A good physicist or chemist can usually explain in reasonably simple words to a layman what even a very complicated equation means and what it describes. Can you explain than gibberish to a layman without it reducing to triviality?
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Lit professors do exactly that every time they teach. That's kind of the, y'know, *job description*.
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Replying to @richterscale @LakyLudke and
The rouble is, if you boil this down to what it's actually saying you don't really get anything that isn't obvious. Using language to obscure meaning or its absence is the opposite of the academic method.
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Replying to @LakyLudke @Writerer and
Interestingly, Judith Butler - the master of obscurity - is actually capable of extremely clear writing. In one of these, she actually said that the obfuscation is intentional because demands for clarity are cis hetero male bla bla something.
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Replying to @LakyLudke @Writerer and
I like how you admit one of the canards launched at humanities academics is obviously false -- Butler doesn't write the way she does because she's a "shitty writer" and "doesn't know how to communicate" But then you decide her doing it "on purpose" must just be to fuck with you
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Writerer and
I did not decide it, lol. She said so herself. Educate yourself! He is still a shitty writer but not because she does not know how to communicate but because she has nothing to say.
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Replying to @LakyLudke @Writerer and
What she specifically said is that trying to translate these terms into familiar-sounding language *alters the concepts*, by making it something "friendlier-sounding" to typical audiences you invariably smuggle back in the nasty assumptions buried in common everyday speech
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
What you dismiss as "cis hetero male bla bla bla" is actually a very important concept when discussing language itself -- the language we use is loaded with assumptions based on the society we live in, and it's very hard to turn language against itself
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
So one of the functions of the use of jargon is the deliberate use of "defamiliarization", "distancing" By using words that make you do work to understand what they mean and how they relate to each other I force you to leave some of your baggage at the door
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It's specifically to try to cut off the reaction you do get when you try to translate these ideas into lay language, the kneejerk dismissive "Well DUH, that isn't SAYING anything, that's OBVIOUS and there's no reason to READ INTO IT"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @LakyLudke and
It's weird when people act as though connotation isn't a thing. E.g. I could use Blue or Azure to describe the sky. Both words have similar dictionary definitions, yet they carry additional info about the thing being described.
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Replying to @jamari_oneal @arthur_affect and
I actually study science. I've have had seminars on paper writing. We actually do learn this in scientist paper writing class. Scicom is a whole field because adding the context lay audiences need to understand ideas is really hard.
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