…or should that be \’wallyfication?\’ I enjoyed this. It reads like Luce Irigaray in one of her more \’tristessed\’ moments. The difference is the humour is intentional.
(Take note Mark C. Don\’t you recognise satire when you see it?)
I\’m still wondering me if the monitor I\’m currently looking at is a \’window\’ to the world or a \’barrier\’ between me and it. If the latter, how long do I have to wait for \’liberatory mathematics\’ to come up with a means of \’union\’? (sigh.)
Probably the most profound thing anyone said about hip-hop was Ellen DeGeneres. She said that hip-hop truly is the poetry of the streets, then quoted a salt\’n\’pepah song about hooking up with a guy and getting oral sex from him word for word in a deadpan voice. Imagine her saying \”licking me up like a lollypop\’s supposed to be licked,\” as if it were Shakespeare. Hilarious but also profound.
The problem with your article is, even though you tried to have a sense of humor, you come across as an ass. Your sweeping judgments aren’t justified. As a writer you should understand that your audience doesn\’t care what your opinions or pet peeves are, they want a compelling argument or entertainment. People only enjoy a rant if they already share your opinion.
Is it just me or in focusing so much attention on the details of the ABOR and the presumed intentions of its authors. Has it escaped everyone that one of the reasons the bill exists at all is due to the perceptions of a large number of students and faculty across the country who feel it’s needed? Discount the intentions of its authors due to political differences all you want. The fact that a significant number of people believe its needed tells me there is more going on than some right wing scheme. A trip over to the FIRE website more or less cemented it for me. Dismiss it all at your peril; if the issue wont be addressed by those within the institution, those on the outside will do it for you.
Philip Stott is a pseudo-skeptic. No amount of evidence will convince him that global warming is happening, and that humans are causing it. Skeptics demand evidence, pseudo-skeptics demand absolute proof, somthing that science simply does not provide. Now he has extended the requirment for certanty to possible solutions. \”Will cutting carbon dioxide emissions at the margin produce a linear, predictable change in climate.\” The idea, of course, is to prevent human caused climate change. And why does the responce have to be linear? This is just important sounding nonsence.
It was brought to my attention today that it was Hume that recognised a distinction between ground and consequence, and the structure of causality. In the first case it is not possible to assert a ground and deny a consquence, in the second case we work backwards from event to possible cause – or more properly \’causes\’. This is where ckepticism as a philosophical position arises.
We already have the \’event\’ of Climate Change and Global Warming. Thus we are compelled to look to a cause of which we may be part – almost certainly are a part. It may well be that the structure of Global Warming and climate change have not been fully described – almost certainly true – nevertheless it is an indubitable \’fact\’ that human practices have, and are contributing to these as a \’perceived problem\’. If it can be reasonably said that our practices are so contributing, then we need to look to those practices and amend our behaviour. It is too late once we find ourselves in the Boscastle situation on a world wide scale to say, \’If only we had taken sensible precautions.\’ It is always possible to be wise after the event – we need to be wise before the event and take reasonable precautions.
Of course a collision with an unknown, unseen asteroid may settle the whole question, but it is not reasonable not to do what we can with respect to a perceived problem, even if our actions do not \’solve\’ the whole situation.
At the risk of being accused of an ad hmine argument, I consider that the professor\’s comments are something like the comments of the turkey that is waiting for Christmas: we do not understand Christmas, we can do nothing about it, so let\’s just sit on our hands. Note I criticise his comments, not him.
If the press have alerted us to the problems attendant on Global Warming and Climate Change, as currently understood, then they have done their job, for once, and the public at large may then go on to consider how they may amend their behaviour, apply pressure to politicians, and contribute to the possible future of their children and grandchildren.
