It's a Battlefield Out There, Culturally Speaking by Edward Rothstein (FWD from NY Times)

[James Farmelant]

Concerning yesterday's NY Times piece by Ed Rothstein I got 
the impression that Rothstein was trying to avoid taking sides
but in doing so he has tended to accept uncritically the pomos'
conception of what the debate is all about.  Thus, his misunderstanding
of Sokal's position concerning the need for the left to re-embrace
scientific objectivity as being a purely political or cultural position,
just as he uncritically accepts the pomos' claim that they represent
leftist thinking (when their ruling divinities, Nietzsche & Heidegger
were men of the Right).  In fact the kind of skepticism that the pomos
embrace is one that historically has often appealed to conservative
rather then radical thinkers.  The fact that the French writers that
the American pomos look up to were leftists is perhaps more reflective of
the peculiarities of French intellectual culture of the 1950s and
1960s when a turn to Heidegger and Nietzsche seemed to offer a
way out for French leftwing intellectuals who had become disenchanted
with the rigidities and dogmatism of Stalinism.  The kind of thinking
that pomo represents does not seem to be inherently leftwing but only
contingently so.

Rothstein seems to be unaware of the extent to which the left,
particularly
Marxists have traditionally embraced the Enlightenment legacy.  In
fact much of the Marxist critique of capitalism can be interpreted as
one of attempting to show how capitalism and bourgeois society have
systematically betrayed the Enlightenment legacy which is the basis
of its legitimacy.  Many people seem to be confused concerning the
differences between the kinds of critiques that Marxists (i.e. Richard
Lewontin, Richard Levins, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Rose etc.)
have made of science and the kinds of critiques that pomo-oriented
scholars make (such as many of the science studies people
like Sandra Harding).  The Marxists criticize the distortions of science
by bourgeois ideology but in doing so they reaffirm the traditional
Enlightenment faith in scientific rationality and objectivity.  The
more pomo-oriented critics view science, itself, as an ideology
that needs to be deconstructed.  Many of them criticize science in
order to legitimize non-rational forms of knowing.

Finally concerning Lou Proyect's post "Enlightenment insight," I got
the impression that Lou was trying to trash the Enlightenment because
some of the leading philosophes held racist views which they had
attempted to justify through pseudo-scientific arguments.  If Lou wants
to argue that science is susceptible to ideological distortion then
I have no quarrel with him.  However, I get the impression that he is
taking the pomo position that science itself is an ideology but one
that is in itself racist (sexist, classist etc.).  That has never to my
understanding been the position of classical Marxism which always
drew a distinction between science and ideology (while recognizing
that in class societies science will be susceptible to ideological
distortions).

		Jim Farmelant

___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]