From: "Malcolm Thompson" <mac_thompson-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: Re: for margaret re: spivak Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 23:42:32 +0000 hi folks. you know, on a certain level, all progressive posturing aside, being a theorist is spivak's job. (i'm going somewhere with this besides just reiterating uninteresting truisms.) just like being a linguist is chomsky's job. chomsky has other interests, and his political writings are accessible in the extreme. but no one ever criticizes chomsky for the complexity of his writings on transformational-generative grammar. it's just taken as a given that he's a specialist in that field, which no one thinks ought to be rendered in plain language. (or if it should, not by the specialists themselves.) i'd never think of moralizing the fact that i couldn't understand some guy's phd dissertation on theoretical physics. so why the assumption that spivak should be accessible to the (mythic) 'general reader'? they're both just jobs. see ya, mlcm "I labour to be brief / And become obscure." - Horace, *Ars Poetica* _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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