NP no facts only interpretations

[Otto]

Hi you cyber-ghosts out there,
special greetings to the Paranoia Lawyer . . .

Now I know: the Truth is hidden on microfilm records but Bauerlein refuses
to give us the exact location.

It took me a while to get through the article because I didn't get his point
at first reading. Now it appears to me to be a covered attack on
postmodernism (and more), and the assumption that this rose out of laziness
is indeed ridiculous. This is Bauerlein's definition:

"(...) social constructionism. It is a simple belief system, founded upon
the basic proposition that knowledge is never true per se, but true relative
to a culture, a situation, a language, an ideology, or some other social
condition."

I had my problems to see how this "truth" (though it's clear that it cannot
be any other way, that the Christian assumption of a Truth revealed by God,
or an History that necessarily develops to a Marxist paradise is
unscientific according to the facts) is affecting the universitarian
paper-production, but he explains:

"Truth, facts, objectivity-those require too much reading, too many library
visits, too much time soliciting interlibrary loan materials, scrolling
through microfilm records, double-checking sources, and looking beyond
academic trends that come and go. A philosophy that discredits the
foundations of such time-consuming research is a professional blessing. It
is the belief-system of inquirers who need an alibi for not reading the
extra book, traveling to the other archives, or listening to the other point
of view. This is why constructionism is the prevailing creed in the
humanities today. It is the epistemology of scholarship in haste, of
professors under the gun."

My professor always *accused* us of being made of Teflon - nothing ever
sticked to us - after sending us through several thousands of PMLA- and
other bookpages per week. What he was missing was something to rely on, a
wider basis of books that have been read, something he could use as
axiomatic, not always having to begin new with the stuff he'd already told
last semester. Nobody reads Marx or Weber or Nietzsche or the Bible anymore
to understand Pynchon. In fact Pynchon has sent me to all of these and more.

("As Nietzsche says. . ."),
If someone wants to read Eve Sedgwick's book (which I haven't) he/she has to
read Foucault in advance, it's as simple as that and to judge Sedgwick is
only possible with this knowledge. But Bauerlein beats Sedgwick and others
and means Foucault, Lacan and others.

By the way, he's criticising Doug too "(...) Neopragmatists,
post-structuralists, Marxists, and feminists (...)" and I bet he would hate
my website if he could read German.

But I absolutely agree with Bauerlein in this. The humanities should

"(...) insist that scholars need time to read, time to reflect, time to test
ideas in the classroom and at conferences if they are to come up with
anything lasting."

A four-year literature study cannot be enough. There should be more time for
reading.

at last:
I never said anything on spelling-errors on this list, but the Partisan
Review should be able to use a spell-check before putting something out,
*travelling* is written with two L's. This is web-journalism "in haste,
(...) under the gun."
Soviel Zeit muss sein!

Otto

> ----------
> >From: Doug Millison <DMillison at ftmg.net>
> >
>
> > A great example of the sort of ad hominem attack from hidebound social
> > constructionists that Bauerlein studies and questions in his article!
>
> Well, no. An example of ad hominem would be your use of the term
"hidebound
> social constructionists" here, and this description from the article fits
> your preferred style of interlocution to a t:
>
>             ... Those who raise objections soon find themselves
>     trapped in debates shaped by us versus them forensics, enunciated in
an
>     idiom of brazen philosophical avowals and insinuations about the
>     character of adversaries.
>
> Bauerlein's charge that academics nowadays are not well-read is
outrageous.
>
> best