Social Text, Sokal--A Modest Question

[Paul L. Maliszewski]

Joe Varo writes:
> 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?

But the question of irony seems to me not that the editors didn't know
great from gobbledy-gook.  Clearly, if this thing is a parody (for
argument's sake, I'll agree, momentarily) the editors--Fish, Ross, et
al.--are on the losing side of the parody curve.  By design they're
supposed to be unable recognize it and not get it and not think it's funny
because the joke's on fucking them.  They're not the test of a parody; 
they're the butt.  Now, the real question is this:  Did any of us, before
we saw the Lingua Franca piece, think, "This thing is a parody"? 

Secondly, just as sad as the editors saying they accepted a bad piece as 
a peace-offering to the scientific community is Sokal having to reveal 
his parody by saying, Look, I did a parody.  As my mom used to always 
say, "It isn't a joke if you had to say, 'I was only joking.'"

Still waiting for those funny passages.

Paul