From: Goodchild P <p.goodchild-AT-ucsm.ac.uk>
Subject: Not really a UK Update
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:55:00 +0100


Hi Tim,

>If you're still online Phil, how about an update of the D&G situation
in
>the U.K.? Any new controversies? I liked your letter to the editor
>following The Guardian's "it's simply a load of tosh" article
>(concerning Sokal and Bricmont's condemnation of Deleuze and French
>philosophy).

>I wonder what Deleuze would have thought about that headline? My guess
>is that he would have laughed it off and said something like: of
course,
>why not.

>Tim Adams

Nothing to report, really.   Academic debates are hardly taken seriously
in the national media in the UK, and could never last for more than a
week.  The only issue I can imagine being reported is of the kind 'It's
simply a load of old tosh' - the media, here, aims to sell itself by
making people feel good about their complacency while giving them the
illusion of being in touch with what is happening.

Consequently, I tend not to keep my fingers on the simulacra of the
pulse of what's happening here.  One or two journals have taken up the
Sokal and Bricmont issue.  And, sadly for us, I hear that Nick Land, who
has been the main focus for inspiration in D&G studies in the UK, is
leaving academic life.  Perhaps it is not really possible to be a true
philosopher within the constraints of a state institution.  Anyway,
he'll be much missed.

'Simply a load of tosh'?  This headline epitomizes the attitude of
cynicism and complacency that feeds itself by unmasking - or giving
itself the illusion of unmasking - all claims of value, significance or
insight.  I don't know about Deleuze, but I can't help being affected by
it for this collective consciousness is so pervasive here, and in me
personally, that the struggle against it has to be constantly renewed.
It is the antithesis of a politics of desire.

Phil