Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 13:02:01 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: CSALL@gmu.edu
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From: beth armitage
To: csall@gmu.edu
Subject: Sokal's Lingua Franca article (fwd)
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Andreas Ramos wrote:
Alan Sokal sent me both his original Social Text article and his Lingua
Franca expose. Here's the expose. I'll send the Social Text article in a
few days after I convert it.
--
yrs, andreas
__________________________________________________________________________
Andreas Ramos andreas@andreas.com http://www.andreas.com
Lingua Franca, May/June 1996, pp. 62-64
A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies
The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter
by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests
and perspectives is --- second only to American political campaigns ---
the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism
in our time.
-- Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990)
For some years I've been troubled by an apparent decline in the standards
of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic
humanities. But I'm a mere physicist: if I find myself unable to make
head or tail of _jouissance_ and _diff'erance_, perhaps that just reflects
my own inadequacy.
So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a
modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North
American journal of cultural studies --- whose editorial collective
includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross --- publish an
article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it
flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions?
The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Interested readers can find my
article, ``Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative
Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,'' in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of
_Social_Text_. It appears in a special number of the magazine devoted to
the ``Science Wars.''
What's going on here? Could the editors _really_ not have realized that my
article was written as a parody?
In the first paragraph I deride ``the dogma imposed by the long
post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook'':
that there exists an external world,
whose properties are independent of any individual human being
and indeed of humanity as a whole;
that these properties are encoded in ``eternal'' physical laws;
and that human beings can obtain reliable,
albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to
the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures
prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.
Is it now dogma in Cultural Studies that there exists no external world?
Or that there exists an external world but science obtains no knowledge of
it?
In the second paragraph I declare, without the slightest evidence or
argument, that ``physical `reality' [note the scare quotes] ... is at
bottom a social and linguistic construct.'' Not our _theories_ of physical
reality, mind you, but the reality itself. Fair enough: anyone who
believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited
to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment.
(I live on the twenty-first floor.)
Throughout the article, I employ scientific and mathematical concepts in
ways that few scientists or mathematicians could possibly take seriously.
For example, I suggest that the ``morphogenetic field'' --- a bizarre New
Age idea due to Rupert Sheldrake --- constitutes a cutting-edge theory of
quantum gravity. This connection is pure invention; even Sheldrake makes
no such claim. I assert that Lacan's psychoanalytic speculations have been
confirmed by recent work in quantum field theory. Even nonscientist
readers might well wonder what in heavens' name quantum field theory has
to do with psychoanalysis; certainly my article gives no reasoned argument
to support such a link.
Later in the article I propose that the axiom of equality in mathematical
set theory is somehow analogous to the homonymous concept in feminist
politics. In reality, all the axiom of equality states is that two sets
are identical if and only if they have the same elements. Even readers
without mathematical training might well be suspicious of the claim that
the axiom of equality reflects set theory's ``nineteenth-century liberal
origins.''
In sum, I intentionally wrote the article so that any competent physicist
or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize
that it is a spoof. Evidently the editors of _Social_Text_ felt
comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to
consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject.
The fundamental silliness of my article lies, however, not in its numerous
solecisms but in the dubiousness of its central thesis and of the
``reasoning'' adduced to support it. Basically, I claim that quantum
gravity --- the still-speculative theory of space and time on scales of a
millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter ---
has profound _political_ implications (which, of course, are
``progressive''). In support of this improbable proposition, I proceed as
follows: First, I quote some controversial philosophical pronouncements of
Heisenberg and Bohr, and assert (without argument) that quantum physics is
profoundly consonant with ``postmodernist epistemology.'' Next, I assemble
a pastiche --- Derrida and general relativity, Lacan and topology,
Irigaray and quantum gravity --- held together by vague rhetoric about
``nonlinearity'', ``flux'' and ``interconnectedness.'' Finally, I jump
(again without argument) to the assertion that ``postmodern science'' has
abolished the concept of objective reality. Nowhere in all of this is
there anything resembling a logical sequence of thought; one finds only
citations of authority, plays on words, strained analogies, and bald
assertions.
In its concluding passages, my article becomes especially egregious.
Having abolished reality as a constraint on science, I go on to suggest
(once again without argument) that science, in order to be ``liberatory,''
must be subordinated to political strategies. I finish the article by
observing that ``a liberatory science cannot be complete without a
profound revision of the canon of mathematics.'' We can see hints of an
``emancipatory mathematics,'' I suggest, ``in the multidimensional and
nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory; but this approach is still
heavily marked by its origins in the crisis of late-capitalist production
relations.'' I add that ``catastrophe theory, with its dialectical
emphases on smoothness/discontinuity and metamorphosis/unfolding, will
indubitably play a major role in the future mathematics; but much
theoretical work remains to be done before this approach can become a
concrete tool of progressive political praxis.''
It's understandable that the editors of _Social_Text_ were unable to
evaluate critically the technical aspects of my article (which is exactly
why they should have consulted a scientist). What's more surprising is how
readily they accepted my implication that the search for truth in science
must be subordinated to a political agenda, and how oblivious they were to
the article's overall illogic.
Why did I do it? While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly
serious. What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and
sloppy thinking _per se_, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy
thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when
challenged) admits their existence but downplays their practical
relevance. At its best, a journal like _Social_Text_ raises important
questions that no scientist should ignore --- questions, for example,
about how corporate and government funding influence scientific work.
Unfortunately, epistemic relativism does little to further the discussion
of these matters.
