>
>Like Richard Rorty, the bland old man of this camp, Sokal and Bricmont
>lament that "remnants of the left have collaborated in driving the last
>nail in the coffin of the ideals of justice and progress," which,
>translated, means the new social movements make us ex-New Left white guys
>feel unimportant.
This "translation" by Eric Lott is so self indicting that it is beneath criticism. What evidence does he provide for this translation? Sokal has never spoken against identity politics or new social movements. The questions he raises are about epistemology and obscurantism. There is no reason to believe that struggles against racism for example would not benefit from rethinking a knee jerk reaction against science, reason, empiricism and clarity. If Lott wants to argue that all this is the necessary undergirding for oppression--instead of emancipation--then he will need to make the argument, instead of hurling perverse accusations that these two authors are suffering from white male resentment. I must say this kind of stuff sends me as through the roof as Sarich's musings about the number of white genes a successful black student may be carrying.
I have also been blown away by Frances abusing John Maynard Smith just because in the course of a very thoughtful review of Lewontin and Levins he wonders whether dialectics may be anachronistic in terms of the possibilities opened up for studying dynamical systems by means of differential equations (when I heard Richard Levins speak to us non scientists he was referring to many classes of differential equations and referring to saddle points, not the negation of the negation) or using game theory to study sexual competition among baboons. Maynard Smith is not using game theory to advise militarists in wars of escalation or imperialist blood suckers on how to reschedule debt. As for his gene centered view of evolution, it may be wrong, but it is sufficiently complex and counter-intuitive (calling into question so many assumptions about ourselves) that it is worth serious study and careful refutation..
At any rate, this guy Lott seems to be critical of the tradition of blackface; I think he should spend more time considering the inaneness and shallowness of those who today effect the cool white man pose.
yours, rakesh