1.14. Technical Jargon vs. Simple Communication: The Function of Both -- And Their 'Dialectical Integration'

When does extra verbiage -- either the substitution of a more abstract, technical term for a more common-sense , simple one, and/or the addition of extra words, particularly abstract, technical ones, when less words or less fancy words would make communication more clear (particularly to a lay audience) -- have a benefit that outweighs the detriment of muddled communication?

How about 'never'? Or how about only when the word you want to use has a historical link that is exceedingly important to convey to your audience -- regardless of whether your audience is a lay audience that may not have any past knowledge of this historical link; or, whether your audience is a professional and/or specialized audience that may be very familiar with this historical connection -- and needs to know what you are up to in terms of working with, and making modifications to this historical link?

Well, this is the situation I find myself in. I have been accused by some of my readers -- mainly my more lay readers -- of 'over-technalizing' my communication, and of impeding the process of communication in the process. There is much to be said for the writer who can take a complicated idea and communicate it more simply without losing the core essence of the idea. I am a philosopher -- or a student of philosophy -- who is specializing in the advancement of Hegelian -- or rather (modified) Post-Hegelian thought. However, to this point in time, I have spent more time reading writers who have interpreted, supported, and/or criticized Hegelian thought than I have actually spent tackling Hegel's rather mind-numbing original works. Now the question can be asked, 'Do I have the intellect to try to directly understand Hegel'? Or was Hegel fooling around with technical words that did as much to hide the clarity of his ideas as communicate them? And/or was Hegel's thinking convoluted in a way that led to convoluted communication? Was Hegel's thinking meant to be convoluted -- and is this a good or a bad thing? What do we mean by 'convoluted'? Hegel's thinking focused on the dyamic tension created by opposing ideas -- first apart and alienated from each other, then dynamically hammering at each other, interacting with each other, either forcefully, coercively, and/or democratically and diplomcatically until out of this collision of opposing ideas, philosophies, and/or lifestyles, either purposely and/or by accident, an integration process starts to develop resulting in either an inferior and/or superior dialetic whole. Call this process 'dialectical integration', 'dialectical wholism', 'diaelectical evolution' and/or 'dialectical evolutionary wholism'.

Are all of these technical terms 'functional', 'meaningful' and 'important'? I think they are. Does the term 'dialectical integration' mean anything significnatly different than just the simpler term 'integration'? Perhaps not. Probably not. But the inclusion of the term 'dialectic' in the compound term 'dialectical integration' links everything that we are talking about here to a whole host of monumental moments and ideas in Western philosophical history -- from Anaxamander to Heraclitus to Socrates to Plato to Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls to Derrida.... Whether you are a lay philosophy reader who is taking some interest in my work here or a Professor of Hegelian Philosophy at some university, you need to know about this connection, and you need to know that I know about it and think it is monumentally important. In this respect, the simpler term --' integration', as much as it may mean essentially the same thing as 'dialectic integration' -- simply doesn't cut it. There is much more at stake here that needs to be fleshed out.

This work is a mixture of academic and non-academic work. Perhaps more convolution. I am a student of Hegelian Dialectical Philosophy -- I do not yet profess to be an 'expert specialist' in Hegelian Dialectical Philosophy. This having been said, there of plenty of 'Hegelian experts' -- past and present -- who have had plenty of Hegelian disagreements on what Hegel wrote -- and more specifically, on what he meant by what he wrote.

For example, we had a divergence in Hegelian Philosophy between those who took Hegelian Philsoophy to the 'political left' (The Left Hegelians -- the most important proponent here being Marx), and those who took Hegelian Philosophy to the 'political right' which may have even started before Hegel with Fichte and evolved eventually -- in its most extreme element -- into German Fascism with Hitler obviously being the most (in) famous proponent of this style of philosophy and its poltiical derivatives.

Was this an example of convoluted Hegelian thinking, and if so, is this convolution good or bad? Does dialectical thinking partly entail convoluted thinking? Out of chaos -- particulary the chaos of warring factions sometimes at their most uncivilized worst in behavior -- comes dialectical order, evolution, and wholism when the warring factions finally start to dialectically integrate (synthesize).

Is Hegelian Philosophy really that far from Darwinian philosophy? I don't think so. Some critica; associations can easily be drawn. Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. (Hegel). A male, a female, fertilization -- synthesis, and a resulting child. (Darwin) How far apart is this -- in general philosophy?

To what extent is my work Hegelian vs. Post-Hegelian? I don't even know. There is an explosion -- an orgasm -- of evolving ideas emulating out of my head -- and I haven't done enough sophisticated Hegelian research to know what of my ideas are a replay of what has gone before me vs. what is a 'cutting edge in new Post-Hegelian Philosophy'. Perhaps some of the Hegelian experts can tell me that or I will be able to infomrm you better as I become a more sophisticated Hegelian researcher and referencer.

Until then, I will leave you from this essay I hope with the pertinent reason as to why I have to use the term 'dialectical integration' as opposed to the simpler term 'integration' (union, synthesis...). The two terms may mean essentially the same thing -- but there are many, many more philosohical ramifications to the term 'dialectical integration' both in terms of philosopohphically and historically where we have been, as well as from a 'dialectical, evolutionary, wholistic' point of view, where we are going to.

*DGBN, June 28th, 2006. dgbainsky@yahoo.com

*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism