Why is Academic Writing So *Needlessly *Ridiculous?

[Rimbaud82]

Here's something I was just reading:

"But, though the descent of that royal pretender, traced back as it had been to the lowest mob of common experience, ought to have rendered her claims very suspicious, yet, as that genealogy turned out in reality to be a false invention, the old queen (metaphysic) continued to maintain her claims, everything fell back into the old rotten dogmatism, and the contempt from which metaphysical science was to have been rescued, remained the same as ever."

This guy is considered by philosophy dudes to be one of the most intelligent and profound philosophers of all time, like a top 3 guy.

Everything he just wrote could be paraphrased into more concise language without losing any meaning. There's no reason that needs to be 1 giant sentence with 20 commas. Interestingly, I can write exactly like this -- when I'm really high. It's not a sign of intelligence. It's a sign of a jumbled up thought process resembling someone on drugs or mentally ill.

People write like that because if their thoughts were more easily legible, it'd be easier to find errors in their thoughts.

So what are you trying to say, Kant was not intelligent? He was mentally ill? You are as intelligent as Kant when you are high? <45>

Of course this is a translator from the 19th century rendering a work that was written in German in the 18th century into English.

 

[superpunch]

So what are you trying to say, Kant was not intelligent? He was mentally ill? You are as intelligent as Kant when you are high? <45>

Of course this is a translator from the 19th century rendering a work that was written in German in the 18th century into English.

I have no respect for modern philosophy. It's just a ciclejerk of bloviation. There's a reason that so many philosophy majors are crackheads.

 

[Rimbaud82]

I have no respect for modern philosophy. It's just a ciclejerk of bloviation. There's a reason that so many philosophy majors are crackheads.

Ok, good for you man

 

[superpunch]

Ok, good for you man

We're at a point in time where logic and reason are programmable. That's what programming is: line by line application of logic. Ideas about these things are no longer just subject to the realms of hypothesis and living in your head. If their ideas on logic, reason, and metaphysics had any merit, they'd be at the forefront of applying their ideas in emerging fields like general AI. They're only at the forefront of taking lots of drugs and being crazy though.

For all their ability to "critique" reason, they can't actually explain anything about reason. If they could, they'd be doing amazing things with reasoning machines. They're not. They're just talking crazy bullshit like they always have.

 

[minute bull]

While brevity may be the soul of wit, decadence and intellectual curiosity begets a tourist approach whereby we want to indulge in more protracted dalliances of verbal wordplay. Spend more time with the concepts. Basking in some chosen mentor's glory. Or our own.

overcompensating because they're are mediocre professors.

Overcompensating carries pejorative connotations I find a little unfair. Uni professors are a cloistered bunch and schoolwork is EVERYTHING they know. Their entire world comprises nothing but seven dollar words.

 

[tonysmasseuse]

We're at a point in time where logic and reason are programmable. That's what programming is: line by line application of logic. Ideas about these things are no longer just subject to the realms of hypothesis and living in your head. If their ideas on logic, reason, and metaphysics had any merit, they'd be at the forefront of applying their ideas in emerging fields like general AI. They're only at the forefront of taking lots of drugs and being crazy though.

For all their ability to "critique" reason, they can't actually explain anything about reason. If they could, they'd be doing amazing things with reasoning machines. They're not. They're just talking crazy bullshit like they always have.

Philosophy means the love of knowledge. I'll repeat that: The LOVE of knowledge.
They're in it for the beauty of it, not to become 'reasoning machines' lmao.
Good day to you sir.

 

[SSOTO]

So what are you trying to say, Kant was not intelligent? He was mentally ill? You are as intelligent as Kant when you are high? <45>

Of course this is a translator from the 19th century rendering a work that was written in German in the 18th century into English.

Kant? more like Cant....amirite?

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

This is an accurate description of postmodernism in general

I don't actually think that's true. There are good reasons to consider that values might have no objective fundamental grounding, that capitalism is a corrosive ideology destined to fail via its own contradications, and that aesthetic preferences are arbitrary.

They might not be immediately convincing, but they're serious ideas. All the more reason they need to be written about coherently.

The post-modern bogeyman strikes again

Sadly I'm not convinced it's a specter. Rather it's a systemic failure of publishing systems and academia in general.

Too many writers ensconced in such language feel no obligation to tie their ideas back to empirical reality, to assess the worthiness of the frameworks they're working within, or even to engage with each other in productive ways.

It's achievement simply for the sake of achievement; the little of value that does come out of it is what's surprising.