Jim Norton thinks Professor Stott cannot accept that Global Warming is happening and that humans are causing it. Presumably that is why Stott wrote \”Do humans influence climate change? Yes, of course they do, but in many different ways, most little understood, and only as one small factor out of the millions of other factors involved.\” (see his entry for Tuesday, June 07, 2005 \”The little boy in the crowd…..\”)
Stott\’s point about being able to predict the effects of human activity is well made, pace Norton. The steps being proposed to satisfy Kyoto do not entail returning the earth to some previous state of climate perfection. Rather, we are going to make even more changes in the hope they have the desired effect. However since climate is a dynamic non-linear coupled system we do not know what effects our efforts will have. We may even precipitate a new ice age.
Stott writes that \”The \”mitigated\” sceptic has first to distinguish \’\’global warming\’\’ from \’\’climate change\’\’\” So, admitting that humans can change the climate is presumably not the same as admitting that humans are causing global warming, at least to Stott. He also writes that \” Secondly, \’\’climate change\’\’ itself has to be broken down into three component and separate questions: \”Is climate changing and in what direction?\” \”Are humans influencing climate change and to what degree?\”\”
The first question has been answered by overwhelming evidence. The second is less clear, but would seem to be supported by the preponderance of the evidence, to use legal terminology.
Stott\’s views are so far outside the scientific mainstream as to be laughable. One has to wonder why B&W continues to post it. There are a number of real climate scientists who regularly comment on the issues, such as those who got together to post on the RealClimate blog. They would be a much better alternative. I can supply more names if you are interested.
1) It should be \”Global Warming\”. As the climate is always changing, sometimes it is getting hotter. That\’s global warming. \”Global Warming\” is the notion that we are causing most if not all of current termperature increases. Which poses the immediate question: how do they know the proportion of current climate change that would happen anyway? The answer is they don\’t. There is no scientific \”theory of eveything\” in climate and we are very far from having one.
2) There is very little evidence we are causing \”Global Warming\”. The only source for this claim is the output of climate models. In terms of the science of climate, these models are far from reality because they cannot handle things like water vapour – the main greenhouse gas.
3) Stott\’s views represent one side of an academic controversy. Truth is not the product of majority opinion. Defining a \”real climate scientist\” as a person with whom you agree on this issue is an example of a Stalinist mentality.
The plight of scientists in the face of irrational opposition to science may be illuminated by the testimony of Wittgenstein. Apparently having some difficulties in cognition, he started out clinging desperately to reason and logic and lived and felt them from the inside as perhaps no one else ever has. He may act for us as a canary in detecting early trouble from a too-great dependence on the scientific method.
Here are extracts from the closing pages of his early tract.
“6.45 The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling….
6.52 We feel that even if all possible questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course, there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521 The solution to the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem…
6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.
6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, ie, the propositions of natural science…. This method would be unsatisfying to the other – he would not have the feeling we were teaching philosophy – but would be the only strictly correct method.
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless.”
7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”
I ask your indulgence in letting me “explain” what he meant.
1. We can talk truthfully only in terms of the propositions of natural science.
2. We cannot climb outside the envelope of what can be said in those terms and report about it from the outside, since it’s impossible to know or say anything truthful about what’s outside.
3. The idea that there is something outside is the mystical feeling (ie, that there is anything outside the propositions of natural science.)
4. The problems of life do lie outside that envelope of propositions. So they can’t be dealt with, except by saying, they can’t be dealt with, therefore there’s no answer to them, and that is the answer.
5. We have to refuse to speak about these things, because it is impossible to say anything meaningful about them, even though the logic and reason we limit ourselves to we realize finally is useless.
I feel he has exactly stated the problem, which is that science addresses only the issues it feels it is qualified to speak about. But that infuriates people who place importance in what W. calls the “mystical,” and want equal consideration given to that. W. expresses a profound sense of meaning (“Life”) being inexpressible within the discourse of science but he says we have no alternative to abiding within this limit.
Shouldn’t his conclusion be a concern to scientists? Isn’t it time to see this as a problem, and look for ways to cope with issues that lie outside the envelope of rational propositions? If science admits it stands for a limited method, shouldn’t it accept partners in the definition of what the problems are and how they should be tackled?
