Erik, If I understand correctly, you agree with my concern about the elitism of academic discourse. But I don't think throwing a nerf ball at my colleagues would help anything other than my own frustration at our inability to communicate effectively. I think almost all academics have difficulty explaining their ideas in a "down to earth" manner. I suspect that's why Jerome Bruner says that if we really know what we're teaching, we could teach it to fourth graders, because we would be able to explain it without jargon. And with enough effort we might be able to concretize some of our abstract ideas at least at a level that would permit the fourth graders to begin to grasp the issue. Perhaps that means that there is simply another academic role to which we have not yet attended adequately: that of helping to translate our thoughts into "down to earth" language. Habermas expresses a similar concern when he speaks of the "administered society," and bemoans our loss of the skills of public discourse. We no longer live in an age in which Mme. de Sevigne would be likely to write such beautiful letters to her daughter, as she could in seventeenth century Paris. At 03:55 PM 5/4/2002 -0400, EDavisMail@aol.com wrote: Uh huh. That's what I've been saying. I think that theory is too easy when it never has to confront the paramount reality (William James, Alfred Schutz). I only wish that Bourdieu could have, at times, himself been more down to earth. PASCALIAN MEDITATIONS is ironic in that way. Sometimes you just have to chuck a nerf ball at your colleague in order to get the point accross--or certainly, at least, take them outside the classroom or office. Why did you flinch? Well, the body can at times be wiser than the mind. That academicians ever consider part-time study as a disadvantage in the social sciences is more of a confession on their part than a fact. Cordially, Erik R. Davis In our discussions with advanced undergraduates and graduates in an urban commuter college, most of us have grown up and lived our lives excluded from such discussions. (That was one of Bourdieu's complaints about academic discourse, wasn't it?)