Everyone finds justification for his or her views in logic and analysis, but a personal philosophy often emerges from some archaic part of the mind, an early idea of how the world should be.
Surrendering to jargon is a sign of journalism's dismal lack of self-confidence in the optimized age of content-management systems.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the tendency of journalists to rely on jargon, suggesting it reflects insecurity in a digitized media landscape.
George Packer's quote highlights a concern within journalism regarding the excessive use of jargon, implying that such language signifies a deeper issue of self-doubt among journalists, particularly in an age dominated by technology and content-management systems. By surrendering to complex terminology, journalists may distance themselves from clarity and accessibility, ultimately undermining their own role in imparting knowledge and informing the public.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on effective communication, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of clear language.
More from George Packer
All quotes βIdeology knows the answer before the question has been asked. Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.
At the heart of the matter is a battle between wish and fear. Fear generally proves stronger than a wish, but it leaves a taste of disappointment on the tongue.
As America has grown less economically equal, a citizen's ability to move upward has fallen behind that of citizens in other Western democracies. We are no longer the country where anyone can become anything.
The invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the rise of the assembly line and, later, the service economy.
Abstract sympathy with the working class as an economic entity is easy, but the feeling can vanish on contact with actual members of the group, who often arrive with disturbing beliefs and powerful resentments - who might not sound or look like people urban progressives want to know.
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According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already.
What is this word that broke through the fence of your teeth, Atreides?
Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.
...while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.
What is the essence of theosophy? It is the fact that man, being himself divine, can know the divinity whose life he shares. As an inevitable corollary to this supreme truth comes the fact of the brotherhood of man.
It is true that the grasping of truth is not possible without empirical basis. However, the deeper we penetrate and the more extensive and embracing our theories become the less empirical knowledge is needed to determine those theories.