KingJulien
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2011
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"English" major, really. But Lit Crit (psychoanalysis, queer theory, crt, ethics, etc.) is my bread and butter—or, as of the past year, that's where all of my energy has been directed. How could you tell?
Edit: @urthwhyte, If you're interested in making a point, go for it in an actual response man. You kind of just sound like another fool with an aversion to "overwrought sentences," which is basically code for "I don't like long sentences with any sense of style, especially if they use big words." Deal with it.
. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, ‘The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality’, while another writes, ‘The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness’, the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements likeMarshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.
None other than the illustrious George Orwell. Academic jargon is terrible enough when confined to its own little contextual cesspool; using it outside of that is just bad writing.