"Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. It doesn't matter whether the good writer wants to be useful, or whether the bad writer wants to do harm." (Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading, p. 32)
Good academic writers contribute to the efficiency of language, and they do so in a very specific way. One thing that we need to be able to use language for is to state facts and support them with arguments; the universities should serve society by maintaing precisely that function. From undergraduates to full professors, academics ought to be keeping the language in shape to "assert and deny facts," as Bertrand Russell put it. They do this by keeping themselves (their minds) in shape. And they do this (or should be doing this) by writing regularly. A university should be a place where students meet teachers who care about language and where this passion is passed on in the natural way. People who are able to write clearly and accurately, and who want to write that way for a living, should find themselves drawn to the universities. They should feel that it is a natural environment for them. That is, they should get the sense that what is being required of them is also something they are good at. Maintaining the prose of the world is a labour of love.
"To state facts and support them with arguments": agreed. Yet I am reading Appiah's "Cosmpolitanism," and he spends quite a bit of time discussing how arguments and reasons have little to do with how and when people change their minds. He puts the emphasis on conversation, that is, contact between people of different perspectives, as the source of mind-changing. It's very very interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt also reminds me of the point in "Clear and Simple as the Truth": classic prose is not actually about convincing people. It's about talking to people as if the thing you are saying is, well, clear and simple as the truth. In that sense, classic prose is not actually appropriate for academic writing, which is indeed about convincing people.
Yes, as in the classic style, "the motive is truth, the purpose is presentation," at least presumptively. You are trying to present a truth and you are, in a sense, pretending to be trying to convince the reader of this truth. But the underlying value that academic prose serves is perhaps more "literary" in Pound's sense. The aim is to keep the language functioning efficiently, to "charge it" with meaning. Richard Rorty famously provoked many philosophers by saying our aim should not be solve intellectual problems but "to keep the conversation going". I think when I talk about "the maintenance of the prose of the world", I mean something similar. There's is still the important function of high literature (classic novels and poems): to keep the conversation interesting. But academics are justified in pursuing more humble aims, i.e., preserving the conditions under which communication about facts (truths) is possible.
ReplyDelete"... preserving the conditions under which communication about facts (truths) is possible": that fits nicely with things I'm pondering about how to talk to people who I think are deeply wrong. The prime example for me is people who are using "alternative medicine" that is complete quackery. Mostly, I would prefer to just not to talk to them, but when they start telling me nonsense about what they call "mainstream medicine" (like that I'm probably evil if I give my kids antibiotics or vaccines), then I would like to be able to converse with them without just saying, "But you're so utterly wrong!"
ReplyDeleteThat's a favourite topic of mine. Not alt medicine, but alt science generally. In most cases, I think the "mainstream" is a both a rhetorical construct (among the alt-types) and a rhetorical reality.
ReplyDeleteThat is, a great many views really are marginalized in the conversation, and it can feel quite arbitrary, both to long-time defenders of alternative views and to first-time participants. In trying to make up their minds, they realize very quickly that the decisive factor will not be whether the view is right or wrong but whether they want to be called one set of names (quack, crank) or another (stooge, shill), and whose company they enjoy in conversation. It sometimes saddens me, but it's very much part of the way discourse (i.e., the prose of the world) is constructed and maintained. Perhaps unavoidable.
There's a great discussion in Appiah's book about science vs. witchcraft (he's from Ghana after all), and how truly difficult it is to explain scientific results even inside a culture permeated by science. After all, we say, "I have a virus," even though we are not scientists who can explain the implications and details that underlie that statement. And in Ghana, people say, "A witch cast a spell on me," again without necessarily being able to explain the background of what that means in sufficient detail to make it clear to an outsider.
ReplyDeleteAppiah adds that he thinks science is "right," but that in the end, there's a way in which that "rightness" is beside the point.
Slate brings us a great recent example: marijuana policy. Everyone who thinks about it for a moment agrees that the prohibition is wrong. But those who take politics seriously understand that the whole trick is not to think about it. Pot, it is understood, is ridiculous. (The fact that pot policy kills and imprisons thousands is beside the point.)
ReplyDeleteThat overlaps with another book I just read, Glenn Greenwald's "With Liberty and Justice for Some": the rule of law applies aggressively in the "War on Drugs" and is thrown out the window in the "War on Terror." Further, it is thrown out the window when government figures commit crimes ...
ReplyDeleteAnd though Greenwald doesn't put it this way, the key is to NOT THINK ABOUT IT.
I'm liking Greenwald more and more each day.
ReplyDeleteOne positive thing about the US is that Greenwald has not been arrested yet. I gather that in Russia, someone like him would now be behind bars, if not dead.
ReplyDelete