I was re-reading "Discipline & Punish" the other day and enjoyed it a lot less than I did when I was a graduate student. I ended up doing some google searches around the keywords "bad writing in the academy" and I found an interesting nugget from the UC Berkeley philospher, John Searle.
In an anecdote, he says that he once asked Foucault why he wrote badly and the French philoposher replied:
"If I wrote as clearly as you do, people in Paris wouldn't take me seriously."
Also, Martha Nussbaum has criticized Judith Butler for being overly obtuse and noticed that that this type of opaqueness can help a cult of personality appear around a scholar.
What do you think, community? Can being an opaque writer help one's academic career? Have you seen vague, overly complex writing help your colleagues ascend through the ranks of the academy?