Needless complexity subverts understanding. It prohibits potential connections between people. It stops progress dead in its tracks. Because any observant, critical person will notice needless complexity in many facets of their life, simplification becomes an excellent strategy for positive change.
However, there are too many cases where simplicity prevents deeper understanding to apply it across the board as an agent of positive change. See “Kerry voted no on partial-birth abortion ban,” for a political example, and “Brevity Bad Too,” for a technical one. Another outstanding example for me is art criticism.
The folks at 37 signals have a keen eye for simple, elegant, and useful interfaces. Web interfaces are absolutely enhanced by this aesthetic. Unfortunately, this critical abstraction begins to leak when criticizing art statements (and here they are, complaining about too-much-meta).
Matt begins respectably enough, by elucidating the pitfalls of a system by which a photographer is forced to make a statement on his work, before submitting it to a gallery. Shortly thereafter, he condemns most statements as having a “grad-student-thesis-feel,” using “impressive-sounding words,” and, horrors, being full of “pretentious ideas.” He goes on to quote several statements, delivering his own truthy reaction to each one. I’d be mischaracterizing a wonderful person to label him a truthineer, but the abundance of ad-hominem (see, “fancypants”) and rhetoric in his argument, make me want to run away.
I think Matt is trying to pigeon-hole the function of criticism, and writing in general. He says, “If you’re not making things clearer, stop typing.”
Matt, writing is an art too. We all know that art can be ridiculously complex, sometimes out of serendipity, and sometimes with precise planning. This is the kind of art that remains intriguing across generations. So please allow art critics, be they self-criticising, or not, to employ the full toolset of the English language. An artist shouldn’t be expected to censor their more primal works because of some “fancypants” critic, nor should they censor their more reflexive works because of the all-too-pervasive word “pretentious.” In his defense, Matt quotes a couple of pretty vacuous art statements.
What you must ask yourself when you read an “empty statement” is “how did the critic come to that conclusion?” Suppress the nausea, and don’t rely on the phrase “over-intellectualization” to bail you out. If you can find concrete elements of the work, or concrete choices made by the artist, that lend themselves to the critic’s conclusion, then both you and the critic have done something right. If you can’t, perhaps the critic was a little too heavy on the conclusion, and light on the premise. In this case, I would recommend talking about the conclusion with some other smart people, long before telling the critic to “shut up.”
Case Study, a quote, and my stream of consciousness reaction: Pitchfork’s review of The Coma’s Conductor:
““I don’t posit that the increasing permeability of the membrane between indie and mainstream is an insidious development; instead, it should be acknowledged in the interest of foiling nonsensical Puritanism.””
This critic compares the music industry to a biological system, where two components, indie and mainstream, are separated by an increasingly permissive wall. Indie and mainstream are converging. The two components are part of a system. That system is a dynamic, organic living thing. The critic doesn’t view this system’s direction as being fundamentally evil. In fact, he wants to publicly acknowledge this change because it will help to “foil nonsensical Purtiansim”. I’m not sure how he’s comparing a change in the music industry’s dynamics to Puritanism, though I can tell he means Puritanism is something he’d like to avoid. He thinks it’s illogical and he’d like to destroy it. So I’m left with the following question, “how does a knowledge of the changes in the music industry prevent illogical Puritanism?”
See? I wrote a whole paragraph on that statement without resorting to rhetoric or nausea. I ended with an honest question. It’s possible that it shows a level of ignorance, but I’m confident with my level. The answer to my question will make me less ignorant, and I will continue to grow as an understanding human. The only sure way to prevent growth is to shut this statement out, label it “over-intellectualization,” and preserve your own ignorance.
Drip. Drip. Even the best abstract strategies leak sometimes.