I sit down and try to decode the stuff. And the decode leaves me feeling that there is something good here sometimes, but what is good can be said simply and what is not good is simply determined by the necessities of an intellectual culture having to do with the politics of reputation. Sorry, but while driving a taxi in New York I have met many people I have considered smarter and more articulate among my fellow taxi drivers than Derrida and Foucault. Oh, well.
Let me apologize in advance for your wrath, which I have provoked.
Jerry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20061208/89caf689/attachment.htm>