Bloody Brilliant, or Theory Takes it on the Chin (if not lower)

[lunadelcorvo]

I happened, through too many successive clicks to list (starting from a post in a medievalist blog ranting against the "useless postmodernist critique of factual knowledge"), upon a perfectly delightful thing. It is SO reassuring as I struggle with the theoretical chaff I have been wading through of late, to see that serious scholars, in a variety of disciplines, are as disenchanted with the stuff as I am.

What follows is the text of an article, written by NYU Physics Professor Alan Sokal, and accepted for publication by an academic cultural criticism publication. The article is utterly meaningless, and was intended to be meaningless. It was submitted as a hoax, to see how far one could push the incomprehensible verbiage of postmodern criticism, and still be found credible. (titles are links to full articles)

"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"
This is the original "parody" article, published in Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252 (spring/summer 1996)

"A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies"
This is the article in which the author revealed the parody, published in Lingua Franca, May/June 1996, pp. 62-64.

My favorite quote:

What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits their existence but downplays their practical relevance.

Social Text's acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual arrogance of Theory — meaning postmodernist literary theory — carried to its logical extreme. No wonder they didn't bother to consult a physicist. If all is discourse and "text," then knowledge of the real world is superfluous; even physics becomes just another branch of Cultural Studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and "language games," then internal logical consistency is superfluous too: a patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well. Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors and puns substitute for evidence and logic. My own article is, if anything, an extremely modest example of this well-established genre.

There are volumes more about both articles and the experiment itself, but these will get you started.

Also of interest: The Postmodernism Generator This page will create, fresh for you, a completely meaningless, but very high-minded-sounding essay, employing postmodern criticism in a manner frighteningly similar to how it is done with sincere intent. Now you, too, can participate in the questionable endeavor of postmodern epistemological critique! Enjoy!

Comments

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

That pretty much sums it up for me.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Indeedy! Apparently this thing is quite famous, but having just found it myself, it seemed particularly topical. I figured you would approve. ;)

[doctoreon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen it before. ;-)

[lachaim.livejournal.com]

The Sokal Hoax (as it has become to be known) is very famous; I think there are entire books written about it. I know Sokal has a more recent book where he discusses it (as well as other issues); I was browsing it at a conference last summer.

In a related case, a few years ago, a few compsci grad students at MIT, disgusted with jargon laden requests to submit to some rather suspicious sounding conferences, wrote a scientific gibberish generator (http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/) and submitted two pseudo-papers generated by it to the conference. One was rejected, but the other was accepted.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

I love it! It reminds me of a big brouhaha in the art world about 25 years ago (maybe) where some guy was selling these modern art paintings, and everyone was raving about them. Then, after he had made bank with these things, he revealed they had all been painted by his chimpanzee.

Of course, now we have everything from cats to elephants painting, and it's all taken very seriously, so clearly, the lesson didn't stick....

[samuraiartguy.livejournal.com]

So, as I have suspected in the ivory paneled towers of academic publishing, a pile of high-falootin' sounding BULLSHIT, loaded down with jargon and buzzwords, shoveled out of a wordprocessor that ultimately "don't mean shit", has just as much as a chance of being published as a scholarly work, well-researched and argued, penned with the blood sweat and tears of the author representing perhaps years of study, experimentation and examination?

And in fact, if the latter is written in clear, plain, straightforward language, it has even LESS of a chance of seeing the light of day?

And here I am fretting that my AS son will get a mandatory Incomplete in AP physics, as he cannot wrap his otherwired head around the mindless tedium of writing the labs. State requirement not withstanding, I DO see his side of things.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it seems that there are instances (and disciplines where this is the case! Part of the hoax here was the idea that one could even APPLY all this post modern crud to something like math of physics! That is was accepted only speaks t the puffed-headedness of the critical and literary set. And it's proof positive why I am avoiding postmodernism/critical theory like the frakkin' plague! (And they wonder why other disciplines don't take the Humanities seriously???)

I see his side of things, too! But if that's his worst problem I think he'll be OK. I suspect that otherwired head of his will end up being a hyooooge asset! Semantic silliness aside, I think most fields have room for, nay require, a certain 'otherwiredness.' (I almost typed 'otherweirdness,' and realized it would have fit almost as well! ;)

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Cool! Thanks!

*runs off to do some reading*

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Enjoy!