De Gregori is right in saying that science and myth are two sides of the same coin in so far as they are both concerned with reducing uncertainty. But the need to believe is not the same as the need to know. The former deals with uncertainty by absolutism – one does not argue with beliefs, since people simply hold and have them, irrespective of objective/material evidence to the contrary. The latter copes with uncertainty through relativism (\’mitigation\’) by seeking \’best fit\’ theoretical perspectives on evidence/material facts garnered through the scientific method.
Knowing\’ and \’believing\’ are then a function of different needs with very different ways of achieving satisfaction – the former through scientific materialism, the latter through religion/ideology/myth. To regard them as though they are merely different \’routes\’ to the same \’objective\’ – with one inevitably branded the \’wrong\’ route by the opposing faction – is like trying to decide between hunger OR thirst as the \’best fit\’ explanation for the biological imperativ to survive.
I suggest that the reason science is currently failing to allay GM fears (despite fine writers on the subject like Colin Tudge) is the refusal to recognise that however irrational, they are still \’felt\’ and therefore \’real.\’ (Ian Pearson, BT\’s poster-boy for futurology wants a computer-flown plane to \’feel\’ fear so that it will be motivated to fly safely. Oh yeah? What if it refuses to even budge out of the hangar incase it crashes?) While my own faith in scientific method as the best avilaible model for reducting uncertainty, I would not sahre the \’belief\’ that it\’s quite so ideologically and error-free as De Gregori thinks – S.J. Gould\’s \’\’The Mismeasure of Man\’ is only one exposure of the dangers of unconscious idealogical contamination – there are many others. And they need to be acknowledged before \’Scientific Method\’ gets equally deifified.
Steve Jones (\’Almost like a Whale,\’ \’The Descent of Man\’) once said geneticists, given the complexity of their subject, should be humble.
Maura Moynihan defends her father by saying \”Daniel Patrick Moynihan worked with thousands of people in his 50-year career in public service—in academia, diplomacy, the Congress, journalism—who can attest to his extraordinarily high ethical standards\”.
Iam student of eastern as well as western liturature. Iam realy fed up literaturlly theory and critism.Every day new literaturlly theory born and disappeared next day. really speaking student want balanced critism but every critic has his prijudice and he give importance to his whim. Why reader give so much importance to this vagebond boys why not themself enjoy book and find out merit and worse thing of book.
Sounds like *more* theory to me. I\’m sure that past \”intellectuals\” were just as disappointed and enthralled with their contemporaries as we are with ours (and theirs), anyway. In a way, I\’m tired of all the complaining; just do the work, whatever you think \”the work\” should be. And if you disagree with other people\’s work, then have the damn brilliance to back yourself — i.e. a strong argument backed by effective rhetoric.
not so long ago yale wanted an anthropog to work on the construction of a cultural theory of the human condition… i applied, insisting that scads of people have worked on, in and around the human condition….. a rare few address THE HUMANE CONDITION…..email me if you would like a copy of my opus on THE HUMANE CONDITION……. peace, david inkey, the UN poet, unpoet@aol.com
But the theories represented do amount to a methodological competence which must be mastered before a Theorist may be admitted to the practice of Theory (sic). Some of us prefer to call flashbacks analepses.
I\’m glad to see someone making the point that the market structure of the academy has become the main prop of Theory. In graduate school, I was told by proponents of Theory that if I didn\’t know Theory I would never find a job. With every passing year claims such as that look increasingly implausible; but I have no doubt that grad students in my program are still being told this. Theorists are struggling to hold on to their market share.
The political arrangement of the academy merits discussion less than the larger political and ecomonic arrangement of which it is a part, and furthermore cannot be considered meaningfully in isolation from those larger forces and institutions; its causes lie outside it, rather than turning its critique into something only interior, thought that understands the academy must remain on the boundary. However, while the politics of the academy are a relatively pressing problem for the professional thinker but are among the least important problems facing thought or life. The value of a meta-volume on theory as opposed to a volume that presents creative thought -as perhaps it may be argued a book on \”theory\” would/could not? How often do the best thinkers and researchers \”theorists\” or \”non-theorists\” refer to the \”theory\” mentioned a cringeable 50 some-odd times in the review?
