This time after reading subsequent postings on the War Machine (Smile) issue, I would qualify my rash fear-of-theory diagnosis and let it apply to general situations loosely related to this particular communicative situation of Postmodern Culture-Talk.
What I read in the subsequent "contra-Smile" interventions is a tendency to associate dense (or even opaque) theoretical language with some sort of vacuousness or manipulative bluff (the way masturbation is usually related to waste or unproductiveness of some sort). But the first element is not a sufficient condition for the second. "Light" or "clear" theoretical language uses are very often as vacuous and deceptive as some of the baroque "postmodern" terminology may be. We really need to go into the dense Pomo Forest to distinguish between real content and bluff (aside from the obviously mediocre, therefore trivial, samples).
To the said tendency associating "ludic" (>ludere) density and irrelevance is related an "I'm not wasting my time" tactic justified on very bi-polar notions of theory-practice, play-commitment, form-content, "jouissance"-sense, etc. Or I am wrong?
Corrigenda: Am I wrong?
Juan Duchesne
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 01:58 AST