"Complicate" = "elucidate the complexity of"

Wed Mar 23 17:55:13 UTC 2011

The book I remember (I couldn't read the whole thing) is filled with
distracting postmodernist puns and weighty (par)en(theses).

That would be enough to alienate this reader, whatever its other qualities.

If I'm in error, I apologize to Prof. Lepore.

JL
On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Complicate" = "elucidate the complexity of"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3/23/2011 01:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >Isn't Lepore the author of that postmodern look at Puritan savagery?
> >
> >If so....
>
> If so, what conclusions does one draw about _The Whites of their Eyes_?
>
> If you mean _The Name of War: King Philip's War
> and the Origins of American Identity_ (Bancroft
> Prize winner), I don't see why you're calling it
> "postmodern".  Not in language -- I could
> understand it, it is thoroughly historical, and
> it doesn't use "problematize".  And it comes down
> hard on Indian savagery as well as Puritan,
> although perhaps our reaction that it is hard on
> the Puritans is due to our (over-simplified)
> belief that they were (all) saintly.
>
> Joel
>
>
> >JL
> >
> >On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject:      Re: "Complicate" = "elucidate the complexity of"
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > I didn't know there were conservatives and
> > > liberals among the modern historians of the 18th
> > > and 19th centuries.  (Yes I did, but that's
> > > another story.)  Or "light humorists."
> > >
> > > Victor, this "complicate" came from an invitation
> > > to a Newberry Library Eighteenth-Century Seminar,
> > > the abstract for which follows my signature.  I
> > > doubt that the presentation is aimed at "modern
> > > republicans" (even though it will "bear on" the French Revolution).
> > >
> > > But for a book that *is* aimed at -- well, she
> > > calls them "historical fundamentalists", see Jill
> > > Lepore's _The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea
> > > Party's Revolution and the Battle over American
> > > History_ (Princeton Univ. Press, 2010), esp. p. 16.
> > >
> > > Joel
> > >
> > > >Professor Goodman seeks to complicate the picture of
> nineteenth-century
> > > >reactionary aristocrats and modern republicans by bringing an
> > > >eighteenth-century perspective to bear on French revolutionary and
> > > >post-revolutionary culture and society. Her paper will trace the life
> and
> > > >career of a boy born less than a decade before the start of the French
> > > >Revolution and asks how he became a man—and what kind of a man he
> > > >became—through the successive upheavals of French history, from the
> > > >Revolution and the Terror through the restoration of the monarchy and
> the
>  > > >regimes that followed. She argues that he became a "new man" of the
> > > >nineteenth century only by drawing on family ties and patronage
> networks
> > > >deeply embedded in the ancien regime of the seventeenth and eighteenth
> > > >century.
> > >
> > >
> > > At 3/23/2011 01:08 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> > > >You, guys, must have missed the research notice from a couple of
> months
> > > >ago that claimed that conservatives tend to see things in much more
> > > >simple terms than liberals. To put it simply, they avoid
> complications.
> > > >So, my guess is, this was attempt at light humor at the expense of
> > > >"modern republicans" who tend to have a very simplistic,
> one-dimensional
> > > >view of the "Founding Fathers" (and of the French Revolution). As
> such,
> > > >the reading would have been literal--making things more complicated.
> > > >
> > > >     VS-)
> > > >
> > > >On 3/22/2011 10:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > >>Einstein was sooooooo twentieth century.
> > > >>
> > > >>Besides which, he was a scientist - not a cultural theorist.
> > > >>
> > > >>JL
> > > >>
> > > >>On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Laurence Horn<
> laurence.horn at yale.edu
> > > >wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>>At 10:03 PM -0400 3/22/11, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > > >>> > From an announcement of a forthcoming Newberry Library
> > > >>>>Eighteenth-Century Seminar presentation by PROFESSOR DENA GOODMAN:
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>Professor Goodman seeks to complicate the picture of
> > > >>>>nineteenth-century reactionary aristocrats and modern republicans
> by
> > > >>>>bringing an eighteenth-century perspective to bear on French
> > > >>>>revolutionary and post-revolutionary culture and society.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>I think I'll skip this -- historical life is complicated enough as
> it
> > > is.
> > > >>>>
> > > >>>>Joel
> > > >>>Isn't this what used to be called (in the good old days)
> > > >>>"problematizing" an issue rather than complicating it?  Maybe, since
> > > >>>"complicate" has another, somewhat less complicated, use, the term
> of
> > > >>>art should be "complexitize".  Or "compleximatize".
> > > >>>
> > > >>>Perhaps Professor Goodman follows the old adage, not quite due to
> > > >>>Einstein, dictating that everything should be as complex as it can
> > > >>>be, but not more so.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>LH
> > > >
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> truth."
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