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On April 01 2012 11:12 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2012 11:01 deathly rat wrote: Well if I were you I would have given up after "The demystification of the present is the precondition of praxis, which is necessarily future-oriented and would be impossible if the future were wholly unknowable.". When people write this sort of gobbledygook you know you are wasting your time. This cuts me to the bone  It's funny because your sentence after this is a less sophisticated way of saying nearly the same thing.
I feel it is a mistake to express your ideas in such an elaborate and accurate language in a public forum. You could quote Benjamin, speak of Arago's "human aquariums" as the pretext ouf our Deuleuzian culture, but because it's not a closed discussion between a handful of similarly educated people the most common reaction would be to skip your posts and head on to Wikipedia. Keep in mind that everything written here is public and has little to no purpose if it's not correctly understood by readers.
Isn't communication meant to convey a certain concept or a certain idea?
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Yes, possibly. I am just speaking the thoughts in the words that I use to think about them. It would be more of an intellectual labor to translate into more accessible but cumbersome language and at that point it wouldn't really be as enjoyable for me to have the conversation.
As I spend much of my life trying to simplify my language so that the people around me will not consider me obscurantist and become angry, when I find the opportunity to communicate with somebody in my own tongue, so to speak, I like to take that opportunity.
I'm not on TL arguing about the philosophy of history in an attempt to reach some broader audience or proselytize my view, so I'm not going to simplify my language for a general audience that probably isn't interested in the topic to begin with. If somebody were interested, however, I would of course be more than happy to try to explain myself in terms that don't require a degree in theory (although this is not necessarily possible - in the same way that there are concepts in say physics that you really just can't understand without the background. There is not always a good English translation for a piece of jargon; that's why we have the jargon).
One way that I do try to overcome this barrier of communication is to use the socratic method. It is much easier for people without the appropriate background to understand a question than it is for them to understand an answer which I might give. If they are intrigued by the question, they can push themselves to consider possible answers on their own.
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If you don't want to be comprehensible for most, then there is no problem, I guess.
However, I do believe that you still use too much jargon sometimes. Even though I still have philosophy classes, I sometimes have trouble reading your posts simply because english is not my native language. While I understand the terms, the syntax can be too dense for me to understand without a second slower read. And we are, after all, in an international forum!
But it's a way to improve my english skills, true.
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Yes, there is probably truth in what you say. I will try to take more pains with my syntax in the future!
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There you go Azera, no arguing, your thread is full of gentlemen.
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