Have IQs dropped sharply since I've been Gone?
Interalia Tayssir wrote:
>--- Tayssir John Gabbour <tayssir.john at googlemail.com>
>wrote:
>
> > Shouldn't you cite evidence for his
> > "incomprehensibility"? (Rather
> > than rely on a flamewarrior's family anecdote?)
Oh, lick me. No. Over there. Harder. When you're done, strap on your manties or try a pair of Mormon Underwear.
I have pointed out that I know people who think he's really accessible and recommended him up and down. I gave books as gifts, only to learn that they found Chomsky inaccessible. That would be because Chomsky, himself, uses words that are difficult for folks to comprehend. We're not talking technical speciality, but words people normally don't use or know. And, if you are at all familiar with the rudiments of writing comprehensibly to a 6th grade reading level audience, then you avoid large words like crazy. The things you and I take for granted are words which others simply don't know.
(That wasn't a flame of chomsky. YOU chose to ignore the part about lots of folks recommending him for his accessilibity. I'm not saying he's inaccessible, but that he's not going to be read that way by all. If you only travel in Chomsky Buoy Fandom Circles, you'll never hear what others have to say.
I was rabbiting on not too long ago using the word "agency". Someone jumped in and asked, "what does that mean?"
I rabitted back about free agency in sports to get the point across.
The woman whose book I was reviewing happened to come across the conversation. She spent six years and worked her ass off to write a comprehensible overview of feminist theory and sex positivism/queer theory. She has a clue what it's like to bring these concepts for to, for instance, law school students who are clueless about social theory and philsophy. (She teaches at Harvard)
Nonetheless, on the phone, Halley mentioned how she realized, once again, what she already knew but had forgotten: that it's pretty difficult to write about philosophy and the like without a specialist language that sometimes trips up folks who don't know agency, subjectivity, etc.
Chomsky thinks that's a sign of people making crap up.
Tell me, out of curiosity, I assume Chomsky's academic work has been summed up by him in a single, brief (1-2pp) statement, yah? I didn't know where to look, so I wondered if anyone here would know.
"You know how it is, come for the animal porn, stay for the cultural analysis." -- Michael Berube
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org