That the disasters of American thought and intellectual culture of the last twenty years have far outweighed the successes are due to these two misconceptions that thought succumbs to from the outside by allowing itself to be labeled \”Theory,\” misconceptions whose causes lie in the economic and political compulsions under which we all live:
First, the misconception that you can know theories without thinking. This is caused by the generalized economic and political compulsion not to think, and instead to know choices (parties,products or just as well theoretical camps) and then to choose among givens, as opposed to refusing and remaking the given categories.
Second, the misconception that you can know the institution directly affiliated with thought and learning (\”theory\” or \”a theory\”) and critique it without considering the larger economic and political institutions that shape thought without struggling to name themselves within it as the individuals and institutions of the academy struggles to be named within thought (in the form of theoretical camps or authors \”theory\” as opposed to whatever might be called \”not theory\”).
No question, the task at the origins of much of what is called Theory-to think so as to better act and better advise action- suffers from the economic pressures of the academy to organize/heirarchize and name itself within thought and knowledge over and above thinking clearly and creatively. But, historicizing \”Theory\” without thinking along with the thought of the last twenty years or along with the thought of the last 3000 years; historicizing \”Theory\” without considering the contemporary and longstanding economic and political forces to whom the obliteration of thought would seem advantageous falls into both of these same traps. The result: the continued general immobilization of active thought and speech, wasted time in a situation on earth that is increasingly urgent.
One can\’t engage with the thought of the last twenty years by making reference to \”Theory.\” This review is right that \”theory\” refers, if to anything, more to an arrangement of the humanities in the American Academy. But on reading the review of this anthology it is more clear than I expect its authors intended that to engage with the thought of the last twenty years rather than merely with the politics of the academy, one must -quite obviously- think. Read, study, and think. The improvement of the political arrangement within the academy can be expected to follow from clear and creative thought and its effect on the world outside and not vice versa. While the dissolution of thought is certainly in the interests of politically dominant regimes of the present, perhaps true thought might even involve the dissolution or abandonment the academy altogether, not in favor of the politically economically dominant forces that would like to replace \”liberal academia\” with on the job training but by the peaceful revolution of well-advised action that is desired at the origins of \”theory\”.
Can\’t tell you how much I enjoyed \’Wallification.\’ I spent quite a bit of time adding new barriers. Skin is a wall that hides the inner workings of our bodies from! Arteries are walls that contain and restrict the free flow of blood! Even our cells have walls! There\’s no escape except at the subatomic level…or is there?
It’s strange to me that Mark Bauerlein, in gleefully proclaiming the decline of Theory (as if this was a homogenous class of thought), points to its professionalisation and inclusion in the academe proper as a kind of preformative contradiction—as if Theory (again, strangely capitalized) had “sold out.” I mean, if this is the case, isn’t the anti-theory industry (and if Bauerlein’s article is convincing about anything, it is that such an industry thrives) complicit with precisely the same kind of professionalization? In fact, it is symptomatic that the only place I see the word “theory” capitalized is in articles that need something monstrous to oppose themselves to. It seems, that is, that the translation of theory (which, really, is just thinking that is rigorous enough to enquire into its own inner workings—into thinking’s possibilities and limitations—rather than taking its ground for granted) into Theory, performs a kind of monumental entombment, a move that simplifies and knots thinking in order to satisfy itself with the anal excavation of mummified remains. As Theory, theory will live a long afterlife in the dim dens of embittered academics.
Wallification.
…or should that be \’wallyfication?\’ I enjoyed this. It reads like Luce Irigaray in one of her more \’tristessed\’ moments. The difference is the humour is intentional.
(Take note Mark C. Don\’t you recognise satire when you see it?)
