(Apologies for top-posting, via phone) If a lay reader's criticism of a theorist's language is legitimate, is a layperson equally right to criticise technical language in a scientific discussion that her education has not equipped her to follow, as obtuse?
If so, can I bring up the criticism the next time a Silk thread begins on developments in, say, physics, or computer science? If not, why not? Is it because cultural theory owes it to laypeople to be less academic, or to adopt more egalitarian stances? If this is so, why should it be strange that a theorist talks about her own identity in a talk which, going by its title is about -- herself? Why does her choice of name or her reference to her background come up out of context as a matter for discussion? Genuinely curious. Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel -----Original Message----- From: Sruthi Krishnan <srukr...@gmail.com> Sender: silklist-bounces+supriya.nair=gmail....@lists.hserus.net Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:55:23 To: <silklist@lists.hserus.net> Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] The subaltern studies collective? > Or more generally, I come across the Bengali (it is usually a Bengali) > literary critic / thinker who spouts incomprehensible sentences such > as "homeopathy of self abstraction" and I think to myself - what a > wanker. I'm perhaps wrong because these are clearly educated and > intelligent people who however seem to be members of a mutual > admiration society. Do they actually get anything done? Wouldn't they > get more stuff done if they didn't speak in incomprehensible tongues? > This kinda obscure stuff is what post-modern stuff is usually about. Post-modernism was built on the might of intellectuals such as Derrida, who relied on neologisms. Derrida's prose was referred to by Foucault as "obscurantisme terroriste". The text is so obscure that you can't figure out what it is, and if you can't the author says, you are an idiot. :) Read this recently in a cute book on postmodernism.
