> 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