From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Mar 11 2003 - 17:28:02 GMT
Hi Matt:
> DMB asked, "Why not speak simply and clearly?"
> However, specialized meanings are a sign of sophistication and intellectual
> progress.
Since you favor specialized meanings are you not patting yourself on
the back? :-)
Actually, it's much more of an intellectual challenge to translate esoteric
meanings into plain English. Pirsig could have written his metaphysics
with all the "sophistication" of a postmodernist, making up words as he
went along in an effort to impress professorial types and to sound
scholarly. Thank goodness he didn't, nor did he have to add meanings
to words in order to make "intellectual progress."
The silliness of using specialized meanings to communicate was
demonstrated not long ago when a professional academic journal
accepted as legitimate an article that strung together a whole bunch of
specialized meanings so as to sound sophisticated, but was in reality a
nonsensical spoof. Besides the editors, many readers took the article
seriously, considering it a legitimate expression of academic profundity.
Creating jargon is a time-tested method of building walls around a focus
of study so as to keep the infidels at bay. What did Pirsig call that? Oh
yes. A "cultural immune system."
It is always (universally :-) the fault of the writer if his meaning is not
immediately clear to the average newspaper reader. No one is obliged to
read what someone writes, must less figure out what he means. Clarity
in writing (the kissing cousin of economy) is a sure sign of high
intellectual quality.
Platt
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