[missing-acumen]

I often think that people saying others make things purposefully obscure to gain/retain legitimacy fail to recognize that any long standing field, be it in science or humanities, is inherently complex, due to its long evolved jargon and set of norms.

Still, I am aware of cases where complexity has been used as a mean of power. Some languages have for instance baked in orthographic nuances and difficult grammar rules doing just that.

It would be interesting to measure the extent to which we can cut some of the complexity we find in such examples. I suspect not much, both for reasons of culture and power.