A. C. Grayling hits the target when he describes the postmodernist literary theory of this period as ‘a sort of ersatz, easy, do-it-yourself philosophy’ in which ‘various playful because inconsequential forms of jargon-rich lubrication take the place of substantive commentary’. Or, as philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum puts it in her analysis of Judith Butler’s turgid prose, ‘obscurity creates an aura of importance’.
