Academic jargon is frustrating. Why describe the obvious in obscure language? The reason is as simple as any mind altering drug – our habits of perception are altered by the unfamiliar and the work to understand becomes a source of Little Dopamine pleasure! (as opposed to easy Big Dopamine addiction)
Reading academic, jargon-filled literature stirs up extra thoughts and visions. It may, when translated into plain language, be only a simple attack on the way things are or ought to be, but it is seductive in all its coy nuance. It is seductive – a big dopamine bait and switch replaced with little dopamine epiphanies! The tantalizing miracle of a little extra effort.
And there is always the question of whether you understood their meaning correctly or are merely lost in wonder at your own thoughts.
Ha! – if you’re in touch with Ecosystems, the ideas that come to you are likely more valuable than the author’s original conceit.
Actually, the motives behind much academic writing seem as incomprehensible as trying to figure out how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. But here is the rub – that was an academic discussion in its day almost a thousand years ago. And just like academic subjects today it was way out ahead of its time in attempting to extrapolate solutions to the problems of the human landscape.
So, as long as universities keep at it, I don’t care if they continue to construct and deconstruct pop culture, theology, physics, or whatever – if they fill it with obfuscating language, I’m all in!