Social Text, Sokal--A Modest Question

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

On Wed, 29 May 1996, Joe Varo wrote:

> 
> 
> On Wed, 29 May 1996, Paul L. Maliszewski wrote:
> 
> > Much of the talk I've heard about the Sokal article identifies it as a
> > parody or a satire, which terms mean of course two different things, but
> > the consensus seems to be that in some way it employed irony.  Which makes
> > me want to ask a pretty simple question:  Did anyone find it funny?  I'm
> > willing to accept that it's not laugh-out-loud funny, but is it even
> > amusing?  I kinda have been operating under the assumption that irony is
> > supposed to be a little funny.  Would someone mind quoting me the really 
> > good parts?
> > 
> > I wanted to laugh.  Really.
> > 
> > Paul
> > 
> 
> You don't find it ironic that a group of people who have developed and 
> fostered the use of a very difficult and perhaps confusing jargon & 
> buzzwords, when confronted by an essay using all the right buzzwords and 
> phrasing, couldn't *tell* that it was just gobbledy-gook?
> 
> And I find the excuse given by the eds. (that they essentially knew that 
> the essay was rather poor but just published it in an effort to reach out to 
> the scientific community) to be rather sad.
> 
> Joe
> 
> 
This is another bothersome argument.  Sokal is no idiot.  Sure, he used 
the right jargon--and he used it in ways validated by the very arguments 
he sought to emulate, er, parody.  He reiterated arguments already in 
play within scholarly journals devoted to exploring power dynamics in 
academe (in this case, "science wars").  So the editors say:  "well, it 
wasn't very good, but it did speak to the issues under consideration--and 
that, from the sci community").  How come this disturbs as inauthentic?  
Part of what makes journals like those devoted to cultural studies so 
interesting is their accessability--in terms of those scholars longing to 
contribute but perhaps not seasoned in their use of academic discourse 
(believe me, I can relate here).

urgh.

Bonnie