I\’m still wondering me if the monitor I\’m currently looking at is a \’window\’ to the world or a \’barrier\’ between me and it. If the latter, how long do I have to wait for \’liberatory mathematics\’ to come up with a means of \’union\’? (sigh.)
Wallification is a sad and pathetic attempt at parodying post-modernism.
I could understand each paragraph without re-reading it word by word.
Where\’s the soaring unintelligibility of the real thing?
A for content, but E for language.
Next time – more incomprensibility, otherwise you\’ll never get tenure in the cultural studies department.
Probably the most profound thing anyone said about hip-hop was Ellen DeGeneres. She said that hip-hop truly is the poetry of the streets, then quoted a salt\’n\’pepah song about hooking up with a guy and getting oral sex from him word for word in a deadpan voice. Imagine her saying \”licking me up like a lollypop\’s supposed to be licked,\” as if it were Shakespeare. Hilarious but also profound.
The problem with your article is, even though you tried to have a sense of humor, you come across as an ass. Your sweeping judgments aren’t justified. As a writer you should understand that your audience doesn\’t care what your opinions or pet peeves are, they want a compelling argument or entertainment. People only enjoy a rant if they already share your opinion.
Is it just me or in focusing so much attention on the details of the ABOR and the presumed intentions of its authors. Has it escaped everyone that one of the reasons the bill exists at all is due to the perceptions of a large number of students and faculty across the country who feel it’s needed? Discount the intentions of its authors due to political differences all you want. The fact that a significant number of people believe its needed tells me there is more going on than some right wing scheme. A trip over to the FIRE website more or less cemented it for me. Dismiss it all at your peril; if the issue wont be addressed by those within the institution, those on the outside will do it for you.
Philip Stott is a pseudo-skeptic. No amount of evidence will convince him that global warming is happening, and that humans are causing it. Skeptics demand evidence, pseudo-skeptics demand absolute proof, somthing that science simply does not provide. Now he has extended the requirment for certanty to possible solutions. \”Will cutting carbon dioxide emissions at the margin produce a linear, predictable change in climate.\” The idea, of course, is to prevent human caused climate change. And why does the responce have to be linear? This is just important sounding nonsence.
On Global Warming and Climate chnge.
It was brought to my attention today that it was Hume that recognised a distinction between ground and consequence, and the structure of causality. In the first case it is not possible to assert a ground and deny a consquence, in the second case we work backwards from event to possible cause – or more properly \’causes\’. This is where ckepticism as a philosophical position arises.
We already have the \’event\’ of Climate Change and Global Warming. Thus we are compelled to look to a cause of which we may be part – almost certainly are a part. It may well be that the structure of Global Warming and climate change have not been fully described – almost certainly true – nevertheless it is an indubitable \’fact\’ that human practices have, and are contributing to these as a \’perceived problem\’. If it can be reasonably said that our practices are so contributing, then we need to look to those practices and amend our behaviour. It is too late once we find ourselves in the Boscastle situation on a world wide scale to say, \’If only we had taken sensible precautions.\’ It is always possible to be wise after the event – we need to be wise before the event and take reasonable precautions.
Of course a collision with an unknown, unseen asteroid may settle the whole question, but it is not reasonable not to do what we can with respect to a perceived problem, even if our actions do not \’solve\’ the whole situation.
At the risk of being accused of an ad hmine argument, I consider that the professor\’s comments are something like the comments of the turkey that is waiting for Christmas: we do not understand Christmas, we can do nothing about it, so let\’s just sit on our hands. Note I criticise his comments, not him.
If the press have alerted us to the problems attendant on Global Warming and Climate Change, as currently understood, then they have done their job, for once, and the public at large may then go on to consider how they may amend their behaviour, apply pressure to politicians, and contribute to the possible future of their children and grandchildren.
