OT: fashionable nonsense & PoMo Hoax / Re: Way, Way OT - RE: phallicitations/

Scott,

Just in case you were in a hurry and missed it, it is *pure* satire.

The "papers" are hoaxes generated by a software engine. this was done by some very clever & subtle "anti-PoMo" computer science grads. the satire/hoax is basically saying that there are vast amounts of PoMo fecal material flowing from the social science departments of "politically correct" (liberal) higher education institutions, and it is mostly just mindlessly stamped out, machine like, from an ideological template.

In other words, the "generator" simply makes the point that much "academic" PoMo stuff is full of tedious, repetitive, mind numbing and largely meaningless *fashionable nonsense*.

The best example of how such fashionable nonsense prevails in liberal higher education is the Sokal "Social Text" Affair.

Sokal is a physics professor (a thoughtful leftist whose bona fides include working with the Sandinistas) who finally got fed up with the extremely high level of PoMo "b.s." that was being thrown around during the so called "science wars" debates in academia.

He wrote a bogus, satirical "scientific" article in very subtle *PoMo-speak*, and submitted the hoax (as the real thing) to one of the leading PoMo "academic" journals. the incompetents at the "journal" actually accepted and published it.

Then all hell broke loose. Sokal was accused of all sorts of traitorous acts by the liberal PoMo establishmentarians, etc.

Amazingly, the PoMoists didn't "get it". hehehe

Here is professor Sokal's web site:

   http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal

A few choice items:

http://www.bookshop.co.uk/ser/serdsp.asp?shop=3D1&isbn=3D1861970749&DB=3D2= 20

---
excerpt:

   "When =91Intellectual Impostures=92 was published in France at the end
   of 1997, it sent shock waves through the Left Bank establishment.
   Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont showed how some of France=92s most
   renowned contemporary thinkers have repeatedly abused scientific
   concepts in their work.

   Hailed and vilified on both sides of the Channel, =91Intellectual
   Impostures=92 provokes a heated debate over the standards of
   intellectual rigour and honesty. Scores of articles and thousands
   of Internet postings later, the battle is still raging. "

---

("Transgressing the Transgressors: Toward a
  Transformative Hermeneutics of Total B*llsh*t 

  Physicist's slick hoax leaves egg on face of 
  'progressive' academic journal 

    By GARY KAMIYA"): 

http://www.salon.com/media/media960517.html


and:

( http://www.tikkun.org/9611/content.html )
( http://www.tikkun.org/9609/robbins.html )


Of course the good news is that now people know where all those 
weird OCP questions come from , right?

regards,
ep

On 6 Dec 2000, at 12:25, Scott.Shafer_at_dcpds.cpms.osd.mil wrote:

Date sent:      	Wed, 06 Dec 2000 12:25:34 -0800
To:             	Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.co=
m>
From:           	Scott.Shafer_at_dcpds.cpms.osd.mil
Subject:        	Way, Way OT - RE: phallicitations/ 



> I find it amazing that individuals have the time for this kind of mental

> masturbation (not directed at you Eric - at the author and ilk).  Talk a=

bout


> needing a life...  <grin>

> 

> Scott "Gotta get me one of them there life things" Shafer

> 

> 

> > -----Original Message-----

> > From:	Eric D. Pierce [SMTP:PierceED_at_csus.edu]

> > Sent:	Wednesday, December 06, 2000 1:47 PM

> > To:	Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

> > Subject:	OT: phallicitations/ Re: WAAYYY OT: RE: FreeOCP

> > 

> > hear, hear...

> > 

> > http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

> > 

> > excerpt:

> > 

> > ---