 |
 |
Re Sokal, I am a great lover and sometime practitioner of theory-bollocks of all varieties, and I personally love what he did to Social Text who bloody deserved it for being lazy ignorant and smug, although I don't love him because he is also lazy ignorant and smug. The Baudrillard quote *is* funny, and Baudrillard himself is funny, and it isn't just a joke but it is also a joke. I don't think Kristeva was joking, but who knows? I like it that they couldn't find anything to pin on Derrida. And the background politics is sucky, because it makes your good faith as one who wills the social good dependant on your metaphysics, whereas in fact you can believe in bloody fairies and still be a solid pacifist and union organizer (or whatever your version of willing the social good entails) - the irritating thing about political questions is that they are quite askew from questions of technical or intellectual competance, and even stupid and deluded individuals can be politically decent, just as some of the cleverest bastards that there ain't half been have also been right-wing arseholes of the first order. I dislike it that this is the case, but what can you do? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Howard" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 10:15 PM Subject: Re: A Responsibility to Awe > I'm very glad my comments were useful, Gerald. > > Candice, I'll be more than happy to take a look at your poem whenever > it's ready to be looked at. But don't expect too much - it's a long time > since I studied physics properly, so my knowledge is somewhat rusty. I > bet you know more about neutrinos than I do at the moment. > > As for good stuff, the book I was most recently impressed by was Neil > Rollinson's "Spanish Fly", which contains several poems that use > scientific imagery effectively and accurately. Mario Petrucci and Danny > Abse both know what they're talking about when they use science. The > grand-daddy of science poets is Miroslav Holub, of course, but you > probably knew that. > > But I was meaning more that there seem to be fewer scientific blunders > in poems that aren't principally scientific in intent, but stumble > across some science along the way. I playfully have a "S.T. Coleridge > Horned Moon Award" [1] that I mentally present to poems that drop a > scientific clanger, and I seem to be dishing it out less frequently of > late. Poets seem to be more careful and/or better informed these days. > > As for Sokal, I don't agree that: > > >his > >_Social Text_ hoax began with his own inability to penetrate the language of > >critical theory and his assumption on the basis of his own limitations there > >that it wasn't comprehensible or substantive at all. > > He specifically says: "We are not attacking philosophy, the humanities > or the social sciences *in general*; on the contrary, we feel that these > fields are of the utmost importance..." His main target isn't the > language of critical theory per se, but those occasions when it imports > the language of physics or mathematics and doesn't use it properly. You > might argue that critical theory has a perfect right to appropriate > physics or maths language and use it for its own purposes; after all, > those two disciplines are particularly noted for pinching their > vocabulary from other sources (energy, force, set, charm, flavour etc. > Physics nicked "quark" from Joyce.) But when the grammar as well as the > vocabulary has the same look and feel, there's a stronger expectation > of a similarity in meaning. Wittgenstein [2] aside, is it very likely > that a sentence that looks to have some relevance to one field of > discourse, but is written in the context of another, isn't making some > sort of reference to the first? At the very least, when Jean Baudrillard > (quoted by Sokal in Intellectual Impostures) says: "It is a sign that > the space of the event has become a hyperspace with multiple > refractivity, and that the space of war has become definitively non- > Euclidean." then even if this has a precise meaning within the discourse > of critical theory, can you seriously expect anyone with any knowledge > of science or mathematics (and who is unaware of the meaning in the > discourse of critical theory) not to snigger? > > Best, > > Peter > > [1] "The horned Moon, with one bright star/Within the nether tip." - > Within the moon's crescent is the rest of the moon, in shadow. It would > therefore block out the light from any star behind it. This is the most > notorious scientific blunder in poetry. > > [2] I included this because a reference to Wittgenstein always gives a > post a bit of intellectual élan, don't you think? I was thinking of the > references to Wittgenstein in Tom Stoppard's [3] "Dogg's Hamlet, > Cahoot's MacBeth." > > [3] And if you're going to mention a playwright in a post, you can't do > better than Tom Stoppard, especially if the reference is to one of his > more recondite works.[4] > > [4] That's enough footnotes, ed.