In case you were wondering, I had a wonderful weekend. Strokes concert, fire alarms and stealing kegs from inferior journalists who can't hold their booze'I have to say that this was one of the best weekends of my life.
But all good things come to an end, and end they did when I sat down to study for my International Studies 301 midterm. With my overpriced coffee in one hand and my overpriced course reader in the other, I went to work. Two hours later, what can I tell you about the interaction between culture and politics on the global scale?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I wish I could tell you a lot about the topic, and I should be able to, but the problem is that it's not in English. Well, it has all the characteristics of English, but I'd bet my \BASEketball"" card collection that none of the words I read could be found in the English dictionary.
Allow me to cite an example:
""It has become a sychronic warehouse of cultural scenarios??All this is par of course, if you follow Jean Baudrillard or Jean-Fran??ois Lyotard wholly unmoored from their social signifiers."" (Appadurai, 30-1).
Now I know that there are real words in this passage, but do you actually understand what the hell this person is trying to say? Now I am not one for ""dumbing"" down language. But I am against making up words as you go. These are some of the words used in the work I read: woof, megamonies, technoenvironmental, protonarratives, nonisomorphic, microidentities, translocal filiations?? and so on.
The sad thing is that these words are usually two words put together to sound intelligent. If I ever had a conversation with another human being regarding, oh, I don't know, high school sports not being fun anymore, and they used the term ""nonisomorphic,"" I would seriously consider violence.Professors always wonder why we fall asleep in their classes. I'll tell you why. Because we're hung over. That or else we spent three hours trying to figure out what the hell the ""woof of human motion"" (Appadurai, 33-4) was and why it's important. It's this crime against semantics which pains me so.
What if I walked around talking like some political science reader.
""Jonesy, how's the column going?""
""Well, I haven't prerequired the appropriate hyperaction in which to macrodispense my introspections on the neopapyrus.""
""Go home.""
And another thing. Do these professors actually use these words in everyday life?
""Daddy, can I have some juice?""
""Yes, but remember not to presuppose that you have some preternatural privilege for the fruit extraction.""
""Just shut up, dad.""
I don't know. Maybe I'm not seeing the benefits of using big confusing words. For instance, maybe it works well in picking up girls:
""Salutations. Would you mind protaking in some hypoinduced transalcohol with myself?""
""Ohh, big words turn me on!""
Actually, it'd probably be more like:
""Whatever you asked, the answer is no.""
Maybe when I'm older, wiser and richer I will comprehend big words that are only used to confuse people. But for the time being, I'd prefer to read one academic reading where the word ""micro"" would be separate from the word ""paradigm."" That or else I need to write a better column.
