File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-06-08.010, message 80


Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 14:16:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jon Beasley-Murray <jpb8-AT-acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: Sokal and ethics


On Mon, 27 May 1996, Rahul Mahajan wrote:

> The agenda behind this questioning of him, betrayed equally on Marxism 1 by
> Jon Beasley Murray, is to pass off the idea that somehow *because* he
> published this spoof that showed up a couple of assholes who call
> themselves leftists and more importantly a field of study (yes, Leo, I know
> not everything in the field is worthless) that its practitioners and the
> public for some unknown reason associate with leftism, therefore he is
> "really" or "objectively" not a leftist, perhaps even an anti-leftist.

Well, I'm not going to go into this in depth.  But anyone who cares to 
look at the marxism1 archives will be able to see that I said nothing of 
the sort.

The point is not whether Sokal is or is not a leftist; the point is how 
this incident is presented in the New York Times or wherever--scarcely 
fora of the left.  [this is not, incidentally, to say he shouldn't have 
done it]

> Since he's only a scientist, whatever his poor deluded self may think about
> his politics is of course not relevant. This arrogance of the libarts types
> always annoys the hell out of scientists, with good reason.

How he considers his politics are really not all that relevant--and this
has nothing to do with his being a scientist.  If he were to consider his
self-representated politics the main issue, this would also be to presume
that he can somehow mandate or control how his discourse is represented
elsewhere.  It would be to presume in advance the ability to prevent his
own words from fitting into other discourses which may very definitely be
part of the neoconservative assault on the academy for supposedly
harboring the subversion of postmodernism or multiculturalism etc.  This
presumption would be arrogance indeed. 

On the other hand, of course, any time the left engages in self-criticism,
then the right is going to pounce on what it can, no doubt with great
success at times like these when the left is generally on the defensive. 
This is not at all to suggest that such self-criticism is mistaken and
that we should all stick to some party line. 

But to say "look, he says he's a leftist" is frankly to say very little 
in these circumstances.  If he were a paid-up republican, and did the 
same thing (scarcely unlikely), would he then deserve blanket 
condemnation as the left closes ranks?

My point is that it's as important to understand the populism of the 
right as the populism of the left, and not to think that some banal 
categorization of left and right deals with the problems and complexities 
of the various complicities and internal contradictions that such 
populisms entail.

> Rahul

Take care

Jon

Jon Beasley-Murray
Literature Program
Duke University
jpb8-AT-acpub.duke.edu
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons


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