Your analogy above is not helpful, however. The job of an actor is to intentionally deceive me (with my participation) and outside of that
[WS:] I disagree. The job of an actor is not to deceive but to convey a message through reenactment or impersonation.
Ravi: Among other things, you write that you have an obsessive aversion to anyone speaking with cock-sure certitude. Interestingly, it is such an aversion that warms me to pomo philosophers and away from scientists and science groupies. You on the other hand have quite the opposite reaction.
[WS:] True. The reason I do so is that while some individual scientists may be pompous arses, the science as institutions is fundamentally based on facts not on authority of those arses. By contrast, the credibility of pomo critique is based solely on the authority, personal charm, eloquence or credibility of the person who does the critique. Consequently, while it is possible to practice science independently of personal authority, pomo critique is really a substitution of one form authority (that being critiqued) by another (that of the critic.)
As to the rest of you post, I am basically with you.
Wojtek