Revisiting Bad Writing
I’ve been meaning to comment on Mark Bauerlein’s splendid article on ‘bad writing’ and ‘theory.’ I only have a few minutes right now, so I’ll just quote a little by way of marking my place and then return to the subject tomorrow.
The cheap partisan spirit reinforces the point made by Dutton, David G. Myers, Katha Pollitt, and others that the jargon and bloat of theory prose excludes every readership but other theorists—a damning claim given that the theorists purport to labor for social justice. The theorists counter that the writing they do isn’t bad; rather, it’s challenging, and that challengingness is precisely what makes it valuable to society at large.
Yup, that’s how the theorists counter all right. But (one wants to ask, sternly) have they never encountered any writing that is challenging without being jargony and bloated? Do they honestly think that jargon and bloat are an essential part of challengingness? Come on, now – I said honestly. Really? Really? You’re not pretending? You’re not just pretending to think the two are inseparable because you really really want to go on using the jargon because it makes you feel so clever and impressive and scholarly and, well, theoretical? Hmm?
Given their vulnerability to the bad writing charge, the theorists would profit from a dose of humility or, even better, humor. One reason for the popularity of the Bad Writing Contest was its antic nature. The very idea of a scholarly journal singling out one sentence for a mock award brought snickers from every adult who’d ever endured a semester with an ideologically-rigid, self-involved literature professor. Dutton solicited nominations on the Internet, consulted experts, and broadcast the final tally as if it were a Hollywood press release. This was in keeping with academic celebrity culture, recast in a dunciad mode, and observers got the joke immediately.
Snicker! ‘Academic celebrity culture’? Why, what can he mean? Nobody would be so silly as to think that academics – especially ‘theorists’ of all people! – could possibly be ‘celebrities’ – surely? Yes? You astonish me. Whatever next. Superstar checkout clerks? Celebrity chicken pluckers? World-famous dog sitters?
Non-academic intellectuals aren’t as easily cowed as are professors, and they will hold up every such accusation as evidence of the elitist, smug world of the ivory tower.
Maybe that’s why I get so irritated when people call me elitist. Because to me ‘elitist’ means people like the ‘theory’ crowd, who really are smug. I’m not like that! Honest, Auntie Em; I’m not. Or if I am, I’d better sign myself into a work camp for some drastic re-education through labour, right smart quick. Picking cotton with my teeth, perhaps, would be about right.
To be continued.
I suppose I could forgive the theorists’ bloated, unreadable prose if their insights were really deep. But, when translated into plain English, almost everything they say turns out to be unimpressive or highly dubious.
I blame Kant: He was indisputably a genius, probably the greatest modern philosopher, but his prose style, egads! He started a very bad trend there. “Hey, my writing is even more turgid and jargony than Kant’s, so that means I am very profound indeed.” That seems to be the operating assumption in many instances.
Objection!
I really don’t know why people put Kant in the origin of the tradition that led to J. Derrida & likes. Sure, he wasn’t quite the most entertaining writer but he never ever bloated about being jargonistic. If people would care to read him – & take account of the fact he didn’t live in 20th century, & using a language that doesn’t translate so well in English – they would know that one of his stated goals was to get away from a hugely developed jargonistic babble as had preceded him. True, maybe he wasn´t successful in the eyes of everybody but he can sure not be the excuse for those being criticized here.
“Non-academic intellectuals aren’t as easily cowed as are professors, and they will hold up every such accusation as evidence of the elitist, smug world of the ivory tower.”
Moo!
I mean, hey!
We professor-types who haven’t jumped on the theory wagon may begin to feel over-looked.
We do, indeed, exist.
Joining Karl and JoB’s comments together, Kant is sometimes hard to understand becuase he is dealing ab initio with very complex ideas. This is 100 per cent the opposite of jargon and bloat. If you read him slowly and carefully he makes more sense. If you read Butler/Derrida slowly and carefully they make less sense.
I had to read some Kant years ago as an undergrad and I have to admit that without an instructor and several commentaries to aid me I would have found him inscrutable. No, I wouldn’t call Kant’s work “bloated,” either, but it did seem awfully disorganized and it was full of jargon, although at least the jargon referred to genuinely original and useful concepts, quite unlike the jargon of most “theorists”.
Anyway, didn’t Karl already admit Kant’s genius and greatness but say the man set a bad stylistic example? It seems plausible that the French, whose intellectuals had always been lucid and elegant writers, began aping turgid teutonic prose in an effort to seem deep. Maybe most of the blame really lies with Hegel, then. Or Heidegger. Yeah, let’s blame Heidegger.
JoB: Interesting. I was always led to believe that Kant is even more difficult in German and that many find the Kemp-Smith translation more lucid than the original. And is Leibniz really so much more opaque than Kant? If IK wanted to break away from a jargonistic German tradition, he could have modeled his prose on the splendidly lucid Hume or Descartes.
“Yeah, let’s blame Heidegger.”
I second that motion. The guy went on & on about “there” & (existential “be”, both of these words are now in the category of the so called “function words” i.e. words that contribute no meaning but just function as tools to improve syntax.
Connie, no …. he isn’t more difficult in German (unless of course one wants to just force meaning into every subsentence which is not quite the way given Kant was, that much is true, quite too long-winded for the point he needed to make). Admittedly, German is not the easiest of languages (but worth every effort).
What I read of Leibniz was very opaque indeed (I assume because he wanted to explain everything y blowing God a all miracles into meaningless words).
Maybe Hume & Descartes were more lucid, but they did not achieve the same (I do agree with Chris).
Sorry, Amy! Mind you, Bauerlein is a professor himself. I think that phrase was just a kind of shorthand.
Walter Kaufmann said much the same thing about Kant (the same as Karl’s suggestion) – about the disastrous effect of his style on his imitators. Which is not to blame Kant, just to suggest a possible reason for the appeal of obscurity for the sake of obscurity. Obscurity as a Token of significance. But there are plenty of people later than Kant who could serve as the same kind of model.
Nice try folks, but I think y’all are missing the boat. Kant and Heidegger are dead white males. Theorists don’t want nuthin’ to do with them. Probably never even heard of them.