"Words of Emptiness and Exclusion, of Elitism and Trend"

Asked to give a talk on the Middle East last week, I read on my invitation: "We want to bring visionaries, innovators, doers, funders, connectors, and their community into one space...With all of these people gathered into one space, it's inevitable that sparks will happen, ideas will find momentum, and positive change will take [sic] birth."
   Now I have not the slightest intention of participating in this particular "space". I won't have anything to do with an invitation written in so clichéd a language, including all the trappings of pseudo-academese psychobabble and happy-clappy optimism. These are words of emptiness and exclusion, of elitism and trend, of a conference held for the sake of holding a conference. Of nothing.

Robert Fisk - The never-ending war against cliché and jargon