Barbara Woolner, BA [hons] Philosophy
Jim Norton thinks Professor Stott cannot accept that Global Warming is happening and that humans are causing it. Presumably that is why Stott wrote \”Do humans influence climate change? Yes, of course they do, but in many different ways, most little understood, and only as one small factor out of the millions of other factors involved.\” (see his entry for Tuesday, June 07, 2005 \”The little boy in the crowd…..\”)
Stott\’s point about being able to predict the effects of human activity is well made, pace Norton. The steps being proposed to satisfy Kyoto do not entail returning the earth to some previous state of climate perfection. Rather, we are going to make even more changes in the hope they have the desired effect. However since climate is a dynamic non-linear coupled system we do not know what effects our efforts will have. We may even precipitate a new ice age.
Stott writes that \”The \”mitigated\” sceptic has first to distinguish \’\’global warming\’\’ from \’\’climate change\’\’\” So, admitting that humans can change the climate is presumably not the same as admitting that humans are causing global warming, at least to Stott. He also writes that \” Secondly, \’\’climate change\’\’ itself has to be broken down into three component and separate questions: \”Is climate changing and in what direction?\” \”Are humans influencing climate change and to what degree?\”\”
The first question has been answered by overwhelming evidence. The second is less clear, but would seem to be supported by the preponderance of the evidence, to use legal terminology.
Stott\’s views are so far outside the scientific mainstream as to be laughable. One has to wonder why B&W continues to post it. There are a number of real climate scientists who regularly comment on the issues, such as those who got together to post on the RealClimate blog. They would be a much better alternative. I can supply more names if you are interested.
Jim:
1) It should be \”Global Warming\”. As the climate is always changing, sometimes it is getting hotter. That\’s global warming. \”Global Warming\” is the notion that we are causing most if not all of current termperature increases. Which poses the immediate question: how do they know the proportion of current climate change that would happen anyway? The answer is they don\’t. There is no scientific \”theory of eveything\” in climate and we are very far from having one.
2) There is very little evidence we are causing \”Global Warming\”. The only source for this claim is the output of climate models. In terms of the science of climate, these models are far from reality because they cannot handle things like water vapour – the main greenhouse gas.
3) Stott\’s views represent one side of an academic controversy. Truth is not the product of majority opinion. Defining a \”real climate scientist\” as a person with whom you agree on this issue is an example of a Stalinist mentality.
Re Thomas R. DeGregori:
The plight of scientists in the face of irrational opposition to science may be illuminated by the testimony of Wittgenstein. Apparently having some difficulties in cognition, he started out clinging desperately to reason and logic and lived and felt them from the inside as perhaps no one else ever has. He may act for us as a canary in detecting early trouble from a too-great dependence on the scientific method.
Here are extracts from the closing pages of his early tract.
“6.45 The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling….
6.52 We feel that even if all possible questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course, there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521 The solution to the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem…
6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.
6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, ie, the propositions of natural science…. This method would be unsatisfying to the other – he would not have the feeling we were teaching philosophy – but would be the only strictly correct method.
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless.”
7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”
I ask your indulgence in letting me “explain” what he meant.
1. We can talk truthfully only in terms of the propositions of natural science.
2. We cannot climb outside the envelope of what can be said in those terms and report about it from the outside, since it’s impossible to know or say anything truthful about what’s outside.
3. The idea that there is something outside is the mystical feeling (ie, that there is anything outside the propositions of natural science.)
4. The problems of life do lie outside that envelope of propositions. So they can’t be dealt with, except by saying, they can’t be dealt with, therefore there’s no answer to them, and that is the answer.
5. We have to refuse to speak about these things, because it is impossible to say anything meaningful about them, even though the logic and reason we limit ourselves to we realize finally is useless.
I feel he has exactly stated the problem, which is that science addresses only the issues it feels it is qualified to speak about. But that infuriates people who place importance in what W. calls the “mystical,” and want equal consideration given to that. W. expresses a profound sense of meaning (“Life”) being inexpressible within the discourse of science but he says we have no alternative to abiding within this limit.
Shouldn’t his conclusion be a concern to scientists? Isn’t it time to see this as a problem, and look for ways to cope with issues that lie outside the envelope of rational propositions? If science admits it stands for a limited method, shouldn’t it accept partners in the definition of what the problems are and how they should be tackled?
