Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic,alt.postmodern,sci.lang,alt.feminism
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!godot.cc.duq.edu!newsgate.duke.edu!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.ac.net!pacifier!mvb.saic.com!eskimo!news
From: nsmith@eskimo.com (Noel Smith)
Subject: Re: Honesty, the academy, & morals  (was: Scientific Epistomology)
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: tia1.eskimo.com
Message-ID: <DsHq1t.CIu@eskimo.com>
Sender: news@eskimo.com (News User Id)
Organization: Seattle's Eskimo North
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82
References: <Drou8w.9KF@eskimo.com> <4o16qg$c0c@bessel.nando.net> <cas.695.00723D33@ops1.bwi.wec.com> <Drz2Aq.6yL@eskimo.com> <4o8u2a$nea@bessel.nando.net>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 19:28:03 GMT
Lines: 88
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.skeptic:177043 sci.lang:55181

moggin@bessel.nando.net (moggin) wrote:

>Noel Smith <nsmith@eskimo.com> wrote:

>>Postmodernists cannot or will not describe 'theory,' or explain the
>>way 'theory' applies to or solves any problem not already better (or
>>more comprehensibly) addressed.

>	Try de Man's "The Resistance to Theory."

Please summarize his arguments, if you have time, so that I will have
a basis for deciding whether to read him. If you don't have time,
please try to decline without being accusatory or abusive, i.e.,
without the charges of "ignorance" and "sheer hypocrisy" you have
leveled at those who've made similar requests in the past.

>>When Chomsky asks deconstructionists to show their results "without
>>three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to
>>me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. . . . the response is cries
>>of anger [and charges of] 'anti-intellectualism.'"

>	A rejection of words longer than two syllables _is_ just a 
>trifle anti-intellectual.

Everyone else is perceptive enough not to take Chomsky's syllable-
count literally in a paragraph where he uses the four-syllable
"incoherent."

Chomsky spends a fair amount of his time speaking to lay-people. He
reports that they typically grasp his arguments more quickly than
intellectuals, because they have formed fewer dogmatic beliefs. It is
not "anti-intellectual" to ask postmodernists to explain themselves to
non-intellectuals, particularly as Chomsky regularly troubles to do so
himself.

One reason for Chomsky's remarks is his suspicion that much of
postmodernism would appear ludicrous when couched in plain language.
Example: George Will's report on the current issue of _Social Text_:

  The issue of Social Text containing
  Sokal's parody includes excruciatingly serious
  essays that read like parodies, such as "Gender
  and Genitals: Constructs of Sex and Gender,"
  which reports that "transgender theorists and
  activists" are refuting the "Western assumption
  that there are only two sexes" and are
  promoting "increased fluidity" and "a 'rainbow'
  of gender" purged of "the binary male/female
  model."

The same issue contains the argument that:

  catastrophe theory, with its dialectical emphasis on
  smoothness/discontinuity and metamorphosis/unfolding,
  will indubitably play a major role in the future
  mathematics; but much theoretical work remains to be
  done before this approach can become a concrete tool
  of progressive political praxis.

The words are Sokal's, of course, demonstrating that postmodernist
discourse is so bizarre that postmodernist academics will publish a
parody in the belief that it is the real thing.

Stanley Fish said that it is Sokal's brilliant parody, not the
editors' venality and stupidity, which is a threat to intellectual
standards.

>>3. Refusal to summarize for other scholars and interested laymen.

>	I'm sorry you can't devote enough time to do some reading.
>It's understandable that you have other priorities.  Maybe one day
>you'll be able to learn more. [remainder deleted]

In another post, to which you responded and presumably have read, I
said that one of the typical postmodernist responses to requests for
summarization is "If your interest was sincere you'd find out for
yourself."

You illustrate my point beautifully.

> moggin

- Noel

Chomsky's original article is online at:
http://www.mosaic.co.za/gavan/Upstream/Issues/decon/chomsky2.html


