Veel filosofen (Foucault, Lacan en Co), maar ook pedagogische nieuwlichters (Dewey en Co) ... munten uit in duistere taal (jargon). Ook met opzet wordt dan een ondoordringbaar jargon (bv. nieuwe tovertermen als gouvernementalité bij Foucault), een 'professional cult, en obscurantisme gecreëerd.
"If you want to conceal your own lack of understanding then it probably helps to obscure and obfuscate your meaning behind a veil of critical theory and postmodernism, or, to ...put it another way, pseudo-profound bullshit.
In The Dark Side of Loon: Explaining the Temptations of Obscurantism, Buekens and Boudry suggest the motivation for obscurantism is to set up a game of verbal smoke and mirrors to suggest depth and insight where none exists.
In een reactie stelt Anthony Radice terecht over de publicaties van John Dewey:
"I would add that the founders of progressive theory, particularly Dewey, were renowned for obscuring their ideas with verbose jargon. One key effect of this was to create a kind of professional cult from which the uninitiated layman was excluded. Undoubtedly, the rise of progressive ideas was accompanied by a transfer of power from laypeople to professional experts who spoke to each other in impenetrable language. All of their obtuse monosyllables and specialist terms would contain ideas that would be rejected outright if they were expressed plainly, such as we think many children are too stupid to learn to read."
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