Humanities academics’ poor communication skills
Today I was most inspired to write a comment at Binary Bonsai, where Michael Heilemann was complaining about DAC 2005 delegates’ inability to express themselves clearly. It’s a post in its own right.
To academics, Michael, the words you think are barely known are commonplace: they use them every day. Academia has its own dialect, and it is able to do so because academics aren’t, as a rule, forced to have much contact with the world outside academia. It’s incredibly destructive, because the more time academics spend with each other, reinforcing their curious use of language, the more they ensure no-one in the world at large will be interested in what they have to say.
Why did academics start using this language to begin with? Why do they tolerate speech that often verges on nonsensical? The answer, I believe, is in the emergence of literary modernism in the early 20th century. Experimental writers of prose from Ezra Pound to James Joyce attempted to reinvent literary style according to the idea that new times demanded new language, and they produced some famously unreadable pieces like Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans.
The “make it new” idea of modernism seems to mesh rather well with the need for humanities scholars to write something “original” to get their doctorate. Rather than talking about something new, you can talk about something old using new words that you made up yourself, or by taking an old, incomprehensible study of something and making it incomprehensible in a slightly different way. The experimental techniques of the literary modernists made their way into the academy, where they slowly infected almost all of the humanities, throughout the world.
These days, to get a doctorate in the humanities, you usually have to emulate your peers’ incomprehensible style. This is called being scholarly. Sadly, the people you think are unenthusiastic on stage probably are very passionate about what they’re trying so unsuccessfully to talk about, but they’re labouring under the extraordinary effort of producing convoluted sentences.
To get a doctorate, you also have to cite “previous scholarship.” If there isn’t much in your field (as there usually isn’t in game studies), you have to choose some from another field. Which explains why you might be hearing people going on about literary hypertexts, political theory, or psychoanalysis when it seems they really ought to be telling you about a game they played. It’s also, sadly, part of what they have to do to convince other academics that studying videogames is a worthwhile activity.
It was the entrenched poverty of communication in academia that made my time as a PhD student in Melbourne, Australia, very unhappy. At DAC 2003, I put forth the same tripe that seems to have been boring you for the last day or so. But I got tired of it, I spoke against it, and I tried to stop doing it. It earned me no love, but now I’m living in Japan, thousands of kilometres away from my university, I feel much more at home in my intellectual life. I can think more clearly about my PhD thesis when I don’t have to spend time with my colleagues.
For what it’s worth, I found the Scandinavian contingent at DAC 2003 to be among the plainest-speaking of the delegates. Think yourself lucky you’re living among the best of them.
December 3rd, 2005 - 01:01
That was a fun read :)
It left me with a few (rather disparate) questions:
1) What’s Binary Bonsai?
2) What’s with that ‘doesn’t support IE’ stuff? I’m sure they’re trying to make a statement, but it’s still bad web design.
3) What’s DAC?
4) I blame postmodernism more than modernism. At least modernists still believed you should speak when you had something to say. Then the postmodernists came along and made actual meaninglessness into some sort of virtue.
5) Care to name any names? ;)
6) I didn’t realise you were that unhappy in your work – I thought it was just dissatisfaction, I suppose. (Man)hugs!
December 3rd, 2005 - 02:56
Hi Sasha,
Binary Bonsai is my blog, which should answer your first question. And since I’m the guy responsible for its existence, let me also take a swing at the second question now that I’m at it.
The ‘no IE’ policy is actually a half and half statement. Thought first I think it’s worth mentioning that most of the site is actually accessible through IE, though it might not necessarily look quite like it’s meant to.
Now on the one hand, the reason BB doesn’t fully support IE is simple due to me not having the time (or the patience for that matter) it takes to, ostensibly, dumb down the code to IE’s bug-ridden insecure level.
On the other it’s a means to an end, namely making as many people as possible use better browsers. Thus making not only their experience as users better, but also making it easier for designers—sooner than it might otherwise have been possible—to utilize the potential of the web.
Oh, and DAC is Digital Arts & Culture.
