By Jon Brueggeman
Introduction
In
The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, an unfamiliar
reader would have trouble finding a comprehensible sentence—sort of like
finding hay in a proverbial needle-stack. No chapter exemplifies this needless
complexity quite like Chapter 12: Race and Postcoloniality. For a subject so
crucial to both literary analysis and culture within our society, it is
discouraging to see the official style overshadow the important themes within
the chapter. Rather than expand the audience of the subject or provide a clear
lens to view literary works, the chapter distorts its message through
convoluted language. The chapter hits the ground running with unnecessary
wordiness in its opening sentences:
Like
all other fields of study and/or modes of critique in contemporary humanities,
‘postcoloniality’ and ‘race’ defy easy definition or summation. Whether
conceived of singly or in tandem, each term holds together, in sometimes uneasy
if not confidential co-existence, a diverse range of critics working from a
vast array of theoretical, ideological, aesthetic, historical, and regional
perspectives. What I present here is a particular partisan argument in the full
knowledge that someone working in the same field(s) would, in all likelihood,
present the argument differently, if not present a different argument altogether.
(Amoko 131)
What this entire
opening paragraph says is essentially: “Race and postcoloniality are heavily
debated topics. This is my opinion; it is not necessarily fact.” But the use of
the official style purposely clouds the intention of the opening paragraph—making
it difficult for the audience to understand what the argument is or why it is
being made. Further, in that entire paragraph, we do not know what the argument
being made is. The author never states it. By using the official style, the
author conceals his argument to the benefit of no-one, except those who deem
the paper itself credible because of the style alone.
Don’t
take my word for it, though. The author knows this as well. In fact, the final
line of the opening paragraph deftly summarizes the excerpt above: “In short, I
want to convey the sense that postcoloniality and race are sites of
contestation and debate rather than clearly defined and readily summarized
fields” (Amoko 131). Amoko summarized the entirety of his opening paragraph in
one sentence, a sentence that is much more cohesive and direct than the opening
paragraph before it. So, why does he still include the opening paragraph if
only to summarize it better later on? This is the official style at its
absolute worst. Fancy words and subordinate clauses that add (essentially)
nothing to the grand scheme of the argument but are included nonetheless
because they add superficial credibility to the argument. Complexity does not
equate to depth.
Race and Official
Style
We don’t have to
look far for another detrimental use of the official style. This chapter has a
tendency to introduce a compelling idea and then over-complicate it or in
reverse order. Take the upcoming excerpt, for example. This passage intends to
establish that: race is a socially constructed, dated concept that is
ironically still involved in every moment of everyday life. Seems like a fairly
simple concept. Let’s see how Amoko describes this idea:
Race turns out to
be a false idea that has had, and continues to exert, powerful global
consequences even after its fundamental falseness has been recognized.
Okay, this is
wordy, but I’m with you so far.
There can be no
question that race
(that is, the belief that human beings can be divided into a limited number
of morphological categories) and racism (that is, the discrimination on
the basis of race) remain two of the principal forces organizing the modern
world.
The added
parenthesis here make this passage a maze to work through, and they add
absolutely nothing to the overarching sentence. They simply define race and
racism—things that were already defined earlier on and are most likely common
knowledge to the audience members. Try reading that sentence without the added
definitions. It still repeats information seen before it, but it does not
sacrifice readability in its redundance.
(Race is a
necessary condition for, but at least in theory not an inevitable cause of,
racism.)
To me, this
statement is contradictory. Race doesn’t cause racism? But…you just said that
race is a necessary condition for racism? How can race be necessary condition
but not a cause? It would seem to me that the act of placing people into races
causes racist ideologies. This idea leaves me with questions that are
compelling, but the author does not address this statement again. I do not
understand the inclusion of the statement besides adding to the word count—it
is a sentence that is guilty of muddying the waters and not much else. Perhaps
I am just not understanding the sentence…maybe that suggestion speaks for
itself.
