A new ‘Sokal Hoax?’ (Alan Sokal has moved on, apparently)
From Aero: ‘Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship:’
‘We undertook this project to study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance studies, which is corrupting academic research. Because open, good-faith conversation around topics of identity such as gender, race, and sexuality (and the scholarship that works with them) is nearly impossible, our aim has been to reboot these conversations.’
Ideas spilling from the academy into politics and the public mind come with their own internal logic and boundary conditions; the latest moral idea comes with its own priests, zealots and enforcers.
Perhaps in an increasingly less religious American context, it’s better for many citizens to think of such folks as ‘true-believers’ or members of a religion-deep belief system with many bad incentives and with much dangerous design.
As posted years ago now:
Do you remember the Sokal hoax?
“…in 1996 the radical “postmodernist” journal Social Text published an article submitted by Alan Sokal, a mathematical physicist at New York University, with the mouthwatering title “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” Sokal then revealed the article to be a spoof…”
Sokal has apparently been busy ruminating since that paper, and Blackburn, a Cambridge philosophy professor, reviews his ruminations.
David Thompson offers satire on such matters.
Postmodern generator here, via David Thompson.
See Protein Wisdom for a discussion about language and intentionalism, and how it gets deployed.
-Daniel Dennett: ‘Postmodernism And Truth’
–Repost-‘Roger Scruton In The City Journal: Cities For Living–Is Modernism Dead?’
–Land Art Links Along A With A Quite Modernist W.S. Merwin Poem
–William Logan At The New Criterion: ‘Pound’s Metro’…Monday Poem: ‘A Pact’ By Ezra Pound
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And mostly, but not entirely unrelated, you can make your own Tom Friedman columns at home.
Related On This Site: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’ Classical Liberalism Via Friesian.Com-’Exchange with Tomaz Castello Branco on John Gray’
The classical liberal tradition…looking for classical liberals in the postmodern wilderness: Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”… From George Monbiot: ‘How Freedom Became Tyranny’…Looking to supplant religion as moral source for the laws: From The Reason Archives: ‘Discussing Disgust’ Julian Sanchez Interviews Martha Nussbaum.… Repost: Another Take On J.S. Mill From “Liberal England”