Kant was a pretty piss poor example though. Kant is one of the last in that line really worth putting the work in to understand.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

You sound impecunious.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

This is a snippet from Slavoj Zizek: A Critical Introduction: @Bullitt68 @Rimbaud82

The second reason the existing critiques do not go far enough is that they do not account satisfactorily for the dynamic interplay between the different theoretical frameworks he uses and his rapid movement between these frameworks. An all-too tempting way of accounting for the rush we get when we are whirled along in a Zizek text is to imagine the speed of the journey is simply an expression of the speed of writing, to say he just writes too much too fast and that perhaps that is why it does not always make sense. One of the keys to unlocking this image of Zizek the author — who writes too fast and skims through different theories so that we end up with as little idea of where he is going as he does — lies in the form of his own writing. The point he makes about the illusory consistency of the subject and the work of the unconscious, in disrupting as well as reproducing the symbolic networks in which a subject speaks, leads us to some different ways to think about what we imagine him to be as the author of the texts that bear his name.

We need to take Zizek at his word again here when he tells us that in his work nothing is as it seems. There is indeed a performance for different kinds of audience that introduces an element of motivated inconsistency, and so we need to take seriously the rapid transitions from one theoretical frame to another in Zizek's writing, and the sometimes jerky movement from theory to its exemplification in culture or politics and back again, as well as Zizek's own scornful refusal to be pinned down. So, to take him at his word we also need to treat every explanation he gives as untrustworthy as a guide to his work. And we need to do this in a way that grasps something of the movement of his work over time rather than treating the shifts as yet more evidence that there are flaws in the theoretical architecture of his work that are being repaired as it undergoes renovation.57 So, the second question. There is an impression of chaotic movement in his writing which belies the lucid elaboration of a theoretical argument. How do we account for that?

These two questions — how we account for the illusion that there is an underlying rationale, and how not to get fixated on the image of Zizek the magpie for whom it seems that it does not really matter that none of it really hangs together — lead us to one little grid for making sense of where Zizek is going. But you should treat this as only one grid, and as riddled by exceptions. The grid includes the supposition that there is a theoretical system and the supposition that there is an erratic author. Treat those suppositions as stepping stones, not as sedimented 'truths', as if they could really be seen lying underneath the surface of the text or as somehow embodied in the figure of Slavoj Zizek (within whom we could diagnose a certain pathological condition which would explain our confusion).

The critique in itself is difficult, though comprehensible. The real issues are embedded in the criticism.

When you have a "dynamic interplay between theoretical frameworks that doesn't always make sense" and "illusionary consistency," and when "we have to take him at his word that nothing is what it seems," because "it does not really matter that none of it hangs together," then what the fuck are we doing, really?

Too much of this writing that seems to have the self-perception of theoretical progress is, in reality, knocking out the substance of its own value from underneath. That's not to say you can't find entertainment in the text (I've sunk hours into Enjoy Your Symptom! despite the fact that I probably could not explain a single chapter), or you can't appreciate the author's more accessible writing (I especially like this analysis of The Dark Knight Returns - Zizek's ability to soak up and articulate cultural varieties is undoubtedly incredible), but you have to be able to recognize the difference between productive philosophical writing and play writing.

And then not complain when no one takes the political consequences of the play writing seriously.

 

[Spoken]

Here's something I was just reading:

"But, though the descent of that royal pretender, traced back as it had been to the lowest mob of common experience, ought to have rendered her claims very suspicious, yet, as that genealogy turned out in reality to be a false invention, the old queen (metaphysic) continued to maintain her claims, everything fell back into the old rotten dogmatism, and the contempt from which metaphysical science was to have been rescued, remained the same as ever."

This guy is considered by philosophy dudes to be one of the most intelligent and profound philosophers of all time, like a top 3 guy.

Everything he just wrote could be paraphrased into more concise language without losing any meaning. There's no reason that needs to be 1 giant sentence with 20 commas. Interestingly, I can write exactly like this -- when I'm really high. It's not a sign of intelligence. It's a sign of a jumbled up thought process resembling someone on drugs or mentally ill.

People write like that because if their thoughts were more easily legible, it'd be easier to find errors in their thoughts.

Have you read much Kant?

 

[Spoken]

Anyone who thinks of an entire school if philosophy is dumb is, frankly, worthy of being totally ignored

 

[minute bull]

Anyone who thinks of an entire school if philosophy is dumb is, frankly, worthy if being totally ignored

Nah. To his defense it's tough to describe thought processes and being less inclined to articulate them doesn't mean they're devoid of them and can't grasp.

Personally I think assigning value is where we shoot ourselves in the foot.

 

[Spoken]

Nah. To his defense it's tough to describe thought processes and being less inclined to articulate them doesn't mean they're devoid of them and can't grasp.

