Hi Dr.Chomsky,
I have been following your speeches and articles
for last couple of months. I am very much impressed by your opinion and
attitude and I have lot respect for you. This is my first email to you.
Recently,
I am trying to understand the concepts like Structuralism, Post
structuralism and Post modernism. I was interested to know your opinion
about it. So I read this
article. And I have two questions based on that.
http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
The
article was written about 20 years back. Does your opinions have
changed in these years or is it still the same that the Post modernist
cult and the "theory" given by them is just truism and posturing.
Also
the following lines provoked my thoughts. Because I am reading a novel
written by an Indian author and many reader's response to that novel was
that it is very hard to understand it. The author responded back saying
this novel is re-creating "Mahabharatha" in which all the traditional
Indian wisdom and Indian cutural and historical details exist. So it is
hard to write it in a plain language.
Johnb
made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of
reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But
the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex
verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to
ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is
accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in
plain language.
My question is, in which case a plain
language is just not enough to communicate any sort of people. Or do
you think any complex concept can be explained using plain language?
In
my understanding literature is a different form of communication. Its
purpose is not to impart a definite meaning but to demand the readers
imagination and thoughts to understand what the text mean. It could be
totally different from what the author was intended to say. In that
case, is it right if the literature resort into complicated language?
Please answers my questions if possible. It was a great pleasure to email you.
Thanks,
Harish
Dr. Chomsky replied,
My views are about the same.
Literature
is a totally different matter. There are often very good reasons to
resort to modes of expression that incite the reader to think hard and
independently.
Beyond that I don’t see any reason to go beyond what I said in those
responses to comments.