> Isn't criticizing people for not writing "clear" prose really
> criticizing them for not adhering to a norm? And isn't this norm
> developed within a society that privileges the white, the male, the
> heterosexual, and the European? Why are, eg, Spivak and Butler
> supposed to write like Chomsky, Orwell, and Bertrand Russell?
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Funny you should mention Spivak. Some twenty-five years ago, a friend
and I attended a lecture by Spivak at UC Berkeley. While she spoke we
sat rapt and dazzled. After the lecture, we were walking back to the car
when, at the same time, we turned to eachother and said "she said nothing."
Of course "the nothing" was something; it was an exposition of the language we would all have to learn to speak in order to get prestigious jobs. Otherwise, it was nothing. And not the pregnant eastern nothing either. Nothing, nothing. I don't deny that on other occasions she might have actually said something. I just wasn't there to witness it.
Joanna