Personally I think assigning value is where we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Very postmodern of you

I wouldn't call myself a postmodernist, but I teach intro to philosophy and my research focuses on Heidegger and Husserl. It's dense, sure, but rarely does the writing obfuscate the point

The psychanalytic discourse of Zizek or Lacan I have less patience for. But even still, I don't think it reflects any insecurity or that these people don't know what they're talking about. Generally, it is a sign that the reader doesn't know the language game well enough. That's their fault (but it's too bad philosophy is so damn exclusive ).

 

[Spoken]

This is a snippet from Slavoj Zizek: A Critical Introduction: @Bullitt68 @Rimbaud82


The critique in itself is difficult, though comprehensible. The real issues are embedded in the criticism.

When you have a "dynamic interplay between theoretical frameworks that doesn't always make sense" and "illusionary consistency," and when "we have to take him at his word that nothing is what it seems," because "it does not really matter that none of it hangs together," then what the fuck are we doing, really?

Too much of this writing that seems to have the self-perception of theoretical progress is, in reality, knocking out the substance of its own value from underneath. That's not to say you can't find entertainment in the text (I've sunk hours into Enjoy Your Symptom! despite the fact that I probably could not explain a single chapter), or you can't appreciate the author's more accessible writing (I especially like this analysis of The Dark Knight Returns - Zizek's ability to soak up and articulate cultural varieties is undoubtedly incredible), but you have to be able to recognize the difference between productive philosophical writing and play writing.

And then not complain when no one takes the political consequences of the play writing seriously.

Poetics as well. Lots of philosophy takes on a poetic form to avoid straight analytic description of something that they feel can't be grasped. Late Heidegger kind of stuff

 

[Alphaboy]

Hell I know people who speak like that in everyday life

I don't care how academically advanced you are, if you cannot make your message accessible to the average person you're incompetent in some regard. The best type of intellectuals have a vast amount of knowledge and can make it simple to understand. Take Khan of Khan Academy for example.

 

[Bullitt68]

I don't agree that it's simply a difference in terminology. It also adds to the complexity but that's not quite it. No one looks at BJJ guys talking about omoplatas and Brabos and thinks "Oh that Academic speak!" If one were to hang around long enough in a conversation between two jits players or even attend some seminar and had no previous experience, the chances that they actually understood a good portion of the material isn't outside the realm of possibilities. I understand what your saying i just think you are being overly charitable in saying it's a specific language catered to an audience when what you really mean is they use their own terminology while using needlessly complex syntax. Im criticizing the Syntax used not the terminology.


Once more i have a problem with the syntax used. The sentence you provided isn't really all that difficult to digest, no doubt i don't understand what the hell you are getting at but it's no different than listening to a plumber talk about my basement flooding and the necessary steps to follow in order to alleviate the issue, either way it's not really academics using a particular language to shorten their word count but rather when they do the opposite and needlessly drag things on when in reality that "the mise-en-scène was Bazinian in spirit" would have been much appreciated.



Yea im not a hater when it comes to big vocabularies either but that's not the issue here. I have been reading philisophical texts since i was 16 and i can appreciate linguistic artistry but i would never confuse whats below or compare it to other forms of linguistic artistry.

"The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation."

This isn't a specific language, this certainly isn't beautiful to read, in no way does it seem like "linguistic artistry" and more than anything it's just a pain in the ass to read.

I can no longer help here as I no longer know what exactly the target of your complaints is. It's sounding more now like you just read one bit from one essay and then made a thread about all academic writing

Limiting myself to that specific little bit that you've quoted there: Yeah, that's not good writing. That type of shit is symptomatic of literary theory and is steeped in semiotics crap. But, again, that style is specific to that methodological framework (semiotics) and the language of that field (literary theory, which, unfortunately, has seeped out into the philosophy of art more broadly and, at this point, into the humanities in general).

There are good reasons to consider that values might have no objective fundamental grounding, that capitalism is a corrosive ideology destined to fail via its own contradications, and that aesthetic preferences are arbitrary.

Learn yourself something here about objectivity, you postmodern heathen

Sadly I'm not convinced it's a specter. Rather it's a systemic failure of publishing systems and academia in general.

Too many writers ensconced in such language feel no obligation to tie their ideas back to empirical reality, to assess the worthiness of the frameworks they're working within, or even to engage with each other in productive ways.

Now we're talking

Too much of this writing that seems to have the self-perception of theoretical progress is, in reality, knocking out the substance of its own value from underneath. That's not to say you can't find entertainment in the text (I've sunk hours into Enjoy Your Symptom! despite the fact that I probably could not explain a single chapter), or you can't appreciate the author's more accessible writing (I especially like this analysis of The Dark Knight Returns - Zizek's ability to soak up and articulate cultural varieties is undoubtedly incredible), but you have to be able to recognize the difference between productive philosophical writing and play writing.

