From jwalsh@u.washington.edu Tue Jun 4 20:42:09 1996 Date: Tue, 4 Jun 96 20:35:54 -0700 From: Jason Walsh To: jwalsh@u.washington.edu Subject: getdoc.xp?recnum=<31A60C33.28C7@cceb.med.upenn.edu>&server=dnserver.dbapr&CONTEXT=833945212.24809&hitnum=304 [Previous] [Next] [Hitlist] [Get Thread] [Author Profile] [Post] [Reply] _________________________________________________________________ Article 305 of 914 Subject: _The Nation_ on Sokal's hoax From: Brian Siano Date: 1996/05/24 Message-Id: <31A60C33.28C7@cceb.med.upenn.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-Ascii Organization: University of Pennsylvania CCEB X-Url: http://www.thenation.com/issue/960610/0610poll.htm Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: sci.skeptic X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win16; I) > Pomolotov Cocktail > by Katha Pollitt > You've got to hand it to Alan Sokal, the New York University > physicist who tricked Social Text, the cultural studies > journal, into publishing in its special "Science Wars" issue > -- as a straight academic article -- his over-the-top parody > of postmodern science critique. "Transgressing the > Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum > Gravity" is a hilarious compilation of pomo gibberish, > studded with worshipful quotations from all the trendy > thinkers -- Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Irigaray, Social Text > board member Stanley Aronowitz (cited thirteen times) and > issue editor Andrew Ross (four times). Its thesis, barely > discernible through the smoke and fog of jargon, is that the > theory of quantum gravity has important affinities with > assorted New Age and postmodern ideas; it concludes with a > call for "emancipatory mathematics." The whole production > was rigged so that anyone who knew physics would realize how > preposterous it was. I tried it out on the Last Marxist and > had to leave the room, he was laughing so hard. To judge by > the gleeful e- mail that's been zipping around academia > since Sokal revealed his prank in the current issue of > Lingua Franca, the L.M. is far from alone. > > When one has been duped so incontrovertibly and so publicly > there's only one thing to say: Is my face red! Instead, Ross > has circulated an editorial response that stakes out some > very dubious turf, much of it seeded with land mines. "A > breach of professional ethics"? Talk about the transgressor > transgressed! A "hokey" article, "not really our cup of > tea"? And yet they published it. Social Text not a > peer-reviewed journal? Maybe it should be. > > Certainly Ross's claim (see "Science Backlash on > Technoskeptics," The Nation, October 2, 1995) that people > need no expertise in science to direct its social uses has > been done no favors by this rather spectacular display of > credulity. And surely it does not help matters to impugn > Sokal's motives, as Ross did when I spoke with him -- to > insist that this self-described leftist and feminist who > taught math in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas (more than I > ever did) is not on the level. Equally foolish is his > attempt to play the gender card -- calling the parody a "boy > stunt" and urging responses from "women's voices, since this > affair, at least as it has been presented in the press so > far, has been a boy debate." It's chicks up front all over > again. > > It's hard not to enjoy the way this incident has made > certain humanities profs look self-infatuated and silly -- > most recently, Stanley Fish, who defended Social Text on the > Times Op-Ed page by comparing scientific laws to the rules > of baseball. Sokal's demonstration of the high hot-air > quotient in cultural studies -- how it combines covert > slavishness to authority with the most outlandish radical > posturing -- is, if anything, long overdue. Unfortunately, > another effect of his prank will be to feed the > anti-intellectualism of the media and the public. Now people > who have been doing brilliant, useful work for years in the > social construction of science -- some of whom (Dorothy > Nelkin, Hilary Rose, Ruth Hubbard) are represented in that > same issue of Social Text -- will have to suffer, for a > while, the slings and arrows of journalists like the Times's > Janny Scott, who thinks "epistemological" is a funny word, > and who portrays the debate over science studies as being > between "conservatives" who "have argued that there is > truth, or at least an approach to truth, and that scholars > have a responsibility to pursue it" and academic leftists > who, since they believe nothing is real, can just make up > any old damn thing. No light can come from a discussion > whose premises are so fundamentally misconstrued (including > by Sokal, who in his Lingua Franca piece cites as ridiculous > postmodern "dogma" the argument that the world is real but > unknowable, a position put forward by Kant in 1781, and that > I have to say exactly accords with my everyday experience). > > And the biggest misconstruction, of course, is that "the > academic left," a k a postmodernists and deconstructionists, > is the left, even on campus. When I think of scholars who > are doing important and valuable intellectual work on the > left I think of Noam Chomsky and Adolph Reed, of historians > like Linda Gordon and Eric Foner and Rickie Solinger and > Natalie Zemon Davis; I think of scientists like Richard C. > Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould; feminists like Ann Snitow and > Susan Bordo. None of these people -- and the many others > like them -- dismiss reason, logic, evidence and other > Enlightenment watchwords. All write clearly, some extremely > well. All build carefully on previous scholarly work -- the > sociology and history of science, for example, goes back to > the 1930s -- to approach that "truth" that has somehow > become the right's possession. As if Charles Murray is a > disinterested scholar! > > How "the left" came to be identified as the pomo left would > make an interesting Ph.D. thesis. I suspect it has something > to do with the decline of actual left-wing movements outside > academia, with the development in the 1980s of an academic > celebrity system that meshes in funny, glitzy ways with the > worlds of art and entertainment, with careerism -- the need > for graduate students, in today's miserable job market, to > defer to their advisers' p enchant for bad puns and multiple > parentheses, as well as their stranger and less investigated > notions. What results is a pseudo-politics, in which > everything is claimed in the name of revolution and > democracy and equality and anti-authoritarianism, and > nothing is risked, nothing, except maybe a bit of harmless > cross-dressing, is even expected to happen outside the > classroom. > > How else explain how pomo leftists can talk constantly about > the need to democratize knowledge and write in a way that > excludes all but the initiated few? Indeed, the comedy of > the Sokal incident is that it suggests that even the > postmodernists don't really understand one another's writing > and make their way through the text by moving from one > familiar name or notion to the next like a frog jumping > across a murky pond by way of lily pads. > Lacan...performativity...Judith > Butler...scandal...(en)gendering (w)holeness...Lunch! > > Copyright (c) 1996, The Nation Company, L.P. All rights > reserved. Electronic redistribution for nonprofit purposes > is permitted, provided this notice is attached in its > entirety. Unauthorized, for-profit redistribution is > prohibited. For further information regarding reprinting and > syndication, please call The Nation at (212) 242-8400, ext. > 226 or send e-mail to Max Block. > > -------------------------------------- > [HOME] > This Week | Subscribe | About The Nation | Alert | Forums > Audio | Archives | Search | Hot List | Marketspace | Survey > > webmanager@TheNation.com [Previous] [Next] [Hitlist] [Get Thread] [Author Profile] [Post] [Reply] _________________________________________________________________ [ Home ] - [ Search ] - [ Contacts ] - [ Help ] _________________________________________________________________