Saturday, March 11, 2006
(6:09 PM) | Brad:
Let the True Work Begin
On Theory: Speeches To Its Smug Despisers[17:32] Brad: I really cannot stand the smugness of Crooked Timber
[17:33] Brad: & other associated blogs
[17:33] Adam: Yeah.
[17:33] Adam: They don't follow the trends! They have an eye for genuine quality!
[17:34] Brad: IMPORTANT work
[17:34] Brad: And when all else fails, just cry Sokal
[17:34] Adam: I've changed the taglines accordingly.
[17:35] Brad: I mean ... there's this weird feeling amongst so many that even at its height theory threatened the sciences
[17:35] Brad: and that's just absurd
[17:35] Brad: the last I looked the military industry still employed engineers and scientists, and not pomo theorists
[17:35] Brad: lit. theory wonks, etc.
[17:37] Adam: And plus I'm just so fucking sick of science-oriented people basically disallowing any non-scientist from so much as mentioning science because they "get it wrong" in some undefined way.
[17:37] Adam: Always undefined!
[17:37] Brad: and when non-scientists cry foul at the abuse of theory, we're shut down
[17:38] Brad: when we suggest that maybe they don't understand, we're called pretentious
[17:38] Brad: when we suggest that they need to know more, we're told that theory should be super-obvious
[17:41] Adam: Yeah, exactly -- it's an attempt to make sure no conversation happens at all.
[17:42] Adam: Okay, but then the next step is -- we're being obtuse and refusing to deal with the "real issues" if we bring in any of these rhetorical issues or analyze the motives behind statements.
[17:42] Brad: Right ... which leads to the full circle. Because when we try to deal w/ "real issues" i.e., the stuff of their respective fields, we're back where we started
[17:43] Adam: All statements of self-proclaimed "scientists" ad extra are power-plays.
[17:46] Brad: We should just begin blatantly saying, "Well, obviously the scientists are idiots."
[17:46] Brad: "Let's move on to the real work of theory."
[17:46] Brad: embrace the caricacture
[17:47] Adam: Scientists are robots.
[17:47] Adam: They do great work! Three cheers! But they aren't qualified to talk to us about what they're doing.
[17:47] Adam: Or about anything other than what they're doing.
[17:47] Brad: Maybe Heidegger came to hate science because of too many lunch conversations w/ scientists
[17:48] Adam: Scientists do not think -- they simply and immediately know.
[17:48] Brad: one need not think about reality that much if it is, you know, real.
[17:48] Brad: it simply is
[17:48] Brad: accept it
[17:49] Brad: a mixture of common sense & the absence of self-consciousness made this country great, Adam
[17:49] Adam: It's as though thinking that there are questions in principle (rather than questions we haven't yet gotten around to answering) is a sign of a stunted intellectual development.
[17:50] Brad: or, more importantly, a threat
[17:50] Adam: It's kind of a neat trick that "science" just means "knowledge."
[17:50] Adam: It's the only available type of "knowledge."
[17:50] Adam: I kind of wish that we had something like "Wissenschaft" in English.
[17:51] Brad: Yes ... of course. Even theory is parastic on science. Because it knows it needs such "knowledge"
[17:51] Brad: it simply bastardizes it for its own ends
[17:51] Adam: But only scientists have earned the right to talk about science, because only they really know stuff.
[17:51] Brad: Theory must be about something ... but the do not have the tools or ability to be about anything
[17:52] Brad: therefore ... theory is empty-headed nonsense
[17:53] Brad: Actually, you know, I'm more concerned at the unified notion of "theory" than I am anything else.
[17:53] Brad: anything non-scientific, as such, becomes wonkery
[17:53] Adam: It's just the same as what religious people do with scientific "theories."
[17:53] Brad: True
[17:54] Adam: Scientists are fundamentalists.
[17:54] Brad: Yes ... because acknowledging the non-scientific as knowledge would threaten a wholesale reevaluation
[17:54] Brad: and this is untenable -- the groundrules cannot be questioned
[17:54] Brad: or changed
[17:56] Adam: I mean, look at how far we've gotten!
[17:56] Brad: Once you begin to question science, Adam, you end up like the Bush Administration's policy toward science
[17:56] Adam: It's like Descartes said -- walk through the woods in ONE MOTHER FUCKING DIRECTION for all of eternity, and before long you'll have produced the nuclear bomb.
[17:56] Brad: it's a slippery slope, this!
[17:57] Brad: love it or leave it, Motherfucker! accept science, or shut the fuck up ... entirely, or else
[17:57] Brad: scientists are the new redneck
[17:59] Adam: We must post this conversation as a blog post.
[17:59] Brad: there is, at times, a certain poetry to IM conversation
