December 08, 2004
More on Academic Bad Writing
2blowhards gets into the fray discussing the article for which I created an incredibly clever title. There's a good comment:
The goal of scientific writing is to be clear, accurate, and concise. We use jargon to forward these goals. These writers, on the other hand, are using jargon to obfuscate, to create an exclusive class of professionals. They simply cannot convince me that this style of writing is intended to convey information, other than the message that the writer is a deep thinker.
Although I agree that many of the winners of the Bad Writing contest offend egregiously, a certain amount of jargon is just as necessary to literary criticism as to science. Otherwise, critics would be forced to re-explain whole schools of thought every time they began a new article. The reason Butler's passage is bad writing is not the obliqueness of the jargon, but her long-winded, overly-complex style. The entire quoted section is one sentence. Even if you know all the terms she tosses out, it's simply difficult to keep all those clauses in mind at once. I've read quite a bit of well-written and easy to read, yet still complex and interesting criticism. Critics and theorists who cannot or will not write clearly either think that makes them sounds smarter or simply have not learned anything from literature. Style counts.
I do not know whether the name Pulitzer still rings a bell or not, but I remember that the Nobel Prize in Literature had been greatly criticised till Cela, Paz, Saramago and Grass were awarded in almost consecutive years. Although other laureates include Camus, Márquez, Canetti, Neruda, Beckett, Sartre and Eliot, some people often claimed that Hemingway was the only really important writer they knew got it. So, what happens with prizes in literature is that the laureates may be or become popular, but their prestige does not pass to the prizes themselves automatically.
True, but that seems like a rather random comment. Are you trying to derail the discussion before it begins?
Though I know well that liberal arts and social scie nces jargon can get out of hand, scientists who believe that their jargon is somehow 'pure,' not subject to the sort of political one-upmanship that they believe is the sole driving force behind jargon in the humanities, are probably deluding themselves.
(I'm gonna go post this over at CT now).
Someone pointed out a really key passage from the critique:
"Awhile back, in the MLA ballot for At-Large Members of the Executive Council (2001-04), candidate Judith Butler wrote a statement of purpose that began:The MLA has an obligation to make clear the value of literary studies to the broader public and to counter the anti-intellectualism and sloganeering that threatens the critical thought within the academy. Perhaps most important is to show that a culturally complex range of writing and thinking compose the world of literary studies today . . .
Two sentences, two subject-verb disagreements. Another candidate, Rey Chow, stated,
It is against this unfriendly global trend that the MLA must continue to reconceptualize its leadership for scholars specializing in the study of languages and literatures. Such leadership should consist, as it always does, in fostering a strong sense of community among its members at a critical time.
An organization reconceptualizes its leadership for scholars (whatever that means), a process confounded by the nonsensical phrase "should consist, as it always does."
I think this proves the point that it's bad writing, not jargon, that's the main problem. These aren't academic pieces being quoted, but policy papers, and they're both jargon-free and horrendous. Jargon is often politically or career motivated, but it's the job of the intellectual community to pick and choose jargon that actually becomes common courtest, and the phrases that win out will usually be those that actually mean something. Bad writing, though, since it can actually contain great ideas, may be less likely to get drummed out.
I agree that poor writing can (attempt) to convey good or even great ideas. Even so, if you're capable of thinking well, you should be capable of at least a passably clear and correct sentence.
The scary (and bewildering) thing is, a likable full professor of humanities once told me and my class that Butler's "Gender Trouble" was a stylistic achievement that we should learn from. He had studied at Berkeley so I suppose he is still totally spellbound by her. And I imagine she is indeed an extremely charasmatic presence.
I don't know. I think Butler and her ilk are easy targets and some of the criticism is unfair. Sometimes, jargon is a means of being painstakingly exact. Sometimes it is a means of being painstakingly vague, so that the reader is required to think. For example, in Nussbaum's criticism which I quote below, she rewrites Butler's prizewinning passage in good Anglo-Saxon prose, but fails to translate the full meaning. Spivak has implied that we are fetishizing clarity at the expense of originality.
Personally, I'm on the fence. I actually enjoy Foucault and Heidegger's style, though over time they get frustrating. But contemporary post-modern jargon experts like Bhaba, Spivak, and Butler have never done anything for me.
The classic criticism--and one of the great academic catfights--is Martha Nussbaum's takedown.
http://www.tnr.com/archive/0299/022299/nussbaum022299.html
"Catfight"? Obviously, I'd avoid that phrase if I was within about a mile of a female academic.
Spivak is an excellent example of a horrible writer with good ideas. I struggled my way through some of her work and find it interesting, but infuriating as well. I simply don't understand how someone can write like that and not be too ashamed to publish it.
Spivak seems something of a charismatic figure and has a devoted following. At SCT, everyone either loved or hated her.
Well, she's like 60 years old now and has been an influential critic for several decades already, so that's not surprising.
David:
"Catfight"? Obviously, I'd avoid that phrase if I was within about a mile of a female academic
Me:
It's funny because I'm belittling high-profile feminists! Catfight! Hysterical.
Mallarme,
No, it was not my intention to derail the discussion, just to comment on the sociology of awards. Now, back to your main point, which I deem accurate:
The (over-)use of jargon is something socially explainable: it is a form of demarcation, which is to say, one uses a jargon to let some people in and others out. But you are right in the sense that is not possible to write an academic or professional text without using any jargon. For the purposes of clarity, a text direct to experts in a certain field will need the basic jargon, otherwise it will not be understood correctly.
It all depends on the audience the text is addressed to.
Now I'm regretting not going to check out Spivak when she was here a few weeks ago. Maybe she would've let me touch her hair.
Anyway, I don't really have much else to say on this subject. I've not really read Butler or Spivak, but I'm not subject to the sort of mystifying aura of impenetrability that seems to draw some people in - I tend to err in the opposite direction and just get pissed off at stuff I can't understand. As someone who is decidedly not a dummy, I think I can safely say that if I can't understand what you're trying to get across, you're doing something wrong.