Date:          Sat, 25 May 1996 12:23:18 +0000
Subject:       Sokal and ethics


I love the "unethical" line of argument about Sokal's article.

In fact, there were three conceivable consequences of Sokal's 
submission of his article:

(a) The editors would have detected the satire and had a good laugh 
(assuming they have senses of humor), or

(b) They could have rejected the article as sloppy and obscure, 
proving that they have some grasp of the English language as a tool 
of communication (leaving Sokal to publish it somewhere else as an 
open satire, or

(c) They could have published it, exposing themselves as pretentious 
fools.

In any case, nothing remotely related to "ethics" is involved.

   *****

It seems to me that the reason Marxists are concerned about the 
question is that _Social Text_ is only one of a whole 
slew of marxist academics and journals which seem devoted to (a) 
presenting "marxism" as something which can only be couched in 
unintelligible multisyllabic terms and (b) spouting half-digested 
nonsense of the Fritjof Capra type about science and material reality 
in order to avoid (and discredit) attempts to define our real 
situation and figure out what to do about it.

Tom

P S I know it's unethical to kick people when others are already 
doing it, but I can't resist an anecdote about Stanley Aronowitz. 
Some years ago Aronowitz was one of four panelists in a debate on the 
"the left and the family". Each panelist had 20 minutes for an 
initial presentation, and there was widespread speculation and even a 
couple of bets as to whether Aronowitz could actually compress his 
usual wordiness into a mere 20 minutes. He did it -- and I have never 
heard anyone speak so rapidly for 20 minutes continuously in my life.


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