Social Text, Sokal

[Paul Mackin]

Ah, the Sokal affair.

If Sokal wants to say his creation is parody, he has a perfect
right. However, he may have overlooked one little thing. Parody has
no privilege. (It used to have, but doesn't anymore.)

The next step is for someone to analyze the affair (Sokal) itself, then
two weeks later announce the analysis was "only" parody. It would
be a fun project (somebody!). But we'd be no further along. If language
is busted, the cycle can never end. (Who really wants it to?)

None of which is to say that good writing (or speaking) is no longer
possible:

Pynchon is good because he stimulates our imagination;

theoretical physics is good because it makes sense of the data (to the
extent possible) and suggests new (expensive) experiments (I guess);

Derrida is good because he makes people think;

poor old Wernher vonBraun's famous words were good because they probably 
helped in getting Congress to appropriate a whole lot of money;

Sokal is good because he gives columnists like George Will (this very 
morning) something new to jabber about;

the P-list is good because . . .

				P.