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I realise this is your personal preference and there is no right or wrong when it comes to our likes or dislikes but I've always found this attitude puzzling. The only reason I can think of why is because English is my second language, so the act of looking up things I don't understand has become second nature to me.
My current employers are in the process of modifying their communication style in an effort to simplify it for the common folk. I call it dumbing down. Not only are they removing all business jargon but they are also replacing words they consider to be too formal. They hired a third party to rewrite their letter templates and now they all sound like they had been written by a second grader. All uses of third person pronouns, which were considered to be too pretentious were excised leaving nothing but the 'I' and 'you' type sentences that god forbid should exceed 5 words. Even the words like 'date' and 'venue' had been replaced with 'on' and 'the place where'.
Their argument is that all communication should be reduced to the lowest common denominator, so, instead of treating people like individuals and catering to their specific needs given different circumstances, they made blanket assumptions and depreciated everyone to this comical stereotype of 'Me Tarsan. You Jane.'
So, you see, this line of thinking - assuming that most people would not want to look up a word or will get frustrated by new concepts - can be just as corrosive as treating everyone like they should telepathically know exactly what you mean. Personally, I'd much rather someone gave me a benefit of a doubt than dismissed me as someone incapable of google or dictionary search.
I appreciate that I am not 'most people' and can't speak for others. But perhaps that's the trick - not projecting our personal preferences onto the world at large and not dismissing other people's choices simply because we may not know the reasons behind them. In the end, it's all a matter of context.
It's also a function of love of language. Appreciation of literary beauty, the sound, shape and effectiveness of words. It's important.
And to bring this back on topic, in terms of the aesthetics of atheist literature: Russell is the most beautiful, Dawkins is okay but gets a lot of editorial help, Hitch the most erudite, Harris writes well, and Dennet is too dense and obscure. Just my opinion.
Last edited by KaraZetterberg153; 04-23-2019 at 08:32 AM..
I realise this is your personal preference and there is no right or wrong when it comes to our likes or dislikes but I've always found this attitude puzzling. The only reason I can think of why is because English is my second language, so the act of looking up things I don't understand has become second nature to me.
My current employers are in the process of modifying their communication style in an effort to simplify it for the common folk. I call it dumbing down. Not only are they removing all business jargon but they are also replacing words they consider to be too formal. They hired a third party to rewrite their letter templates and now they all sound like they had been written by a second grader. All uses of third person pronouns, which were considered to be too pretentious were excised leaving nothing but the 'I' and 'you' type sentences that god forbid should exceed 5 words. Even the words like 'date' and 'venue' had been replaced with 'on' and 'the place where'.
Their argument is that all communication should be reduced to the lowest common denominator, so, instead of treating people like individuals and catering to their specific needs given different circumstances, they made blanket assumptions and depreciated everyone to this comical stereotype of 'Me Tarsan. You Jane.'
So, you see, this line of thinking - assuming that most people would not want to look up a word or will get frustrated by new concepts - can be just as corrosive as treating everyone like they should telepathically know exactly what you mean. Personally, I'd much rather someone gave me the benefit of a doubt than dismissed me as someone incapable of google or dictionary search.
I appreciate that I am not 'most people' and can't speak for others. But perhaps that's the trick - not projecting our personal preferences onto the world at large and not dismissing other people's choices simply because we may not know the reasons behind them. In the end, it's all a matter of context.
If English is your second language, and you spell 'realise' as you do, and you write as well in your second language as you do, I'm going to conclude with near-100% certainty that you are not American. Move to the US and you'll understand mordant's attitude--when you live in an overwhelmingly anti-intellectual yet self-assured nation of 330 million strong, you have to make some concessions. In this country, we learn that at a young age as something of a survival mechanism (speaking for people who have any level of intelligence which may stand out amongst one's peers), and despite the best efforts that we might make a later age to elevate our level of discourse (and mordant specifically is a person who writes very well), there is always the imperative to 'know one's audience'...and given a lifetime of conditioning that suggests our audience is neither gifted nor intellectually curious, we must adjust accordingly--we'd be in fact dumb to do otherwise. When in an idiocracy, do as the idiocrats do....
As for 'obscurantism', I've seen that accusation leveled (rightfully) by skeptics other than Russell, that's for sure. It's perhaps the most common criticism I've seen made against scholarly 'theological' writing...for good reason--the ploy of such 'apologetics' is often to confuse the issue at hand in lawyerly fashion. The goal of the obscurantist theologian is to end the debate, not necessarily to win it...survival of religion is what matters, psychologically and institutionally. So such obscurantist arguments serve a purpose and the thus the rhetorical strategy is popularized....
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 05-22-2019 at 12:22 AM..
