Date: 28 May 1996 13:08:13 EST
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



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