Re Thomas R. DeGregori
De Gregori is right in saying that science and myth are two sides of the same coin in so far as they are both concerned with reducing uncertainty. But the need to believe is not the same as the need to know. The former deals with uncertainty by absolutism – one does not argue with beliefs, since people simply hold and have them, irrespective of objective/material evidence to the contrary. The latter copes with uncertainty through relativism (\’mitigation\’) by seeking \’best fit\’ theoretical perspectives on evidence/material facts garnered through the scientific method.
Knowing\’ and \’believing\’ are then a function of different needs with very different ways of achieving satisfaction – the former through scientific materialism, the latter through religion/ideology/myth. To regard them as though they are merely different \’routes\’ to the same \’objective\’ – with one inevitably branded the \’wrong\’ route by the opposing faction – is like trying to decide between hunger OR thirst as the \’best fit\’ explanation for the biological imperativ to survive.
I suggest that the reason science is currently failing to allay GM fears (despite fine writers on the subject like Colin Tudge) is the refusal to recognise that however irrational, they are still \’felt\’ and therefore \’real.\’ (Ian Pearson, BT\’s poster-boy for futurology wants a computer-flown plane to \’feel\’ fear so that it will be motivated to fly safely. Oh yeah? What if it refuses to even budge out of the hangar incase it crashes?) While my own faith in scientific method as the best avilaible model for reducting uncertainty, I would not sahre the \’belief\’ that it\’s quite so ideologically and error-free as De Gregori thinks – S.J. Gould\’s \’\’The Mismeasure of Man\’ is only one exposure of the dangers of unconscious idealogical contamination – there are many others. And they need to be acknowledged before \’Scientific Method\’ gets equally deifified.
Steve Jones (\’Almost like a Whale,\’ \’The Descent of Man\’) once said geneticists, given the complexity of their subject, should be humble.
So should we all.
Maura Moynihan defends her father by saying \”Daniel Patrick Moynihan worked with thousands of people in his 50-year career in public service—in academia, diplomacy, the Congress, journalism—who can attest to his extraordinarily high ethical standards\”.
This is a joke surely.
Have a look at http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey03272003.html. There you will see a man of unsurpassed cynical amorality.
Iam student of eastern as well as western liturature. Iam realy fed up literaturlly theory and critism.Every day new literaturlly theory born and disappeared next day. really speaking student want balanced critism but every critic has his prijudice and he give importance to his whim. Why reader give so much importance to this vagebond boys why not themself enjoy book and find out merit and worse thing of book.
Sounds like *more* theory to me. I\’m sure that past \”intellectuals\” were just as disappointed and enthralled with their contemporaries as we are with ours (and theirs), anyway. In a way, I\’m tired of all the complaining; just do the work, whatever you think \”the work\” should be. And if you disagree with other people\’s work, then have the damn brilliance to back yourself — i.e. a strong argument backed by effective rhetoric.
not so long ago yale wanted an anthropog to work on the construction of a cultural theory of the human condition… i applied, insisting that scads of people have worked on, in and around the human condition….. a rare few address THE HUMANE CONDITION…..email me if you would like a copy of my opus on THE HUMANE CONDITION……. peace, david inkey, the UN poet, unpoet@aol.com
I don\’t see that rebutting the vapid dialectical games-playing of theory requires any substantive response–in anthology form or anything else.
But the theories represented do amount to a methodological competence which must be mastered before a Theorist may be admitted to the practice of Theory (sic). Some of us prefer to call flashbacks analepses.
I\’m glad to see someone making the point that the market structure of the academy has become the main prop of Theory. In graduate school, I was told by proponents of Theory that if I didn\’t know Theory I would never find a job. With every passing year claims such as that look increasingly implausible; but I have no doubt that grad students in my program are still being told this. Theorists are struggling to hold on to their market share.
