NP no facts only interpretations

[Swing Hammerswing]

>From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
>To: Otto <o.sell at telda.net>
>CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: NP no facts only interpretations
>Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 14:31:28 +1000
>
>
>----------
> >From: "Otto" <o.sell at telda.net>
>
> > 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.
>
>Hi Otto
>
>In devising this term as a derogatory label to condemn scholars Bauerlein 
>is
>referring to the idea that language, and thus "knowledge", is a "social
>construct". This is a recognition which underpins academic endeavour in all
>fields of the humanities nowadays: philosophy, sociology, anthropology,
>linguistics, history, psychology, literature etc etc.

Recognition? Underpins? Maybe in your part of the
world but in the States it's far from recognized let alone
what underpins the human sciences. While it's obviously a  derogatory
label in the Bauerlein essay, Bauerlein is a very
unhappy fellow and he thinks he's on the losing side in the culture war. The 
term does not usually carry the derogatory sense that you suggest. However, 
when a partisan like Bauerlein lobs
it the defenders quickly put up their shields, double quotation marks (“ ”) 
and lob back the fanatical and derogatory terms and
labels you have employed here.



>
>As well as all the nonsense about professors in these fields no longer
>reading anything, it's absolutely hypocritical of him to accuse academics 
>of
>ad hominem argument when it's exactly what he's doing by calling them
>"social constructionists".

Yes, these are a distraction. You have to get over these
to get at the issues and the arguments.



He doesn't offer any refutation of the conception
>of languages & cultural systems as socially-constructed -- which of course
>they are -- merely attacks and ridicules anyone who dares to think that
>there is some "truth value" in it.

Well sure, he's attacking and ridiculing and that's
not a nice but he does have a point. I understand why
you didn't get it.


As you've twigged to, the alternative
>viewpoint, which remains unstated in the article because it's just so dumb,
>is that language and knowledge are down to some miracle of divine
>intervention.

Now your lobbing. If it's unstated (it is stated you
have conveniently disregarded it in this reply) how
do you know the alternative viewpoint? You don't know
that this is the point at all. Do you? How?
You missed the point because you knew what you knew
and it was regognized as what underpins *BOTH* possible
viewpoints. But could there be a third or fourth? Could it
be that things are not down to the constructed or divine?


It's easy to figure where Pynchon stands on that particular
>"debate"!

NO it is not. In your simple binary war of the cultures
Pynchon is not. Should like to here you denfend this recognition.

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