I don’t have a lot of pet peeves. At least I don’t think I
do. But please humor me by letting me vent about one of them.
It’s what people do to make others think that they are
smart. In doing this, they either fall for the old “form over substance” error
(or hope that others will). Or they apparently think that regardless of the
merits of what they say, these tactics make up for any lack of truth or
reliability.
Here are a few of them:
Being passionate – the emotion or “hot air” takes attention
from the actual content that is being communicated. It says, “I’m smart – see how
emotional I can get about this?”
Seeming cool & professorial (whatever that is) gives the
impression of studied, dispassionate impartiality.
Pushing the limits on polite speech (aka cussing, etc.) in
order to sound sophisticated, clever, or cutting edge.
Using all kinds of supposedly authoritative
information. Mounds of
words & paragraphs prove nothing, especially if it’s too much for anyone
who actually has a life has time to sift thru.
I’ve done my share of academic research & writing.
Enough to know that a few letters behind someone’s name isn’t a guarantee that
they are a reliable source of information.
Real experience in the real world, speaking with clarity
& conciseness – that’s where smart comes from & where it is expressed.
The job of a teacher (in broad terms, a teacher is anyone who wants to
communicate & bring information to others) is not to cloud things or
complicate the subject. It is to “make the complicated simple.”
No comments:
Post a Comment