.  Perhaps, he speculates, academics use phrases like "universalist mythic constructs" because they have to be complex; they must speak in a language others simply won't understand.  As he puts it, "To enter this unique circle of brain-heavy men and women, all must learn its secret language lest interlopers manage to sneak through the door".  Finally, he opts for plain snobbishness as the most plausible reason and concludes with a call for rebellion: that students who hear the phrase "hermeneutic possibilities" or suchlike should "...walk out of class, shouting Winston Churchill’s famous retort: 'This is English up with which I will not put'".

All good stuff. It's a clever and entertaining article, if you're not the sort of academic who speaks of "fundamental dialogic immediacy" and "prosocial tendencies".  But, I have reservations about this sort of diatribe.

First, the people who use "academic" language are still people.  They're human beings, and Fisk's essay abounds with sarcasm which will wound not just those who use that language for the reasons he assumes, but others who use it with the best of intentions.  Moreover, some (perhaps many) who use "academic language" use it because they truly believe this is how you should write for academic publications; some (perhaps many) believe it's necessary to write like that because you'll be ignored if you don't (they may well be right).  For those reasons, some have worked hard to learn how to write like that.  Should you pillory these people, even if you detest their orotund language?  And, even if it only hurts the people who deliberately use that language for the sorts of reasons Fisk suggests, who has the right to decide that those people "should" be hurt?  By all means, attack the ideas (or better, discuss them), but focus on the problem, not the person.

Sadly, this approach seems to prevail among bloggers (it's not ubiquitous, because I try to avoid it).  Blogging seems now to have adopted the attitude, "This is my blog so I have the freedom to say what I like".  Yes, you can, but I get the strong impression that much of what's said is not opinion: it's invective; it's not argument: it's confrontation.  Sure, blow off steam to your mates over a beer, but blogs are public (even if no one other than your mates reads them)—spray vitriol and it's always possible that you'll burn someone.  Maybe badly.  It might also be constructive to consider Oscar Wilde's comment that, "Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas".

Secondly, clarity is not always a virtue.  Yes, there's a time and a place for it—and to be fair to Fisk, the time is most of the time and the place should often be within academia—but sometimes, clarity can limit understanding.  Sometimes, ambiguity conveys additional meaning; sometimes it illustrates or emphasises an assertion.  A degree of uncertainty about the meaning of a statement can be a better stimulus for thinking than a crisp, clear, boring assertion—you begin to wonder about the nuances of meaning, and maybe you might even come up with an idea of your own.  If clarity is always a virtue, why do we not employ translators to turn poems into plain, understandable language?  Poetry is a quality, not a form: many "poems" lack poetry, and much prose is poetry.

Moreover, the sort of language Fisk describes is not always impenetrable.  I've read academic language that uses phrases like "disjunctive dissidence" yet remains transparent; in that particular example, the writing had a subtle poetry that drew me in and encouraged me to think and wonder, to speculate about the subject.  More recently, I edited a manuscript about clay polymers—a subject about which I knew nothing, and which, in terms of being arcane and potentially recondite is right up there with string theory and cricket.  Nevertheless, I finished with a feeling that, on a certain level, I'd actually understood the paper; the technical terms meant something because of how they were used and how the sentences linked to create an easily followed, logical paper.  This impressed on me that opaqueness is not necessarily a function of vocabulary; it's more often a function of the structure of sentences, how information is located in the sentences and the flow of reasoning that links them.  While that point is missed by many users of the academic language Fisk rails against, so does he.

[The photos are details from Te Awaoteatua Stream—one literal translation might be "The River of God".  I walked down there yesterday evening, between showers, before the rain set in... climbed the small section of wooden fence, down into the paddock of steers.  Light from the grey, cloud-crumpled sky filtered through the fractal silhouettes of poplar branches; a lone leaf dangled, waiting for the wind.  I'd hoped for a wild sky, for evening colours reflected in long pools, but the light had no energy; it lay listless over everything, too weak even to cast shadows. Still, you find what you're open to...]

 Photos and words © 2005 Pete McGregor