December 4th, 2005 - 13:16
You demonstrate little learning in relation to how PhD theses are assessed. Your assertions that “These days, to get a doctorate in the humanities, you usually have to emulate your peers’ incomprehensible style” is incorrect. PhD theses have to follow specific requirements, which include making arguments and meaning clearly understandable. A PhD thesis written in incomprehensible language will receive either a 4 or 5, requiring the candidate to make major changes to the thesis before resubmission, or in the case of a 5, prohibiting the candidate from resubmitting altogether. You support your proposition with no evidence. If you do have evidence, could you supply a list the studies you’ve read that demonstrate that humanities PhD candidates have to “emulate” the style of humanities academics. Also could you cite the people (and the referencing from which you obtained this information) who have called the emulation of incomprehensible style as “being scholarly”?
Your proposition that “To get a doctorate, you also have to cite ‘previous scholarship’ ” is correct. Knowledge of previous research and results, and the ability to analyze and identify the limitations of those results, are necessary to understand and develop specific knowledges and work within specific disciplines. Requiring candidates to complete a doctorate is one (limited) method to ensure that candidates demonstrate a minimum standard of scholarship. It also prevents candidates making up their own methodology.
Your proposition that “Academia has its own dialect” is incorrect. There is no such thing as an “academic dialect.” If your statement is metaphoric, then it lacks the skill of proficient writing. Academic writing guides recommend that writers construct sentences that contain literal and concrete words. If you are talking about jargon, then jargon is perfectly legitimate; it’s evident in all academic disciplines and many non-academic institutions. Popular news publications even support the use of jargon (see The Bulletin July 23 2002).
Your statement that “academics aren’t, as a rule, forced to have much contact with the world outside academia” is nonsensical. Some problems include:
1. Your use of general and abstract notions creates logical fallacies.
2. Why should academics be “forcedâ” to do something, especially to have contact with a completely abstract notion (“the world outside academia”).
3. Firstly, what is this so-called outside world? Much research involves fieldwork, which involves direct contact with people and situations outside academic institutions. Finally, I don’t know of any academics who actually live in academic institutions 24 hours a day seven days a week.
4. You don’t support your statement with evidence. Could you cite the academic sources that support your argument.
Your proposition that “It’s incredibly destructive, because the more time academics spend with each other, reinforcing their curious use of language, the more they ensure no-one in the world at large will be interested in what they have to say” is based on invalid reasoning.
1. If your proposition were true, for argument sake, why and how is it (incredibly) destructive?
2. You demonstrate very limited knowledge of academic research in the vastly varied areas of the humanities. Academics write in very different styles from one another and the majority of published academic writing in the humanities is clear and concise.
Your proposition that this “curious use of language” is the result of “the emergence of literary modernism in the early 20th century” is completely absurd. Firstly, there were numerous “experimental writers of prose” before the modernist, for example the eighteenth century Laurence Stern and his “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy”, which several critics have described as a forrunner to postmodernism. Secondly, academics’, or intellectuals’, writing styles were difficult before modernism. The writing of the sixteenth/seventeenth Thomas Hobbs “often verges on nonsensical.” Thirdly, critics (both conservative and Marxist) of contemporary “obscure” language in academic writing, which certain intellectuals use for specific reasons, claim that this style of writing came to prominence in the 1960s, which saw the move to so-called textuality or the advent of postmodernism.
You base your assertion that “The experimental techniques of the literary modernists made their way into the academy, where they slowly infected almost all of the humanities, throughout the world” on a false cause. In addition, could you list the academic studies youâve read that demonstrate the “slow infection” of “almost all of the humanities” “throughout the world”.
Your statement that “If there isn’t much in your field (as there usually isn’t in game studies), you have to choose some from another field” is incorrect. Firstly, there are volumes of research available in game theory. Secondly, one reason why there isn’t much research in relation to videogames is that both conservatives and Marxists consider videogames unimportant to the politics of life. Videogames, especially from a conservative political perspective, are nothing more than entertainment. It’s not academics, especially in the area of cultural studies, you have to convince that studying videogames is worthwhile; rather, you have to convince people from outside the academy, especially conservatives and Marxists. You’re lucky that you’ll complete your PhD before Brendan Nelson puts a stop to what he would describe as complete nonsense.
