Now THIS is Drama

I don't know where we get the idea that dense = smart.

Well, the thing about language is it's much more efficient to express your ideas in complex sentences than to break it down Hemingway-style. Unfortunately, it's also easier to hide behind messy, complicated writing. I guess my knee-jerk judgment on such matters is it takes not only smarts, but real dedication to your audience, to write simply about complicated @!$%#.

I guess, like a good old-fashioned modernist, I want to change minds, or tastes, or perspectives. I want people to read what I write and think "huh, I never thought of it that way before." Changing your mind is a hard enough business without having to work for it.

If I can write effectively in simple language, why should I make my readers do the work, and what's their incentive? And who wants an audience so exhausted that by the time they're finished "getting" what I write they're too burnt out to have a dialogue with me?

I think it is because the writing assignment is so challenging.

Interesting point. Consider "performing smart" at the top of my list of insecurities, in school and out of it. It's rooted, of course, in the fact that I've always been precocious and habitually bill myself as someone who can "hang with the big kids". I don't really like this about myself, incidentally. You want to talk about the "real me"? Here's a clue: she ain't in my undergraduate papers.

I guess, at this point in my life, I've realised that the writing habits I cultivated in order to perform smart really get in the way: not only do they make my ideas harder for other people to understand, but they directly interfere in my ability to organize my thoughts. At the end of the day, when I look back on stuff I wrote in college, I marvel that I was able to convince people I had anything to say at all. (That's a story for another day.)

I feel at home at Newsvine because there are so many smart contributors who have helped me to understand the deficiencies in my own writing and presentation. The conflict that seems to exist between accessibility and intellectual legitimacy is exactly what I hoped to highlight by bringing academics to Newsvine. I'm tickled, to be perfectly honest!

Yeah, it's a hard assignment (and I'd like to hear more of your ideas why, Barry) but I think it's really worthwhile. Then again, I'm biased.

P.S., I knew you'd be back. ^^

Just a quick note to my friend, Ryan.

Ryan, you have a great voice that you display well here. You hit the right tone time and time again. I am glad that you have a place where you feel free to use your skills as fully as you can. It is a great joy for me, as someone who once benefited from your work--your precocious work--in class, to see you being so smart and so active and so engaged here.

And I am betting that a big bulk of your communication and mind changing is happening with your music.

And I am betting that a big bulk of your communication and mind changing is happening with your music.

Huh. You know, it's funny you mention that. Playing out is always in the back of my mind when I'm writing about this stuff here, but I'm pretty sure that Newsvine has been the impetus for this change.

Actually, romantic relationships have really fueled my need to communicate clearly--after so many years of pushing on brick walls, I'm finally finding people and places that are receptive in the right ways. And a proactive boyfriend never hurt nobody, neither. Incidentally, I recently discovered I'm neurotic. Who knew? :P

I recently discovered I'm neurotic. Who knew? :P

Good for you, balance is highly over rated and far less creative. :~)

Marxist Monkey, she's a joy to very many of us!!

Awwe, stop it, you guys! Thank you so much for the gracious compliments. I didn't know what to say before, but don't think I missed them. Barry, it means a lot to me to hear you say those things. I do feel active and engaged here, and more balanced for the people I've met and discussions I've had on Newsvine. Now only if I can make a career out of this... :)

Agreed. Totally.

By the way, if you figure out how to explain the mirror stage to that 100 class, could you let me know how you do it?

Thanks.

I guess part of my is afraid that if we construe ourselves to be obligated to 'break information down' then we imply a certain condescension. It suggests a sort of hierarchy, right?

I don't agree, nor do I feel the tiers you suggest connote any more than a familiarity, a fluency maybe, which allows the thinking individual to break information down (and I wouldn't say information; I'd say ideas) more efficiently. And that's just a question of access and privilege. Of course we're "obligated to 'break down information'"--that's what reading is.

