Recent searches
Search options
Administered by:
Is there a reason why theologians write like that? They even do it when they're writing for ordinary people.
If you don't know what I mean, grab a theology book and see how often you read:
- dense nounification of verbs like "the becoming", "being", "othering", "being the Church", etc,
- adjectives that sound like the product of Greek classes like "salvific", "pneumatological",
- Older English terms in the middle of sentences like "the mire", "despond", "thou".
I'm used to academic waffle but theology, which talks about God who deliberately went out of the way to be understood and to talk in words everyone, even the uneducated could understand, should maybe set the example for clarity and concreteness.
I think it's more academia in general than theology specifically.
During my sadly abortive tenure as a Humanities grad student, I got pretty sick of reading "foo qua foo" and "rôle" in academic articles. Lots of silly "ain't I smart?" filler words like that.
At least "X qua X" has some philosophical and historical backing, even though it is just as easy to say "as" as "qua," and doesn't convey any less meaning.
I could never find the origin of the custom of using "rôle," and it's literally just the French word for "role."
Obnoxious. 
@CharismaticBatman @multilingualchurch I really wonder whether the point is not to obscure, so that one's own sloppy thought may not be detected.
@royal @CharismaticBatman That is rather negative. It seems to do with what we reward people for.
@multilingualchurch @CharismaticBatman Yes, a little too cynical. It probably does have to do with incentives. I'm favorable toward the view that "if you can't explain your topic in plain language, you don't really understand it." Yet plain language might be discouraged by journal publishers, etc. I'm just on the edges of this world, so the incentives may well be lie elsewhere.
@royal @CharismaticBatman I'm blessed to be in a fairly new discipline but even there we have just enough philosophy and sociology stuff to be dangerous. Perhaps it's asking too much to call for stylistic rebellion but certainly adopting clear language standards can help.
There's muddy stream between the river of philosophy and the bog of sophistry. Some people get stuck in it. 
@royal Plain language isn't always easy to get to. Think of the most nuanced topic that you are both knowledgeable and passionate about. Then imagine trying to explain it to someone who doesn't know and doesn't care. It's not easy 
Also, there's a fine like between art and artifice. Some, in striving to bring out th greatest artistic value in whatever they are writing, may transgress into artifice for it's own sake, losing sight of the goal of communication and persuasion.
It's easy to do.
@CharismaticBatman @royal For me, artistic writing is writing that is clear and meaningful.
@CharismaticBatman @royal Explaining what we're passionate about should make it easier to explain.
I dunno, I think about trying to explain FOSS, Unix, and privacy to someone like my sister, who doesn't care about any of those things. It's difficult to do.
On the other hand, explaining the Gospel feels super easy, like He's explaining Himself through you.
Except with family members, for some reason. I always get super tongue-tied.
@CharismaticBatman @royal I wrote an email to my MP today explaining why insisting on a backdoor in end-to-end encryption is a horrible idea. 
Fantastic. I hope they listen. I live in Texas, so I'm not going to bother writing to the lizard that represents me. :/
@CharismaticBatman @royal The hard thing to explain is that a backdoor for the government is a backdoor for bad people too.
Exactly. There's no way to control backdoors. Once it's open, it's open. It's a dumb idea technically, and ethically wrong.
@CharismaticBatman @royal There's using a hammer to crack a nut but that idea is chopping everyone's hands off to stop a few thieves.
There's no sugar coating the real motive behind these bills: control. Total surveillance and control.