Using the logic that underlines your arguments, one could argue that the lowering of academic standards occurs when someone is allowed to complete a PhD on videogames, which is evident in your statement that calls for pure textual relativism: “they really ought to be telling you about a game they played.”
In the end, your arguments and propositions demonstrate the academic standards of a primary school student.
December 4th, 2005 - 13:53
Jess, I fully intended to respond to your comment until I reached the last sentence.
Learn some civility.
December 4th, 2005 - 14:28
I see Ben’s comments made it onto another blog:
http://whineonline.blogspot.com/
December 4th, 2005 - 14:41
Why is the last sentence uncivil? I was describing your arguments and propositions, which do demonstrate the standards of a primary school student.
That comment doesn’t refer to you as a person. I’m sure you are very nice; however, your arguments and propositions demonstrate a lack of academic skill.
You shouldn’t get emotionally upset when someone criticizes your work. Letting your emotions guide your response demonstrates a lack civility.
I think you need to learn what does and does not constitute civility.
All the best.
December 4th, 2005 - 18:38
Well, that’s a comeback I was asking for.
Nevertheless, your assertion that my arguments and propositions demonstrate the standards of a primary school student is simply hyperbolic rudeness. It is for this reason that I call you uncivil.
Equally uncivil is failing to identify yourself adequately and stand behind your criticisms. I notice that comments from Fred and from Jess originate from the same IP address. So, too, some even more childish comments from ‘John’ on another post. Unless you are three people using the same computer, what makes you want to pretend to be three different people?
Who are you all, anyway?
December 4th, 2005 - 19:22
Let’s hear it from Denis Dutton, creator of the infamous Bad Writing Awards:
http://www.denisdutton.com/language_crimes.htm
Jess:
If you’re going to accuse someone of ‘logical fallacies,’ I suggest a) specifying them, and b) not using them in the same post (ad hominem).
December 4th, 2005 - 21:01
Ben, I guess you can’t please everyone :)
December 5th, 2005 - 12:14
Ben, according to you, my last sentence is “simply hyperbolic rudeness”. Is my rudeness or assertion hyperbolic? Firstly, I dispute your normative judgment “rudeness”. Secondly, I dispute your qualification “hyperbolic”. My claim is reasonable. Lastly, I would claim, on the other hand, that phrases such as “incredibly destructive” and “entrenched poverty” are hyperbolic. In the end, if you are going to assert false propositions and criticize all academics, then you should expect critical scrutiny of those propositions. Would you, for example, accept the proposition that writing a PhD on videogames is incredibly destructive because it doesn’t refer to the outside world? Please, don’t respond if you find it too difficult.
Sasha, thanks for your suggestions. I would consider following your prescriptions if they weren’t based on false premises. According to you: “If you’re going to accuse someone of ‘logical fallacies,’ I suggest a) specifying them, and b) not using them in the same post (ad hominem).’ ” Assuming that your conditional sentence is indicative (I’m not sure “if” your sentence is subjunctive or indicative due to the contraction), then I suggest that you re-read my comments more carefully: (a) “false cause” specifies a logical fallacy. The only other reference to logical fallacies is the assertion that the “use of general and abstract notions creates logical fallacies”. This assertion doesn’t specify the fallacies because the verbal phrase “use of general and abstract notions” should make it clear for those who know what (at least some of the) logical fallacies are. Since your suggestion demonstrates that you don’t know, I’ll specify them: hazy generalization and hypostatization. (b) by your amphibolic phrase “not using them in the same post (ad hominem)”I assume that you mean that I used ad hominem. If you think I used ad hominem, could you show me where. I would suggest, however, that you (a) don’t know what it means, or (b) you haven’t read my comments adequately.
I’m bored; I’m of to find someone who is able to engage ideas sensibly.
December 6th, 2005 - 08:03
I think it’s very common for people living in towers of ivory to be impossibly difficult to please.
December 6th, 2005 - 11:44
It’s so pleasing to see that people still use cliches such as towers of ivory (or ivory towers). I’d hate to see people using reasoning :P
It seems the people most displeased are the ones writing little comments about displeasure, not the ones developing convincing critiques ;)
I guess, as the axiom goes, you can’t please your honey without any money :(
December 6th, 2005 - 11:58
In other words, the people who’re perfectly content with the status quo don’t write comments complaining about it?
