Re: [Marxism] Ward Churchill Redux

["Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Mark Lause" <markalause@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 3:21 AM

> I think our friend Waistline2@xxxxxxx misunderstood Ian's point, which
> was not against writing for a broader audience, but being particularly
> meticulous about not cutting corners.
>
Just to clarify - that is absolutely correct. Of course not all writing 
should be of the type required for scholarly peer-reviewed journals, replete 
with massive amounts of footnotes, bibliographies, etc.; it is possible to 
condense such work and present it in a clear manner for a wider audience*. 
The type of populist writing I object to consists of unfounded assertions 
which seek to appeal on a more basic level, by resonating with popular 
prejudice, creating mystiques, and so on.

*Alas the opposite frequently applies in a good deal cultural history and 
theory, in my experience, in which relatively straightforward arguments are 
drowned in a wash of jargon by writers eager to demonstrate their ability to 
bandy around the right fashionable buzzwords. There is some Marxist writing 
like this, but not so much. For this type of mystification, I don't believe 
a lot of the French post-structuralist and post-modernist tradition can be 
entirely absolved of blame.

Solidarity,
Ian 


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