The language of academia can be so fucking pretentious and elitist. You can’t write a critical paper about people that won’t even understand what you’re trying to say. Plus, the need to make something that supposed to educate and facilitate the exchange of ideas, so complex and complicated to understand is ridiculous. If someone, as a scholar cannot break down complex ideologies and theories into a form that the average person can understand then what the fuck are you doing, honestly? Academia is not about a continuous circle-jerk with your PhD buddies. It’s about exchanging ideas and reaching people, from all walks of life and background. The world is bigger than people with JSTOR memberships.
It’s like that famous quote that if you can’t simplify and explain something to a 5 year old, you probably don’t understand it as well as you think you do.
My feminist literature professor was literally rejected by a journal once because her writing was “too accessible”. They actually said that. They really, genuinely said that her writing couldn’t be in their publication because too many people would understand it.
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