December 6th, 2005 - 13:56
Now I know why academics are displeased. They don’t have the money to keep happy their honey. But if they don’t have money, how can they afford to live in those towers made of ivory?
December 7th, 2005 - 00:28
Let’s not belittle ourselves by quibbling over semantics. If you won’t nitpick mine and Sasha’s only very vaguely ambiguous sentences, I won’t attack your spelling mistakes.
You still haven’t answered my question, Jess/Jessica (Fred?/John?) about who you are. You accuse me of knowing little about how PhD theses are assessed, but why should you be any authority on the subject? (Incidentally, I’d like to ask whether you think Homi Bhabha and Judith Butler would get a 4 or 5 on their PhD, writing as they do in the excerpts Denis Dutton calls attention to. You know my full name, that I’m a PhD student, and you know what my discipline and thesis topic is, so I reiterate my question, this time in the words of Bart Simpson: “who the hell are you?” I also would like you to explain why there are three writers posting from the same IP address you last used.
To encourage you, I’ll make some concessions. I accept that my initial post cast its net overly wide. I should specify that when I complain about incomprehensible writing, I am referring mainly to those writers that some literary and Cultural Studies scholars venerate as “theorists.” If you must have a list, let’s start with Lacan, Derrida, Bhabha and Agamben. You’ll find these authors and their style emulated throughout the humanities, though, in literary studies, Cultural Studies, Cinema Studies, Philosophy, psychoanalysis (if you take it seriously as a field) and the social sciences (Anthropology and its derivatives).
What is it you don’t understand, Jess(ica), about Sasha’s statement that “the people who’re perfectly happy with the status quo don’t write comments complaining about it?” Of course they don’t: if you’re happy with something you’ve no reason to complain. Isn’t that obvious? And what does industrial relations legislation and your implied opposition to it have to do with my objections to prevailing writing styles in (some of) the humanities?
Indeed, I am displeased. I am immensely annoyed that incomprehensible writing from authors such as Judith Butler and Homi Bhabha (see the Denis Dutton piece) is frequently fawned over as the work of genius by literary and Cultural Studies scholars, and given to students to attempt to decipher and emulate.
We may have something to argue about on whether my claims that taking writing such as that produced by Butler and Bhabha seriously is “incredibly destructive” and indicative of an “entrenched poverty” of communication. We have nothing, however, to contest on the matter of whether my academic standards are those of a primary school student. I was an exceptional primary-schooler, and even I never thought in complex terms about standards of argument and evidence in my time at primary school. If you say you did, I’ll call you a liar. My thought processes put any primary school student’s to shame, and that’s surely nothing to skite about. Stand by your assertion and you only make yourself look like a fool.
My claim that the prevalence of incomprehensible academic writing of today is rooted in modernist prose experimentation may well be only partially accurate, or inaccurate. It is not, however, absurd. As writing on postmodernism from Fredric Jameson and Brian McHale argues, it’s difficult to draw a line between modernism and postmodernism, or to make each one belong to a clear period in time. One blends into the other. Sterne may be a little like postmodern authors, Hobbes and Kant like contemporary incomprehensible ones. But maybe literary modernism finally brought the popularity of incomprehensible writing to a critical point that could produce the surfeit of incomprehensibility that I lament today. A point worth discussing.
Finally: what problem, exactly, do you have with videogames and the study thereof? You claim that they are irrelevant to the politics of everyday life, but are you aware that hundreds of millions of people across the world play videogames? Are you aware that the issue of violence in videogames and how to regulate it is a constant topic of discussion for public moralists, lawyers and legislators in the US? Are you aware that most videogames bear the implicit stamp of some political ideology or other?
And if you want to criticise me for indulging in “pure textual relativism,” you’re first going to have to explain what that is, and then tell me why it’s a bad thing.
December 7th, 2005 - 23:41
Wow, I got up this morning and thought, ‘it just won’t be a good day if I don’t play virtual kiss chase with a kinky grammar nazi.’ Huzzah!
You mean, ‘assuming you were talking about me’? Gosh, Eva, I can’t imagine where anyone gets the idea that academics don’t speak plain English.
