Pretentious Academic Writing at NYU

A Charles Lipson, professor of my acquaintance, kindly shared this with me:

[David Benson]A student who knows my love of clear prose and my hatred of pretentious academic writing just sent me this. I thought you would enjoy it.

After re-reading Orwell, I came across this quote about an upcoming course at NYU

“OWS as a topic of study offers prismatic opportunities to consider the changing shape of inequality in our society and the dynamic processes of repertoire change in social movements globally, from the picket line to the sit-in, to the consideration of life course trajectories, among other themes central to the sociological apprehension of the modern context,”

Heck, how else to earn that big money and perqs?

Professor Lipson adds:

Fabulous.
In the old days, our parents used to say, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything.”
Today, lots of professors think, “If you can’t say something intelligent, at least say it with enough obscurity that people will think it is.”