[Lurker]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I think the Sokal thing is the point where I begin to side with the critical theorists, to be honest. It was right to draw attention to a level of fraudulance within the humanities but feel it was a bit disengenuous in failing to look at why that should be the case. Academics are pressured into writing essays just to keep their jobs. I know a number of them that churn one out every semester just for that reason. Sokal would've been fairer in my opinion if he'd looked at the issues that cause the problems, rather than just attack those trying to keep their jobs.

The Sokal hoax was attacking these smaller academics and yes he wasn't dealing with why this sort of thing might be happening. It's important that that gets done too, but that isn't much of a criticism. It's like saying people who criticise the Nazis should also explain why the Nazis are like otherwise they should keep their mouths shut.

'Intellectual Impostures' on the other hand isn't criticising these lesser academics who are just trying to keep their jobs, but rather the big names who are the most responsible for damaging the humanities, the origin of the problem.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

My other problem is that while he's right in suggesting that academics in the humanities show little real understanding of science, his own criticism of critical theory hardly convinced me that he was particularly knowledgable about that, either. And to pick on Baudrillard is like picking on the slow kid at school, everyone knows he's an idiot - the dignified thing is to just let him be.

The point is not that those working in the humanities show little knowledge. That it itself is irrelevant and unimportant. He is pointing out that these people who this scientific terminology don't know what they're talking about, and if the don't know what they're talking then neither will their reader, and yet they lap it up and are so impressed by as the theorists so incredibly erudite. And I don't think it's so important that Sokal doesn't know much about critical theory as his criticism focuses on the scientific terminology.

But people actually read Baudrillard, it affects their thinking! That's is something to take seriously!

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Benjamin is amazing, but very hard to really get a grip on - making him similar in that sense to Barthes. I'm a massive fan of both but would struggle to tell anyone what they're actually going on about half the time. I think where the academy goes wrong with both is in treating them as theorists when they were really creative writers in their own right. Everyone uses Barthes' 'Death of the Author' probably because it's his most straightforward and accessible essay, despite the fact that it's also his least interesting. The same with Benjamin's 'Mechanical Reproduction' essay. Meranwhile Barthes' 'Pleasure of the Text' and Benjamins 'Arcades project' are rightfully treated as brilliant but utterly unteachable.

See, here you're wriggling. You've basically said that you don't understand their texts.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Bottom line for me though in terms of the academy misusing an author is Joseph Conrad. One the greatest writers of the English language and all university departments seem interested in is what Heart of Darkness has to say about colonialism. Which is like being confronted with a naked Nigella Lawson and being asked to concentrate solely on her kneecaps!

It's tiring to hear that Joseph Conrad is racist. Quite clearly, in The Heart of Darkness, Marlow says that England was at one time just like place in Africa that the novel is set, the darkness was there too.