I feel you very deeply on the Gramsci point, but I also sense I'm missing something, Justin. Why build hierarchies of intellect? Are they your contention, or someone else's--society's? The Academy's? What do they mean? Where do you stand on them? I don't see a distinction between "translation" and "breaking things down." Help me out here.

The authors are on top, we're in the second tier, students are third, public's last. Newsvine seems to be somewhere in there around the students, right?

That would depend who you ask and what toes you've stepped on in posing the question. No they're not my toes and unlikely they ever will be.

The answer rests very heavily on whether you consider breaking down as spoon feeding or deconstructing to elements that can be used to build on or some other in between. It also presumes that there are none above you and that's dangerous here. To me it also assumes that the author is a fully functioning, flawless entity from which all else draws some more perfect knowledge.

In some ways what you will find here is what you are looking for. If you think of knowledge as a concrete collection of items there's a difference between..

a) dumping all the parts of an engine in front of someone and saying make it work.

b) identifying the parts and steps in terms that are unfamiliar and saying put the throttle in the the carburetor

c) saying the function of the carburetor is a device to blend the fuel and air can you find a throttle valve which is a device that that might help to regulate that airflow?

d) watch me put this together the valve goes here and the filter goes there but never explaining why they are related or what the function is. The act can be repeated but little understanding goes with it.

I'm not sure if that is the best example but the point is breaking down to hellp learn doesn't need to remove the elements of thought and effort and doesn't need to obscure with jargon and acquired insider knowledge

Barry, I've got two words for you on the subject of explaining the mirror stage to a 100 class:

Sock Puppets

bamboozling

Yeah. That's the catch, right? If I'm too lazy or not smart enough to cut through the rawhide, how do I know if there's meat there or not? Either way, I'm not getting the point. Either you want to communicate your meaning, or you don't know how, or you don't.

To steal one of his favorite points to hit it home with, the true genius is not in saying something so that anyone can grasp the essence just as Einstein took his theory of Relativity and distilled it to E=MC2...

...do you mean the genius is in saying something so that anyone can grasp the essence? 'Cause otherwise I don't think we agree and I'm really confused about the rest of your post.

Yes, thank you, I went for the great line and screwed it up. Confusing folks is easy, making anyone understand the complex is genius. Bonus points for you translating me into sanity sweetie!

See I don't need the degree to come across as too complex to be fully understood -- that is just me.

Yeah, but both the degree and the complexity are used to convey authority. Let's face it--people are more interested in trusting a Doctor than a Really Smart Guy.

I take it for granted that you equally meant to underline and emphasize the shared part, the common part.

Right. That "common" part. I'm not referring to content here, Barry, but accessibility of style and language. I'm interested in distilling my ideas, not dumbing them down. Of course this takes time and, on the reader's part, patience. But I still want my style to reach the broadest possible audience--without sacrificing content. That's what feels "real" to me.

The trick is to find a way to perform smart that you are good at and that feels as real to you as possible--so that you can keep doing it throughout your career.

Yeah, that's about it, right? I guess you've also got people out there--even veterans--who never found their niche...or, at any rate, people who found their niche audience, but maybe sacrifice the possibility of bigger, better, more, challenging discussion to accommodate like minds. Or, I guess, game-players.

At any rate, this game that we struggle to succeed at, often makes it very difficult for...me to communicate with those who do not play the game.

This is good to know. Thanks for sharing. :)

Thinking's important, sure, but there's more to it than that, right? There's that common bit, that communication bit, that sharing. That's what's hard, isn't it?

Heh, fair enough.

(Just an aside, B...you can nest comments by hitting the "reply" button located at the bottom of any comment thread. There should be one at the end of this one, if you haven't noticed 'em. I find it's easier to follow the discussion if the comments are all grouped.)

Then there is the part after the writing, Barry, and what I have come to get caught up in and see as a very dangerous part of this thinking smart and performing smart issue.

Thinking without question is the hard part of writing. It is the hours spent staring at a wall; the hours spent cleaning the house when it is already clean; the times I wake up in the middle of the night or bolt upright as I am drifting off to sleep to jot something down. It is the clarity, the fluidity, and the coming together of the ideas and the words that we strive for.

But then here is what happens: I spend days upon hours upon weeks revising something - both discovering new things in the putting of ideas down on paper and playing with the language so that the ideas come across as smart, sexy, and a bit punchy. The work is done and it is satisfying -- but only for a moment.

Take for instance the paper that I impromptu presented at the conference. When I wrote it a year and a half ago, I really liked it. It was fun, it played with the ideas well, and it pushed some boundaries. But reading it over before I gave it, the paper felt light-weight. It felt theory and analysis weak. Now I am not sure if this is because totally blows and is weak or if it is because a year and a half has passed or what.

The translation of ideas into words is hard - no question. But then there is the pressure we feel, the pressure that, Barry, you to aptly identified, which comes from the institution asking us to perform smart. So then there is the bind of "well once upon a time I thought that sounded smart, but now I don't. Is it that the ideas aren't smart? Is it that the writing is not smart?" So often in the subsequent work these issues become a part of what one has to filter through in the writing process and the translation of ideas.

Sometimes it is not a question of performing smart for others, but the manner in which performing smart for ourselves seems to shift.

quickly, i think that in the case you just described--what happened was you got smarter. That's all. It happens all the time. And that is a good thing. Almost everything I've ever written looks weak to me now. I think that is because that stuff that I wrote about in the past is stuff that I used that writing to figure out. I couldn't figure out more than I did at that time--only what I could see and feel and think my way through. Now, of course, I am building on that position--that knowledge, that thinking, that writing that I did to complete that project (paper, article, book, whatever)--and so I am looking for something different, something other, something in the cracks of what I already figured out. So my old stuff looks weak or lacking or simply limited by what I knew and could think in the past. Doesn't mean that it wasn't smart or that others can't learn from it. Only that I have moved on. Just as you have moved on from the work that you did a year and a half ago. And that's a good thing. (didn't I say that already?) Remember that performing smart is a performance. And the great thing about performing is that it is ALWAYS a re-performance and can be re-performed.

The writing is the materialization of the ideas....I used that writing to figure out. I couldn't figure out more than I did at that time--only what I could see and feel and think my way through. Now, of course, I am building on that position--that knowledge, that thinking, that writing

I agree completely. Maybe my counter academic, no BS financier view challenges all the conventions in a way that will throw a wrench into this, that's totally impractical for the setting you're in. No extra charge for inapplicable or run on sentences.

To me the first step in getting smarter is accepting that you don't know so much. At it's best that what can happen here at Newsvine and the building that Marxist describes becomes collaborative. It is why we do get smarter here, interacting with the right people. That doesn't always mean the smartest because what triggers your own insight isn't always to have it laid out.

But if you wander with the thinking and get a bit of luck, there's an alchemy of the dynamic thought that keeps you from staring at the wall because the thoughts have too much energy and there's a spontaneity that lets you surprise yourself sometimes. The cracks get filled or there's a light that shows a totally different angle.

To me the idea of seeming smart is a somewhat counterproductive constraint in relation to thinking because it begins by trying to provide answers in a fashion that gives too much weight to the package. So much more can come from thinking about what you don't know and asking the right questions. To be fearless about appearing less than smart or asking what might seem like the dumb question or the following dull path, can sometimes redefine a whole premise of what is the smartest view and reveal accepted standard as just another case of group think. You can imagine what a joy it is to have me in a strategy session. *smirk*

First, what is the coin of the realm here in the Vine?

This is a really key question that I don't think anyone has ever asked. I am going to give it some thought and see what I can come up with - I'll write an article about it. Once we've figured that out we can talk about question #2.

This thread was great, by the way.

Before we talk about Newsvine's coin of the realm, I think we should entertain the possibility that there are more than one. There are threads, authors, and topics I avoid, and it's very rare that regulars in that sphere (those spheres) of the 'Vine cross my path.

I wrote a response, here.