In short, my concern over the spread of subjectivist thinking is both
intellectual and political. Intellectually, the problem with such
doctrines is that they are false (when not simply meaningless). There _is_
a real world; its properties are _not_ merely social constructions; facts
and evidence _do_ matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And
yet, much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts
to blur these obvious truths --- the utter absurdity of it all being
concealed through obscure and pretentious language.
_Social_Text_'s acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual
arrogance of Theory --- meaning postmodernist _literary_ theory ---
carried to its logical extreme. No wonder they didn't bother to consult a
physicist. If all is discourse and ``text,'' then knowledge of the real
world is superfluous; even physics becomes just another branch of Cultural
Studies. If, moreover, all is rhetoric and ``language games,'' then
internal logical consistency is superfluous too: a patina of theoretical
sophistication serves equally well. Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue;
allusions, metaphors and puns substitute for evidence and logic. My own
article is, if anything, an extremely _modest_ example of this
well-established genre.
Politically, I'm angered because most (though not all) of this silliness
is emanating from the self-proclaimed Left. We're witnessing here a
profound historical volte-face. For most of the past two centuries, the
Left has been identified with science and against obscurantism; we have
believed that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective
reality (both natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the
mystifications promoted by the powerful --- not to mention being desirable
human ends in their own right. The recent turn of many ``progressive'' or
``leftist'' academic humanists and social scientists toward one or another
form of epistemic relativism betrays this worthy heritage and undermines
the already fragile prospects for progressive social critique. Theorizing
about ``the social construction of reality'' won't help us find an
effective treatment for AIDS or devise strategies for preventing global
warming. Nor can we combat false ideas in history, sociology, economics
and politics if we reject the notions of truth and falsity.
The results of my little experiment demonstrate, at the very least, that
some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting
intellectually lazy. The editors of _Social_Text_ liked my article because
they liked its _conclusion_: that ``the content and methodology of
postmodern science provide powerful intellectual support for the
progressive political project.'' They apparently felt no need to analyze
the quality of the evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the
relevance of the arguments to the purported conclusion.
Of course, I'm not oblivious to the ethical issues involved in my rather
unorthodox experiment. Professional communities operate largely on trust;
deception undercuts that trust. But it is important to understand exactly
what I did. My article is a theoretical essay based entirely on publicly
available sources, all of which I have meticulously footnoted. All works
cited are real, and all quotations are rigorously accurate; none are
invented. Now, it's true that the author doesn't believe his own argument.
But why should that matter? The editors' duty as scholars is to judge the
validity and interest of ideas, without regard for their provenance. (That
is why many scholarly journals practice blind refereeing.) If the
_Social_Text_ editors find my arguments convincing, then why should they
be disconcerted simply because I don't? Or are they more deferent to the
so-called ``cultural authority of technoscience'' than they would care to
admit?
In the end, I resorted to parody for a simple pragmatic reason. The
targets of my critique have by now become a self-perpetuating academic
subculture that typically ignores (or disdains) reasoned criticism from
the outside. In such a situation, a more direct demonstration of the
subculture's intellectual standards was required. But how can one show
that the emperor has no clothes? Satire is by far the best weapon; and the
blow that can't be brushed off is the one that's self-inflicted. I offered
the _Social_Text_ editors an opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual
rigor. Did they meet the test? I don't think so.
I say this not in glee but in sadness. After all, I'm a leftist too (under
the Sandinista government I taught mathematics at the National University
of Nicaragua). On nearly all practical political issues --- including many
concerning science and technology --- I'm on the same side as the
_Social_Text_ editors. But I'm a leftist (and feminist) _because_ of
evidence and logic, not in spite of it. Why should the right wing be
allowed to monopolize the intellectual high ground?
And why should self-indulgent nonsense --- whatever its professed
political orientation --- be lauded as the height of scholarly
achievement?
Alan Sokal is a Professor of Physics at New York University.
He is co-author with Roberto Fern'andez and J"urg Fr"ohlich of
_Random Walks, Critical Phenomena,
and Triviality in Quantum Field Theory_ (Springer, 1992),
and co-author with Jean Bricmont of the forthcoming
_Les impostures scientifiques des philosophes (post-)modernes_.
SIDEBAR: EXCERPT FROM ARTICLE
Thus, general relativity forces upon us radically new and counterintuitive
notions of space, time and causality; so it is not surprising that it has
had a profound impact not only on the natural sciences but also on
philosophy, literary criticism, and the human sciences. For example, in a
celebrated symposium three decades ago on _Les Langages Critiques et les
Sciences de l'Homme_, Jean Hyppolite raised an incisive question about
Jacques Derrida's theory of structure and sign in scientific discourse ...
Derrida's perceptive reply went to the heart of classical general
relativity:
The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center.
It is the very concept of variability --- it is, finally, the
concept of the game. In other words, it is not the concept
of some_thing_ --- of a center starting from which an observer
could master the field --- but the very concept of the game ...
In mathematical terms, Derrida's observation relates to the invariance of
the Einstein field equation G_{\mu\nu} = 8\pi G T_{\mu\nu} under nonlinear
space-time diffeomorphisms (self-mappings of the space-time manifold which
are infinitely differentiable but not necessarily analytic). The key
point is that this invariance group ``acts transitively'': this means that
any space-time point, if it exists at all, can be transformed into any
other. In this way the infinite-dimensional invariance group erodes the
distinction between observer and observed; the \pi of Euclid and the G of
Newton, formerly thought to be constant and universal, are now perceived
in their ineluctable historicity; and the putative observer becomes
fatally de-centered, disconnected from any epistemic link to a space-time
point that can no longer be defined by geometry alone.
End of text
Michael J. Ditmore
mditmore@uclink2.berkeley.edu
