Critique of Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities

I just sat down to read my first reading in Brazil, assigned in my Brazilian Anthropology class. "Comunidades Imaginadas" by Benedict Anderson. Oh no - I know I've read this before. Wait, wait, yes. It's true. I've not only read this, but I wrote a critique about it for the Middlebury Campus. This is what I wrote. It's worth digging it out from the archives to review before trying to get through the reading again -- but wait, here's the kicker -- in PORTUGUESE.

"We’ve all had those discussions. You take your seat. The professor greets the class and then poses a question. Something like, “first thoughts on the reading?” Suddenly, one girl is taking notes – on what? I have no idea. A guy is tying his shoe, and everyone else is averting his or her attention in some other way.

Yes, it is possible that many did not “do the reading.” More often than not, however, students just can’t get through it. They print it out, sit down with a highlighter in hand, but do not finish the reading and do not come away with a central argument.

I’m not writing to rip on Middlebury students. Quite the opposite, actually. I intend to critique academic writing. Risky considering my audience, I know, but hear me out.

Many readings that Middlebury students are assigned are written by erudite authors and are filled with verbose and “academic” jargon. Because of the way these academic readings are written, they often leave even the most well-read and intelligent Middlebury student feeling alienated.

I’m sure you could all produce your own examples, but let’s take a recent reading from my Introduction to International Studies class. Along with 99 other students, I had to read excerpts from a highly-regarded political science book, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities. As the reading was printing, I randomly picked up a page: “Chapter 3: The Origins of National Consciousness."

The chapter’s first sentence: “If the development of print-as-commodity is the key to the generation of wholly new ideas of simultaneity, still, we are simply at the point where communities of the type ‘horizontal-secular, transverse-time’ become possible.”

Uh, ok, maybe that was way over my head because I didn’t have context for it. So I sat down to read it from the beginning. When I reached the third chapter, I found that I was still groping to define terms like “horizontal-secular,” and “print-as-commodity.” Not only that, but to reach Chapter 3, I had to wade through sentence after sentence of undefined terms and pretentious language.

Not to mention that Anderson quotes sites in multiple other languages and does not bother to translate them to English. It is as if he is in our ear saying, “Oh, you don’t speak Spanish, French, Mandarin, and Italian? Why don’t you go learn those first, and then maybe you’ll be smart enough to read my book.”

But where does the fault lie? I refuse to believe that to be an intelligent person, I have to be able to read five languages. And I refuse to put all the blame on my professors because they are simply exposing us to the world of academic writing. I believe the blame lies in the self-perpetuating community of academia.

I suspect that, to be respected in the world of academia, these writers are judged by a standard of academic writing that is touchable only by a select few who can understand it. Besides being superficially respected by colleagues -- because you know how to use big words -- what’s the good in writing if no one else can understand your argument?

I bet, unless you’re a political science buff, you’ve never heard of Benedict Anderson. But I bet you’ve heard of Al Gore, who simply and effectively communicated with millions about our climate crisis. And then there’s our friend Thomas Friedman who taught the average person about globalization.

Some would argue that Gore and Friedman have to simplify their arguments to reach the common folk, but I refuse to accept that this is true. Perhaps with the exception of some math/science cases where a solid foundation is needed to understand experiments and equations, you can always make your argument in everyday words.

Now here comes the critique of Middlebury within this debate. How can Middlebury preach clear concise writing if what we’re reading is anything but that? After a professor assigns reading after reading filled with verbose, obtuse sentences, I cringe when I get back a paper and see a big red mark, “run-on,” or “define your terms.” Anderson never defined his terms, so why should I define mine? (sarcastic undertone)

Where can we find clear, concise and smart readings? I like to think that journalism, by its very nature, serves this purpose. Journalists take complex ideas and communicate them to large groups of people in simple language. If there were more journals and books written in journalistic writing, the level of discourse would rise tremendously in our country.

It is important to get a taste of pretentious academia sometimes, but professors, if you assigned us articles from The New York Times and Newsweek, students would have something to say in discussions. You’d also receive more insightful papers with clearer writing. As for you Mr. Anderson, if you wrote in concise language and translated the quotes you use to English, you’d be better off, too. You wouldn’t be read just by political scientists and bored college students, but by a much broader audience. Don’t you see? It’s win-win."