So you’re not sure if I’m talking about you because I wrote ‘you’re’ instead of ‘you are’? Yes, I can see how that might confuse matters.
Well Bertrand, if I were the sceptical type, I might point out that ‘false cause’ names a logical fallacy, but in itself fails to demonstrate that the cause in question is actually false, and that until you bring some evidence of your own to the table, ‘false cause’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘you’re wrong, so there’. If I were the honest type, I might admit that I didn’t actually notice the reference first time round, separated as it was from your actual mention of ‘creating’ logical fallacies. If I were the practical type, I might add that, honesty notwithstanding, everything the sceptical type might have pointed out remains true. And if I were the really nitpicky type, I’d feel compelled to mention that most of the more extensive fallacy lists cite ‘false cause’ as a category, rather than a single fallacy, and that therefore it doesn’t specify one.
You’ll have to forgive the colossal oversights in my list of memorised fallacy names. Given that approximately two of the several hundred fallacy sites on the web mention ‘hazy generalization’ whereas almost all mention ‘hasty generalization’, I’d made the egregious error of assuming the latter term was more authoritative. Since most of the fallacy sites know what ‘at least some of the logical fallacies are’, I’ll be sure to send a recriminatory email to each one, demanding they correct their own outrageous oversight.
Meanwhile, I hope you’ll once again forgive my pitiful intellect for failing to grasp the fact that the phrase ‘use of general and abstract notions’ necessarily and clearly describes the following errors (as taken from two of the most prominent fallacy lists):
‘The size of the sample is too small to support the conclusion.’
‘Reification [hypostatization] occurs when an abstract concept is treated as a concrete thing.’
Whereas, in my foolishness, I’d thought your phrase looked unspecific, and, even more foolishly of me, untargeted.
But, Ludwig, despite your cromulent use of the word ‘amphibolic’ where an everyday word such as ‘ambiguous’ would never ever have done, there’s one question I just have to ask:
How else might any reasonable person interpret my comment?
I offer my apologies again, Grandpa Simpson, for assuming that if my sieve-like memory could recall Ben’s previous comment, you’d be capable of the same feat. But I see that that comment was ‘perfectly reasonable’. My mistake again, then. Out of curiousity, could you direct me to the study of primary schoolers’ understanding of tertiary institutions to which you no doubt referred?
Of course I refer to the indomitable musical collective responsible for such unforgettable anthems as ‘Rockin’ all over the world’ and… several other… unforgettable songs. They’re unique in the history of status quos, you see, for being the only one to not receive hate mail from their ardent supporters.
We interrupt this reverie for a public service announcement:
MASSIVE NON-SEQUITUR HITS VIRTUAL SPACE. THOUSANDS FEARED MISSING OR DEAD.
If you’re worried about loved ones in the area, or would like to assist with relief efforts in some way, please call the US Committee for UNICEF on 1800 367 5437.
That’s 1800 367 5437. Think of the children.
Me old ma always used to say to me, ‘son, no argument is complete unless you end it on a strawman. Please tell the aliens that Bessie is recovering well, and her daughter was delicious.’ Actually, I think she only said it once, but I’m sure it’s sound universal advice, so I’d like to thank you for honouring at least one of her wishes (she’s not a blog reader you see, so she won’t have the opportunity herself).
But getting back to the claim that Ben actually made about most humanities, I’d say four years of prominent awards celebrating the incoherency of prominent academics goes a fair way to making a case (which your own linguistic mutilation strangely fails to counterpoint). There’s also some damning testimonial in Richard Dawkins’ Postmodernism Disrobed (and presumably in the book it reviews as well – as well as the Gross and Levitt book it mentions in passing). My favourite bit is actually a quote – the tale of Sokal successfully submitting a nonsensical paper to the peer reviewed journal Social Text:
Anyway He-Man, I want to thank you for the opportunity to indulge my competitive pissing fetish. Hit and run keyboard warriors are in such short supply on the internet, and I know all that chest beating must have pained you when clearly all you wanted to do was directly and diplomatically discuss the evidence you’ve been presented with. But now that my walls are suitably yellowed, I just can’t ask you to hold back any longer on my behalf.