> The reason that "jargon" gets used is that if you had to explain what "discour
> e theory"means every time you wanted to use the word, you'd never get to _say_
> anything: you'd spend all your time defining words.                   ven disc
>
> M. Tepper
> Brown University
 
>>There is, however, the tremendous danger that participants are
>>simply convincing themselves they are actually communicating, or
>>that the subject of their discussion has an objective reality.
>>This is largely the case in obscure academic areas such as
>>semiotics and film theory, where it has been oh-so-trendy to be a
>>neo-Marxist (until the recent collapse of Marxist credibility),
>>and populate one's prose with all sorts of taken-for-granted
>>self-delusions.
 
>>I say if you can't say it simply, something is probably fishy.
 
I have to side with M.  If you can't say it simply, it's probably because the
world isn't a simple place.  And to conflate the collapse of European
Marxism/Leninsm with an imaginary *collapse of Marxist credibility* on the
academic front is a sad mistake.  Neo-Marxist critical theory is about as far
from iron curtain ideology as you can get, and its one of the best tools we
have for understanding *obscure* things like semiotics and film.  Once you give
a jargon a chance, it often (but regrettably, not always) allows you to see
things with surprising clarity.
 
J. Berkley
Harvard Business School