I realise this is your personal preference and there is no right or wrong when it comes to our likes or dislikes but I've always found this attitude puzzling. The only reason I can think of why is because English is my second language, so the act of looking up things I don't understand has become second nature to me.
I have a casual friend who is a retired road maintenance worker. He regards himself as a fairly simple man, and finds even the toned-down version of me intimidating, intellectually. Technically that's his problem, not mine, but this is fairly common ... there are a lot of people in the US who are anti-intellectual, and even more who feel out of their depth in conversations and take it somewhat personally.
By virtue of my work (independent consultant doing software design / development) I have gotten very good at presenting complex issues in very simple, approachable and non-threatening terms. It's a skill that translates well to life generally.
I wish I knew more people like you who don't take the use of unfamiliar words personally because personally I find it fun to speak with precision and nuance. Unfortunately if I am going to function in society without coming off as an officious prig, I have to refrain from the deployment of dilatory terms ;-)
Too simple as Russell says. And how soon before the starving man says 'sod duty' and takes the bread? Being a Concrete thinker as Mystic put it, I think the clues lie in evolutionary biology, and not in Philosophy trying to reason it out with that human construct as artificial as counterpoint and fugue; ethics.
Steps back and waits for applause; not a sossidge.
No applause forthcoming, Arq. You don't even recognize that your reductionist materialism IS a philosophy. Philosophy simply tries to understand what is currently known about our Reality and explain its implications. You simply truncate the process and accept your view without further thought. Our main difficulty arises because we are not only an animal but also a thinking Spirit that is conditioned (as all animals) by our experiences with our Reality. Our Spirit attempts to reconcile our animal responses with some sort of rationale that only our Spirits care about. That leads to really strange conditioned responses most of which occur unconsciously without conscious participation. That leads to the existence of conditioned responses that you might call instincts that are really learned and conditioned associations from the mix of animal and Spirit conflicts. I apologize ahead of time knowing that this will exceed your Concrete threshold for understanding,
I think the central issue is that language is an art form: logic, beauty, symmetry, culture, form, shape, evocations. Looking at language through the lens of anti-intellectualism is a sad and pathetic joke, without much humor.
But pretending to be profound based on reading (and perhaps half-understanding) works by better writers, genuine philosophers and creative writers, is also sad. It's okay to start by imitation but in later years, it's not very interesting.
Caveat: depending on where your family is from, where you went to school and a host of other issues, *English* English can strike one as being snotty and superior. Even when it isn't, even when it is not intended to be. You can't avoid these cultural clashes.
Last edited by KaraZetterberg153; 05-22-2019 at 07:02 PM..
I think the central issue is that language is an art form: logic, beauty, symmetry, culture, form, shape, evocations. Looking at language through the lens of anti-intellectualism is a sad and pathetic joke, without much humor.
But pretending to be profound based on reading (and perhaps half-understanding) works by better writers, genuine philosophers and creative writers, is also sad. It's okay to start by imitation but in later years, it's not very interesting.
Our society has had a schizophrenic relationship with intellect, especially high intellect. On the one hand, it is often celebrated for its contributions to our progress, but it is also considered discriminatory to recognize and cater to its needs for development and growth. As a recipient of the latter and a victim of the social stigma of intellectual excellence that attended my early educational experiences, I was pleased to see some alteration in the cultural zeitgeist epitomized in the success of the Big Bang Theory series.
Our society has had a schizophrenic relationship with intellect, especially high intellect. On the one hand, it is often celebrated for its contributions to our progress, but it is also considered discriminatory to recognize and cater to its needs for development and growth. As a recipient of the latter and a victim of the social stigma of intellectual excellence that attended my early educational experiences, I was pleased to see some alteration in the cultural zeitgeist epitomized in the success of the Big Bang Theory series.
Mystic, the problem with tooting one's own horn is that it's hard to tell, without evidence, whether you are displaying the cognitive bias of illusory superiority (see Dunning–Kruger effect) or just a simple lack of modesty.
I guess it's because of this difficulty in reading people that internet forums generally follow the Law of Jante, in particular 'You're not to think you are smarter than we are.'
Mystic, the problem with tooting one's own horn is that it's hard to tell, without evidence, whether you are displaying the cognitive bias of illusory superiority (see Dunning–Kruger effect) or just a simple lack of modesty.
I guess it's because of this difficulty in reading people that internet forums generally follow the Law of Jante, in particular 'You're not to think you are smarter than we are.'
I'd rep you but the program won't let me. The Dunning–Kruger effect scares me, to be frank. Not unrelated to the Imposter Syndrome but sort of the flipside of it. How can you accurately perceive your own intellect, relative to others and realistically. Not an easy task. Degrees, publications, awards, income. It all seems illusory.
The Jante thing is funny. I have a close friend from Holland and it sounds so much like him!
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