December 19, 2003

Oh Lord, Please Let Me be Misunderstood!

Either you love those articles which trot out and denounce examples of Bad (Academic) Writing or you don't. I do, and fervently, but I admit that such denunciations tend to resemble one another and rarely make points you haven't heard before. I tend to scan them for the garbled "get a load of this" quotation, laugh heartily, and move on; skimming the rest is optional. That may be why I almost neglected to read Ophelia Benson's latest article on the subject in the Guardian all the way through to the end; and almost missed this priceless Lewis Carroll-ish quotation from the introduction to Critical Terms for Literary Study, an anthology edited by Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin:

Theory set out to produce texts that could not be processed successfully by the commonsensical assumptions that ordinary language puts into play. There are texts of theory that resist meaning so powerfully - say those of Lacan or Kristeva - that the very process of failing to comprehend the text is part of what it has to offer.

Though it occurs in what is apparently intended as a defense against the frequent charge that the obscurity of such "theory" is deliberately contrived in order to mask its own vacuousness, that's about as clear an admission of guilt on behalf of the accused as you could imagine. And, indeed, the fact that the authors chose to compose this paragraph in praise of incomprehensibility in perfectly clear, "processable" English is in a way the best part.

(via Crooked Timber.)

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 19, 2003 05:33 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Hey Frank,

I've posted on your "get a load of this"'s before -- I'm an English grad school dropout (that's a number that didn't make it past previews when Grease III opened!), so I appreciate your finding these tidbits -- almost like playing with an old scar to remind myself how nice it is that it doesn't ache anymore.

My guess is that the Theorists would elaborate (that is, explicate, unfold, unpack, at least those were the terms of art 10 years ago) that the confusion of Lacan et al is a deliberate attempt to create a specific effect in the reader: the disjuction of language and meaning, to throw doubt into the comfortable, bourgeois assumption that signifiers signify, or whatever. I think it's fundamentally an aesthetic effect, like looking at a non-representational or distorted painting. I think the standards of literary criticism are essentially aesthetic and not scientific: criticism isn't right or wrong, it's just interested and thought-provoking or it's not. Kind of like a play or novel or a song. Or rather, it's like very avant-garde music that a tiny number of people appreciate and the rest respond to with a shrug. The problem is that the composers know that they're making art, while the Theorists think they're analyzing something.

Posted by: Nick at December 29, 2003 09:11 PM

Nick, I think you're right, particularly with that last sentence: the problem is that it masquerades as science. When I was at university, it had taken over a fair few departments to such an extent that it was taken for granted that actual content was optional. And I'm sure it only got worse later on. Nonetheless, the frank admission that that's the case (i.e. that having something to say is optional in the theory-world) is a kind of progress; whether or not you think that's a good thing really does seem to be a line dividing two discrete groups, with most normal people on "our" side. (And yeah, I'm kind of a jingo about it: I can't resist crowing about those rare situations where I'm "normal.")

Posted by: Dr. Frank at December 30, 2003 03:29 PM

Frank,

Of course, the Theorists (at least the deconstructive ones) would then retort that the binary opposition (remember that term?) between science and art is itself illegitimate, and would insist on deconstructing my analysis of "scientific" and "aesthetic" effects. They would claim that, in the end, science and art are the same, truth and beauty are indistinguishable, and there's no real difference (that's "differANCE", emphasis on the last syllable, to sound more Derridian) between making sense and not doing so.

Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have dropped out, after all. I might have tenure by now...


P.S. My grad school years were at Cal 90-92. One of the great things to come out of it was one Friday about noon I came out of Wheeler Hall, heard some cool music wafting over the breeze, and followed the sounds to Lower Spoul Plaza where I caught my first MTX show, which was the first I'd ever heard or heard of you guys -- as I remember, you said you were about to release "Milk, Milk, Lemonade", and I definitely remember you playing "What Do You Want?" and it really brightened my day. So a belated "thank you" for a really good show that introduced me to a band I still love.

Posted by: Nick at December 30, 2003 09:30 PM