[lbo-talk] "Theory's Empire," an anti-"Theory" anthology

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Wed Jun 4 01:26:00 PDT 2008


On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 9:00 PM, Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Jerry Monaco wrote:
>> > negligible pomo gibberish
>>
>> I'm putting on my moderator's hat and announcing an official list
>> policy: no assertions like this without names and quotes.
>
> You moderate me for saying a phrase like this but not someone who says
> something along the lines of > "_shut up shuttin' up already since you're
> being a ridiculous fuckheaded bore." And similar things that she said to
> Ravi which chased him away?
>
> Doug I have to say that this is a very weird sense of propriety. But maybe
> you just agree with shag and thus impoliteness doesn't bother you as long it
> is not impoliteness that effects "intellectuals" of a particular school of
> thought.

Well, here's an example of "names and quotes," from a Famous leftie who blurbed LBO's homepage:

"Any critic of the party line must meet very high standards. If

you're following the party line you don't have to document

anything; you can say anything you feel like. There are major

books, well reviewed, highly regarded, which are just an

expression of opinion -- there is nothing in them that you can

even trace to its source -- but that doesn't matter as long as

you're producing the party line. That's one of the privileges you

get for obedience. On the other, if you're critical of received

opinion, you have to document every phrase. He also later in the

review calls my writing "turgid." That's right, and part of the

reason it's turgid is because every three words I have to have a

footnote with big documentation explaining it. On the other hand,

if you're on the other side you can just pay attention to style,

because it doesn't matter what you say."

-- Noam Chomsky, "Political Discourse and the Propaganda System,"

1986

Forums often replicate these patterns. Don't be a "ridiculous fuckheaded bore", but you better offer names and quotes about "negligible pomo gibberish." [1]

BTW, I probably disagree with your view on "theory". You may find this a reasonable use of the term, for activist purposes:

What's a Theory?

Theories are collections of concepts about some real world area of

concern or interest which facilitate explaining, predicting, or

intervening. With theories we explain why and how things occur as

they do. We predict what is going to happen given the way things

are. And we choose ways of acting to make things turn out in some

way we desire.

Some theories are better for one or more of these purposes, worse

for others. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, for example,

explains very well, predicts barely at all and allows intervention

of only a quite limited sort. Theories of the solar system, based

on Newtonian gravity, not only explain but also allow us to

prediction example where a planet will be on some day and even

hour 50 years from now. Social theories generally explain,

predict, and permit intervention, all to a degree, not with

perfect confidence, but with enough to be much more useful than

just winging it, so to speak.

So what do we want for ourselves in the way of theory?

We want a theory that explains social events and trends because we

want to be able to situate ourselves … to explain to others … to

understand the way things are. And we want a theory that can

predict these same types of phenomena, because we want to be able

to have a notion of what's coming. And we want a theory, in

particular, that can help guide our actions to help us intervene

in what's happening, to affect it, and to work for outcomes that

we might desire. So it turns out we want a pretty powerful theory

for our domain, which is society and history.

-- http://www.zmag.org/zmi/zinstruc5.htm

[1] Try "gradual crescendo of nonsense," from Sokal and Bricmont's analysis of Baudrillard, quoted by Dawkins.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/archive/philosophy/dawkins_impost.html

Tayssir



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list