The political arrangement of the academy merits discussion less than the larger political and ecomonic arrangement of which it is a part, and furthermore cannot be considered meaningfully in isolation from those larger forces and institutions; its causes lie outside it, rather than turning its critique into something only interior, thought that understands the academy must remain on the boundary. However, while the politics of the academy are a relatively pressing problem for the professional thinker but are among the least important problems facing thought or life. The value of a meta-volume on theory as opposed to a volume that presents creative thought -as perhaps it may be argued a book on \”theory\” would/could not? How often do the best thinkers and researchers \”theorists\” or \”non-theorists\” refer to the \”theory\” mentioned a cringeable 50 some-odd times in the review?
That the disasters of American thought and intellectual culture of the last twenty years have far outweighed the successes are due to these two misconceptions that thought succumbs to from the outside by allowing itself to be labeled \”Theory,\” misconceptions whose causes lie in the economic and political compulsions under which we all live:
First, the misconception that you can know theories without thinking. This is caused by the generalized economic and political compulsion not to think, and instead to know choices (parties,products or just as well theoretical camps) and then to choose among givens, as opposed to refusing and remaking the given categories.
Second, the misconception that you can know the institution directly affiliated with thought and learning (\”theory\” or \”a theory\”) and critique it without considering the larger economic and political institutions that shape thought without struggling to name themselves within it as the individuals and institutions of the academy struggles to be named within thought (in the form of theoretical camps or authors \”theory\” as opposed to whatever might be called \”not theory\”).
No question, the task at the origins of much of what is called Theory-to think so as to better act and better advise action- suffers from the economic pressures of the academy to organize/heirarchize and name itself within thought and knowledge over and above thinking clearly and creatively. But, historicizing \”Theory\” without thinking along with the thought of the last twenty years or along with the thought of the last 3000 years; historicizing \”Theory\” without considering the contemporary and longstanding economic and political forces to whom the obliteration of thought would seem advantageous falls into both of these same traps. The result: the continued general immobilization of active thought and speech, wasted time in a situation on earth that is increasingly urgent.
One can\’t engage with the thought of the last twenty years by making reference to \”Theory.\” This review is right that \”theory\” refers, if to anything, more to an arrangement of the humanities in the American Academy. But on reading the review of this anthology it is more clear than I expect its authors intended that to engage with the thought of the last twenty years rather than merely with the politics of the academy, one must -quite obviously- think. Read, study, and think. The improvement of the political arrangement within the academy can be expected to follow from clear and creative thought and its effect on the world outside and not vice versa. While the dissolution of thought is certainly in the interests of politically dominant regimes of the present, perhaps true thought might even involve the dissolution or abandonment the academy altogether, not in favor of the politically economically dominant forces that would like to replace \”liberal academia\” with on the job training but by the peaceful revolution of well-advised action that is desired at the origins of \”theory\”.
Can\’t tell you how much I enjoyed \’Wallification.\’ I spent quite a bit of time adding new barriers. Skin is a wall that hides the inner workings of our bodies from! Arteries are walls that contain and restrict the free flow of blood! Even our cells have walls! There\’s no escape except at the subatomic level…or is there?
It’s strange to me that Mark Bauerlein, in gleefully proclaiming the decline of Theory (as if this was a homogenous class of thought), points to its professionalisation and inclusion in the academe proper as a kind of preformative contradiction—as if Theory (again, strangely capitalized) had “sold out.” I mean, if this is the case, isn’t the anti-theory industry (and if Bauerlein’s article is convincing about anything, it is that such an industry thrives) complicit with precisely the same kind of professionalization? In fact, it is symptomatic that the only place I see the word “theory” capitalized is in articles that need something monstrous to oppose themselves to. It seems, that is, that the translation of theory (which, really, is just thinking that is rigorous enough to enquire into its own inner workings—into thinking’s possibilities and limitations—rather than taking its ground for granted) into Theory, performs a kind of monumental entombment, a move that simplifies and knots thinking in order to satisfy itself with the anal excavation of mummified remains. As Theory, theory will live a long afterlife in the dim dens of embittered academics.