I've never gotten the hate for Žižek's writing. I get hating Žižek's shtick, his public persona, but the writing itself - particularly Looking Awry, The Parallax View, and Less than Nothing - is top-notch. What's difficult about reading Žižek is that he's read everyone and everything, so he'll string together references and allusions and quotes to 14 things in a single paragraph - or a single sentence! - and that can seem overwhelming. But it's not an indictment of academic writing and it's not even a stylistic problem. He's just dropping Lacan and Hegel and Kierkegaard and Schiller and Wittgenstein and Hitchcock and then he's off to another point to discuss Descartes and Kant and Benjamin and Weininger and film noir and then he's off to another point and on and on like that.

It does feel like intellectual sprints, and if you don't know what he's referencing then of course you're not going to know what he's talking about. But I don't think he's a good example of the general line of critique of this thread regarding the ills of academic writing.

And then not complain when no one takes the political consequences of the play writing seriously.

The political Žižek is the only Žižek that I don't read. I mean, the dude loves Marx, Lenin, and Mao. I'd certainly hope that no one takes his political shit seriously

Anyone who thinks of an entire school if philosophy is dumb is, frankly, worthy of being totally ignored

Some shit needs to be called out as shit. Poststructuralism is retarded. Period. It's retards writing retarded shit that only retards think isn't retarded. There's serious danger in writing blank intellectual checks like this to all schools of thought, in thinking that "Since people read it there must be something of merit in there." There might be, but there also might not be, and when there isn't, that needs to be communicated so people can spend their time reading shit that isn't retarded.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Poetics as well. Lots of philosophy takes on a poetic form to avoid straight analytic description of something that they feel can't be grasped. Late Heidegger kind of stuff

I'm cool with that when the intentions aren't conflated.

For example I actually think Michael Eric Dyson is a solid speaker. He doesn't always make the most reasonable points from the most neutral starting point, but his combination of argument, preaching, and peoticism is captivating.

I appreciate the writing of Ta Nehisi-Coates for similar reasons. I don't always agree with him, but the way he sets words on a page is beautiful. That said, when he's put up in a tighter format against someone like John McWhorter, who's a little more well thought out on policy in my opinion, he doesn't fare so well.

It's a matter of knowing the purpose of the writing, I suppose.

 

[Alphaboy]

So im in my second year of university as a mature student and we have a week break from school, which most people use to catch up on reading. This week i decided to catch up on and also read in advance for one of my courses and it occurred to me that a lot of academic writing is just so needlessly complex in how it's written.

Take this little excerpt taken from the Atlantic expressing this very idea:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

Like why has polluting your message with language so beyond recognition that no one can understand it become the standard? It's not even for any purpose other than to impress other intellectually snooty von snootersons, It doesn't help anyone to write like that. Worse yet is that it plagues the social sciences WAY more than anything else which is so cringy as they try to sound like real scientists.

It's a dick measuring contest, that's all it is.

I have read countless pages of this type of bullshit and I want to go into my Profs office and fill the room with uppercuts.

Anyone else agree with this assessment?

It's become one of those things where it's more about circle jerking one's self with wordy synonyms rather than to make an actual point. As if to show off to other colleagues. I dislike it because it becomes more of a contest of who can use the biggest words than who is sending a clearer message.

 

[Bullitt68]

@Caveat

I forgot to mention Tarrying with the Negative, which is right up there with Less than Nothing as my favorite of Žižek's books. Here's a passage where he's explaining Lacan's twist on Descartes vis-à-vis skepticism:

"Lacan as it were supplements Descartes’ I doubt, therefore I am … with another turn of the screw, reversing its logic: I am only insofar as I doubt. This way, we obtain the elementary formula of the [skeptic’s] attitude: the [skeptic] clings to his doubt, to his indeterminate status, as the only firm support of his being, and is extremely apprehensive of the prospect of being compelled to make a decision which would cut short his oscillation, his neither-nor status … It is this inherent dialectical inversion that characterizes the [skeptic]: “officially”, he strives desperately for certainty, for an unambiguous answer that would provide the remedy against the worm of doubt that is consuming him; actually, the true catastrophe he is trying to evade at any price is this very solution, the emergence of a final, unambiguous answer, which is why he endlessly sticks to his uncertain, indeterminate, oscillating status … What he truly fears to lose is doubt as such."

That's clear as fuck. Of course, if you haven't read Descartes or Lacan, if you're not familiar with philosophical skepticism, and if you don't know anything about dialectics, then it might take some work to understand the nuances of what's being communicated...but if you have, if you are, and if you do, then it's bang-on brilliant.