From: IN%"[log in to unmask]" "Larry Howe" 14-APR-1998 10:05:11.41 To: IN%"[log in to unmask]" CC: Subj: RE: Twain and Academic Jargon MT Forum members-- I have to object to the latest turn of rhetorical events. One the one hand, I'm not surprised that some number of the forum have such a jaundiced view of intellectual discourse. This isn't the first time that anti-intellectualism has raised its head in the ongoing conversation. No small measure of narrow-minded rancor oozed on-line last year in response to Andrew Hoffman's book. So it seems consistent that this latest flap began with the word "homosocial" and has coined a new one--"Hoffmanization." On the other hand, I'm troubled not by any particular word or the reactions it generates but with a general chuckleheadeness about theory. I'm prompted in particular by Siva's recent caricature of deconstruction. (Since I wrote this, Wes Britton has added another form of caricature, even less informed.) With all due respect to Siva, I have to question his sources. Yes, deconstruction, along with a number of other post-structural lines of inquiry, has teased out the problems that those too confident of their stake in truth have been willing to ignore. To practice this critical skepticism is not to judge all communication "futile" but to be self-conscious about the complexity and difficulty of producing and interpreting language that approximates the substance of ideas, and to encourage others to be so self-conscious. The fact that the big demon deconstruction is even being dragged to the scaffold here is a measure both of the misunderstanding that attends it and of the residual influence it has had on the discourse that has succeeded it. Oppostions like "evil, jargon-ridden felons" (them) and "good, plain-speaking humanists" (us) are rather stunning performances of precisely what contemporary critical theory has helped to highlight. Indeed, as some have alluded, Twain was himself concerned with the facile assumptions they represent. In light of all the stress on consensus in a number of postings, the proponderance of the term "unreadble" in these latest diatribes against theory and the silent chorus of nodding heads glaring at their monitors is rather curious. Not simply because Twain was alert to the same concerns as these "jargon-ridden theorists," but also because this perception of contemporary theory is far from unanimous. In other words, those who confidently believe that their distrust of theory represents a consensus may have constructed another fantasy. Many others prefer to think of such texts not as unreadable but as challenging. What is it about challenging texts that so offends some people presumably interested in the complexity of language? (This is not a rhetorical question, so I'm likely to get more than a few replies telling me how it ain't much fun. Let's go beyond that.) Siva makes an appeal based on marketplace logic. There's some credence to his warning. But why is it that the humanities are in trouble when the public doesn't understand the terms of the inquiry, but no one wonders about the unreadability of theoretical physics, or its jargon? Of course, no one is obligated to take up the challenge of complex theoretical texts. But if one chooses not to make the effort, lobbing verbal grenades like "jargon" and "unreadable" begins to look more like a mask for one's own insecurities--or, in debates about the NEH, political grandstanding--than a serious critique. --Larry Howe