Date: 28 May 1996 13:08:13 EST From: "SCOTT R MCLEMEE" <MCLEMEE-AT-MAIL.LOC.GOV> Subject: LAMENT FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY Not to rain on the pomo-bashers' picnic, but one unfortunate effect of the Sokal hoax has been that it inadvertantly rewards intellectual laziness. Or rather, it has meant that people who don't know anything at all about "theory" except that they don't like it can be all smug and pleased with themselves. Now, I liked Sokal's article very much, and nothing could amuse me more than seeing Andrew Ross and Stanley Aronowitz trying to wiggle their way out of this one. But seriously -- to arrange Gilles Deleuze, Louis Althusser, Fredric Jameson, and twenty other names under the product-label "postmodernism" (or whatever), and then to dismiss them all on the grounds that SOCIAL TEXTers can't pour piss from a boot with instructions printed on the heel; what is this but utter nonsense? It has been a long time since I paid much attention to the doings in humanities departments, except insofar as I have to report on it now and then for magazines. (Lately, for instance, I'm spending all my free time reading Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON, a less trendy book you couldn't ask for). And in the same issue of LINGUA FRANCA as the Sokal expose, there is a little piece, very critical indeed, about Jean Baudrillard's exceptionally silly booklet on the Gulf War; prepared for that journal by your humble servant. In brief, my bullshit detector works as well as most (and it is sensitive enough to go off the minute I log on here). But as much crap as gets published by the trend-monkeys in the academic world, no less of it is issued by know-nothings outside the university. Sad but true. Remember Sturgeon's Law: ninety percent of everything is crap. Easy to say; the challenge consists in remembering that it applies even to things you like. And there are seasons during which Sturgeon sounds like an optimist. Scott McLemee mclemee-AT-mail.loc.gov --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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