In much the same
way that everyone is thought to ‘have’ a gender, sexuality, and nationality,
everyone is thought to ‘have’ a race.
Makes sense to me.
Although, the comparison between nationality and sexuality/gender is unfounded
because nationality is a defined characteristic (where someone was born)
whereas sexuality and gender are fluid characteristics. Nonetheless, this is a
succinct claim that everyone reading can understand and agree with. Notably, it
is also the sentence with the least amount of official style strategies used.
For a long time,
this way of thinking about race was validated by mainstream intellectual
opinion; to deploy the sexist vocabulary of a bygone era, the ‘races of man’
were for more than two centuries thought to constitute a legitimate science.
But the consensus of intellectual opinion today, both in the humanities and the
sciences, seems to be that race is an irredeemably dubious concept: its
boundaries are notoriously unreliable and its identity categories (‘white’,
‘black’, ‘brown’, etc.) are internally incoherent.
In a terribly
roundabout way, Amoko is saying: we think of race as socially constructed today,
but, in the past, we thought of race as biological. There is quite a bit of
jargon and wordiness sprinkled in the quote to dilute its central message. The
added words and distorted clarity have the benefit of seeming more credible but
have the adverse effect of making the passage nearly unreadable. This is how
the passage concludes:
Race is socially
constructed… [despite this] everyone is still thought to have a race.
If you’ll recall,
this section began with the idea that Amoko’s passage is trying to say: race is
a socially constructed, dated concept that is ironically still involved in
every moment of everyday life. It took all of those quotations and complex
descriptions before we finally arrived at the idea he is trying to address. As
I mentioned, this is the official style ruining an otherwise compelling
subject. Instead of focusing on the content of the essay, the reader is so
focused on trying to decipher what the author is trying to say that the
concrete message is lost in the weeds. In my opinion, there is nothing, in
terms of content, within this passage that justifies its use of official style.
This passage could be rephrased in plain style, and it would be better for it.
Nothing besides semantics would be lost in the translation. The needless complexities
would be removed and the significant, central message could rise out of the
revision like a phoenix from the ashes.
Conclusion
In
text examples aside, let’s get to the root of the problem with official style
in this piece. The problem is: the use of official style discourages potential
audience members and clouds the message the author attempts to convey. It is no
question that every person deals with race on a day-to-day basis. The concept
may not be apparent to some people (or more apparent for others), but everybody
deals with race and its repercussions in all situations. This is the reason
that the official style’s use in this essay pains me. I can imagine the diverse
and infinite audience that this piece could relate to, but, sadly, those people
will never get the chance to read this or interpret its true meaning because of
the language that it uses. The ideas of race and postcoloniality transcend
critical theory. This is a topic that could apply to everyone, but most people
do not have the academic proficiency to decipher the message within. It’s sad
because the message is universal in its content but completely exclusive in its
execution.
It’s
important to note that I don’t believe Amoko’s intention was to maliciously
exclude audience members. I assume that most uses of the official style come
from a place of familiarity with the material and wanting to establish
credibility. He attempts to analyze the complexities of race and post
coloniality to the degree that he is familiar with the subject. It would
be more effective to increase the audience appeal of the content because of the
importance of the information. By using numerous prepositional phrases, intense
jargon and drawn-out sentence openings, Amoko limits his audience to a select few
members of his field when the piece is much better suited to introduce critical
theory students to the realm of race and postcoloniality as well as its
significance to the realm of literature.
I’m sure he could find a way to say basically
the same claims as stated in his essay in the plain style, but, realistically,
it would be harder for his ideas to be published. This is the downfall of
official style. When the style your ideas are conveyed in becomes the focal
point rather than your ideas themselves, your argument folds in on itself. Not
for a lack of merit, though. Official style pieces have merits of their own and
significant uses of the style that enhance their message. It is important to
not lose track of your central idea for the sake of being deemed “credible”.
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