Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 11:30:33 -0500
From: Bob <suannschafer-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Bad Writing?


>Thanks for this response. I think you're being entirely sensible here, and I
>guess my response to the Bad Writing mail was perhaps overly polemical. But
>it does make me annoyed. The implicit assumption of those who judge this is
>that this thought SHOULD be readily understood. Clearly the proposer of
>Bhabha didn't know his Foucault: whose fault is that? Is it Bhabha's? Did
>the reader of Butler understand Althusser, Gramsci and their critique?

I don't imagine the problem is with a lack of background, but rather what
many regard as the prolix and turgid character of much of this prose.

>Should writers have to clarify everything they write about before pushing
>forward?

Of course not.  But they should strive to write clearly and accessibly in
the structure of their prose.

>Why waste valuable words on something that many people will fast
>forward through to get to the heart of the original thought?

Perhaps that's the problem.  Not enough "valuable words" WERE indeed wasted.

>But, that doesn't mean it needs to be willfully obscure. I hope that my work
>is comprehensible to those prepared to make a little effort.

I think that many who read the work of these writers are "prepared to make
a little effort," as I imagine that the work of most of these writers is
read in many of our elite institutions; however, I'm not sure they're
"prepared to make a little effort" to read what many regard as the prolix
and turgid character of much of this prose.