From erben@MOYI.CAS.USF.EDU Sun May 26 14:29:24 1996 Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 16:55:15 -0400 From: David Erben Reply-To: A discussion of Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction To: Multiple recipients of list DERRIDA Subject: The Sokal hoax: Response by *Social Text* (fwd) ********************************************************************** dear folks, some of you may have read NYU physicist Alan Sokal's announcement in the current Lingua Franca of his perpetration of a hoax, to wit, that he wrote a parody of a "cultural studies of science" article in order to see if it would be accepted by a journal like Social Text. According to Sokal, he took this action, as a progressive and a scientist, in order to assist in "the intellectual renovation of the left." I have appended the response below, which will appear in some form in Lingua Franca in the summer. feel free to circulate this. -------------------------- What were some of the initial responses of the journal's editors when we first learned about Alan Sokal's prank upon Social Text? One suspected that Sokal's "parody" was nothing of the sort, and that his admission represented a change of heart, or a collapse of his intellectual resolve. Another, while willing to accept the story, was less sure that Sokal knew very much about what or whom he thought he was kidding. A third was pleasantly astonished to learn that the journal is taken seriously enough to be considered a threat to anyone, let alone to natural scientists. At least two others were furious at the dubious means by which he chose to make his point. All were concerned that his actions might simply spark off a new round of caricature and thereby perpetuate the climate in which science studies has been subject recently to so much derision from conservatives in science. However varied the responses, we all believe that Sokal took too much for granted in his account of his prank. Indeed, his claim--that our publication of his article proves that something is rotten in the state of cultural studies--may have turned out to be as wacky as the article itself. First, let me recount the history of the editorial process regarding Sokal's article, in order to provide readers with a framework that Lingua Franca did not seek when they decided to publish his piece. From the first, we considered Sokal's unsolicited article to be a little hokey. It is not every day that we receive a dense philosophical tract from a professional physicist. Not knowing the author or his work, we engaged in some speculation about his intentions, and concluded that this article was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field. His adventures in PostmodernLand were not really our cup of tea. Like other journals of our vintage that try to keep abreast of cultural studies, it has been many years since Social Text published contributions to the debate about postmodern theory, and Sokal's article would have been regarded as sophomoric and/or outdated (and therefore unnacceptable to the editors) if it had come from a humanist or social scientist. As the work of a natural scientist it was unusual, and, we thought, plausibly symptomatic of how someone like Sokal might approach the field of postmodern epistemology i.e. awkwardly, assertively, and somewhat aimlessly, with a veritable armada of footnotes to ease his sense of vulnerability. In other words, we read it more as an act of good faith of the sort that might be worth encouraging than as an exercise of the intellect whose scholarly worth had to be judged. On those grounds, the editors considered that it might be of interest to readers as a "document" of that time-honored tradition in which modern physicists have discovered harmonic resonances with their own reasoning in the field of philosophy and metaphysics. Consequently, the article met one of the several criteria for publication which Social Text recognizes. As a non-refereed journal of political opinion and cultural analysis (entirely self-published by an editorial collective until its recent adoption by Duke University Press), Social Text has always seen its lineage in the "little review" tradition of the independent left as much as in the academic domain, and so we often balance diverse editorial criteria when discussing the worth of submissions, whether they be works of fiction, interviews with sex workers, or interventions in postcolonial thought. In other words, this is an editorial milieu with principles and aims quite remote from that of a professional scientific journal. Having established an interest in Sokal's article, we did ask him informally to revise the piece. We made a general request to him a) to excise a good deal of the philosophical speculation and b) to excise most of his footnotes. Sokal seemed resistant to any general revisions of this sort, and indeed insisted on retaining almost all of his footnotes and bibliographic apparatus on the grounds that his peers, in science, expected extensive documentation of this sort. Judging from his response, it was clear that his article would appear as is, or not at all. At this point, Sokal was admitted to the category of "difficult, uncooperative author," well known to journal editors. His article entered a state of limbo, well known at Social Text at least, as "too much trouble to publish, not yet on the reject pile, and capable of being redeemed if published in the company of related articles." Some months after this impasse was reached, the editors did indeed decide to assemble a special issue on the topic of science studies. We wanted to gauge how science studies practitioners were