jargon

> jim, i think yer looking for love in all the wrong places…
> vernacular is a well-established wrench…

i didn't say anything about vernacular.

> personnally, i don't think computers are metaphorical.

whatever that might mean. the point is that it means about as much as to say
that computers are metaphorical as that "The computer is metaphorized, not
metaphorical," ie, not much.

> the simplicity we avoid kinda explains too much.
> hows that fer jargon?

whatever. yeesh.

ja

of course that should have been short one "as": it means as much to say that
computers are metaphorical as that "The computer is metaphorized, not
metaphorical", ie, it doesn't mean much.

what passes for art talk is pathetic. what passes for excellent in art talk
is pathetic.

what passes for political oratory is murderous intent made appealing via
nationalistic jingoism.

language should help us think clearly and with compassion and understanding.
instead, it is often a weapon to deceive. or, in art talk, inconsequential
blather toward a phd or other educational certificate.

orwell argues that we should not accept bad or deceptive writing or
thoughtlessly cliched writing, or overly jargon-ridden writing, and that
what is at stake is, in politics, the tolerance of the culture for lies and
bad leadership. what is at stake is our ability to discern lies, deceptions,
and plain humbug from honest writing and utterance.

ja

> > jim, i think yer looking for love in all the wrong places…
> > vernacular is a well-established wrench…
>
> i didn't say anything about vernacular.
>
> > personnally, i don't think computers are metaphorical.
>
> whatever that might mean. the point is that it means about as
> much as to say
> that computers are metaphorical as that "The computer is metaphorized, not
> metaphorical," ie, not much.
>
> > the simplicity we avoid kinda explains too much.
> > hows that fer jargon?
>
> whatever. yeesh.
>
> ja

yeah, well, ja…mostly i agree with you about clarity in language…
except that i am conflicted…
what actually is "honest writing and utterance"? are we retreating to
socialist realism? isn't abstraction in language as viable as abstraction
in painting? adorno supported difficult writing as kinda a filter to winnow
out those without sincere commitment to the effort of thought. clarity
often comes at a price. and who's being "honest" about what? ain't nothin'
said what does not have an interior presupposition or two…that is, an
angle…a desire to sell. breaking words apart from convenience ought not
be threatening.
by the way, you've probly read orwell's homage to catalonia…his time
with the anarchists in the spanish civil war…very cool- but, as an
offset, you ought to wade through hugh thomas's the spanish civil war.
orwell savages the commies in that conflict, but thomas provides a
thought-rending explanation of their reasoning. this point being that no
matter how much you think you know, it ain't ever enough. best wishes.

i have some major sympathies with Will's argumentation. But i think
there's something important to arguments about language, if not
"jargon," - "sincere commitment" may not be represented in a lexicon
based on fashionable exclusion and cultural currency. it's one thing to
develop complex language, and yet another to limit discussion via code.
of course, CAE's analysis of the frankfurt school's tactic of cloaking
political speech within esoteric academics presents another angle. but
i think "tactic" is a key word here… what's worse: manipulation
through aesthetics (socialist realism) or isolation through aesthetics
(academia)? or is the problem obfuscated by the (false) dichotomy?
ryan

> yeah, well, ja…mostly i agree with you about clarity in language…
> except that i am conflicted…
> what actually is "honest writing and utterance"? are we retreating to
> socialist realism? isn't abstraction in language as viable as
> abstraction in painting? adorno supported difficult writing as kinda a
> filter to winnow out those without sincere commitment to the effort
> of thought. clarity often comes at a price. and who's being "honest"
> about what? ain't nothin' said what does not have an interior
> presupposition or two…that is, an angle…a desire to sell. breaking
> words apart from convenience ought not be threatening.
> by the way, you've probly read orwell's homage to catalonia…his
> time with the anarchists in the spanish civil war…very cool- but, as
> an offset, you ought to wade through hugh thomas's the spanish civil
> war. orwell savages the commies in that conflict, but thomas provides
> a thought-rending explanation of their reasoning. this point being
> that no matter how much you think you know, it ain't ever enough. best
> wishes.

> yeah, well, ja…mostly i agree with you about clarity in language…
> except that i am conflicted…
> what actually is "honest writing and utterance"?

good question. when a lying dickhead like ronald reagan is/was known as 'the
great communicator', the notion of honest writing and utterance would seem
to be almost a lost concept.

> are we retreating to
> socialist realism? isn't abstraction in language as viable as abstraction
> in painting? adorno supported difficult writing as kinda a filter
> to winnow
> out those without sincere commitment to the effort of thought. clarity
> often comes at a price. and who's being "honest" about what?

i agree that 'difficult' writing is sometimes 'difficult' for valid reasons.
reading mathematics has always been a challenge to me. mostly because the
language is difficult. it is difficult out of a need for precision (as is
the language of the law, for instance). the ideas themselves are actually
quite simple when you can penetrate (which usually involves anticipating)
the language. the ideas of mathematics are much simpler ideas than those in
many another field because the types of entities under consideration and the
relations between them are relatively few in number and qualitative matters
are not a concern. but the language is very hard to grapple with. it is
possible to reduce this difficulty somewhat by resorting to
pictures/graphics. but they are necessarily particular and do not convey the
full generality of the ideas, ie, language is capable of a level and
precision of generality that the realm of images is simply incapable of. an
image presents a particular case.

i can't support the notion of difficult writing as simply a filter, however,
to keep out those who don't want to work for it. if the ideas are
interesting and consequential and general enough, that will generate
sufficient difficulty for both the writer and the reader without
manufacturing a surplus of difficulty to simply keep out the dullards. also,
it would seem that rather than keeping the dullards out, they are perfectly
capable of vacuously difficult writing themselves. Cogent reasoning and
lively writing is its own filter. but neither can i support writing which
tries to keep people out. i thought the idea was to write to communicate
with others.

poetry is sometimes 'difficult' also. for various valid reasons. for
instance, it often counts on others 'filling in the gaps' according to their
own experience and understanding. it isn't possible to hand someone an
experience of the beautiful 'on a platter'. but such writing is different in
its intent than argumentative writing. poetry usually is not attempting to
reason its way to conclusions.

so of course i have no objection to 'difficult' writing as long as it is
difficult for rewarding reasons.

> ain't nothin'
> said what does not have an interior presupposition or two…that is, an
> angle…a desire to sell.

mightn't supposing that 'everything said' has 'a desire to sell' be a
peculiarly 'american' way of looking at things?

i worked in the usa for four years (i'm canadian) as a technical writer. one
time a manager asked me to write some slippery public relations stuff. i
finally told him as matter-of-factly as i could (which i think ended up
sounding frosty) that i wasn't a salesman. he paused and looked at me with
an expression that combined annoyance, as much managerial authority as he
could muster, and a certain dumbfounded surprise. 'you don't understand,' he
said, 'everyone is a salesman here.'

whether 'here' meant the company or something larger was not clear. it was
one of those oddly existentialR moments.

ja