responding to the scurrilous attacks of Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, and other conservatives in science. Contributions were solicited from across the field of knowledge; from humanists, social scientists and natural scientists (the final lineup included many of the more significant names in science studies (Sandra Harding, Steve Fuller, Emily Martin, Hilary Rose, Langdon Winner, Dorothy Nelkin, Richard Levins, George Levine, Sharon Traweek, Sarah Franklin, Ruth Hubbard, Joel Kovel, Stanley Aronowitz, and Les Levidow). Most responded directly to the evolving controversy that some were calling the "Science Wars," while others wrote their own accounts of work in their respective fields. Here, we thought, was an appropriate and heterogenous context in which Sokal's article might appear, providing a feasible solution to our editorial dilemma. He expressed some concern when asked if we could publish his piece in this special issue (we assumed he wished to distance himself from the polemical company assembled for the issue), but he reiterated his eagerness to see it in print. Our final decision to include him presumed that readers would see his article in the particular context of the Science Wars issue, as a contribution from someone unknown to the field whose views, however peculiar, might still be thought relevant to the debate. Since his article was not written for that special issue, and bears little resemblance, in tone or substance, to the other commissioned articles, it was not slated to be included in the expanded book version of the issue (with additional articles by Katherine Hayles, Michael Lynch, Roger Hart, and Richard Lewontin) which will be published by Duke University Press in September. In sum, Sokal's assumption that his "parody" struck a disreputable chord with the woozy editors of Social Text is ill-conceived. Indeed, its status as parody does not alter substantially our initial perception of, and our interest in, the piece itself as a curio, or symptomatic document. Of course, the whole affair may say something about our own conception of how physicists read philosophy, but that seems less important to us than that his prank does not simply lead to a heightening of the hysteria which the Science Wars have induced. Most of all, what his confession altered was our perception of his own good faith as a self-proclaimed leftist. In the view of our editors, Alan Sokal was now revealed to be either a) a leftist whose self-loathing has been activated by conservative caricatures of the cultural left, or b) a leftist whose genuine sense of commitment led him to a questionable manner of expressing his political point. In either respect, his actions smacked of a temper often attributed to "unreconstructed male leftists." More to the point, the boy stunt pulled by Sokal seemed typical of the professional culture of science education. Having talked to the (real) Sokal subsequently, we believe that most of the issues he intended to air are, at this point, rather well-known to readers of Social Text and to Lingua Franca. Indeed, they have been going the rounds in the academy since the first postmodern, social constructionist, or anti- foundational critiques of positivism appeared over thirty-five years ago. That many natural scientists have only recently felt the need to respond to these critiques says something about the restricted trade routes through which knowledge is still circulated in the academy, policed, as it is, at every departmental checkpoint by disciplinary passport controls. Nor are these critiques unfamiliar to folks who have long been involved in debates about the direction of the left, where positivism has had a long and healthy life. At this point in time, we have a vestigial stake in these critiques and debates, but much less of an interest than Sokal supposes. When Sokal discovers that the cultural left he believes he has outsmarted really doesn't give much of a hoot about what Lacan said about topology in his 1966 seminar, then we can talk turkey. Our main concern is that readers who may be new to the debates engendered by science studies are not persuaded by the Sokal stunt that this is simply an academic turf war between scientists and humanists/social scientists, with one side trying to outsmart the other. More important to us is the gulf of power between experts and lay voices, and the currently shifting relationship between science and the corporate state. Nor are these concerns extrinsic to the practice of science. Prior to deciding whether science intrinsically tells the truth, we must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or prudent, to isolate facts from values. Why does science matter so much? Because its power, as a civil religion, as a social and political authority, affects our daily lives and the parlous condition of the natural world more than does any other domain of knowledge. Does it follow that non-scientists should have some say in the decision-making processes that define and shape the work of the professional scientific community? Some scientists (including Sokal presumably) would say yes, and in some countries, non-expert citizens do indeed participate in these processes. All hell breaks loose, however, when the following question is asked. Should non-experts have anything to say about scientific methodology and epistemology? After centuries of scientific racism, scientific sexism, and scientific domination of nature one might have thought this was a pertinent question to ask. Andrew Ross, Co-Editor, Social Text andrew ross 212-998-8538 american studies program, NYU 285 mercer st. 8th flr. new york, ny 10003