Re: RE: tompaine.com
Sabri Oncu wrote: He simply cries very loudly whenever he needs attention. As a Turkish saying goes, The baby who doesn't cry, doesn't get the milk. i am perfectly happy with summarizing sokal's behaviour as above. I love my son more for that ability of his. unfortunately i nurse no paternal pride towards sokal! ;-) --ravi
RE: tompaine.com
Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied, in part because he's never really read it. Doug Good for him. I keep reading many postmodernists almost daily. They are here: http:\www.gazetem.net My favorite two are these: http://www.gazetem.net/ahmetaltan.asp http://www.gazetem.net/mehmetaltan.asp They are brothers. The older one, Ahmet, wrote the first postmodernist novel in Turkish: Sudaki Iz/The Trace on Water at a time when the concept of postmodernism did not exist. It was about two men, a revolutionary and an individualist. Don't remember much after 18 years or so but what I vaguely remember was that the individualist was his hero with great sexual powers, under whom a woman died of a heart attack beacuse of sexual excitement, whereas the revolutionary was a pathetic, sick, miserable, insincere man with serious sexual problems. In those days, a Leninist by the name of Yalcin Kucuk used to call Ahmet and a few of his likes, like the former President Turgut Ozal, Septemberists, after the September 12, 1980 coup. He used this term because he thought they came to where they were not because they deserved it but because the September 12, 1980 military coup helped them to get there. They are now called postmodernists. They say, there is no reality, nothing is knowable and everything is relative. Their message is as simple as this: If the rape is inevitable, lie back an enjoy it or, put another way, resistance is futile. In these days they are after inventing a new concept: liberal-social synthesis, whatever that means. The younger one's, Mehmet's, most recent book is entitled Marksist-Liberal/Marxist-Liberal. I haven't read it yet but I will, when I get there. It is not that they are wrong all the time but that their basic premises, the ones above, are false. I don't really know why I keep reading such garbage. Curiosity I suppose. Sabri
Re: RE: tompaine.com
Sabri Oncu wrote: Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied, in part because he's never really read it. Doug Good for him. Attacking people you haven't read and/or barely understand isn't my idea of what intellectuals are supposed to do, but your support for him does explain some of your previously inexplicable sympathies. Doug
Re: Re: RE: tompaine.com
Attacking people you haven't read and/or barely understand isn't my idea of what intellectuals are supposed to do ... Doug Unless, that is, what is not understood is not understandable. The following is from volume three of Robert Skidelsky's bio of John Maynard Keynes: Keynes's 'blind spot' about Marxism remained. A few days' holiday gave him time to read Joan Robinson's short book An Essay on Marxian Economics. 'I found it fascinating,' he wrote to her. 'This in spite of the fact that there is something intrinsically boring in an attempt to make sense of what is in fact not sense I am left with the feeling ... that he [Marx] had a penetrating and original flair but was a very poor thinker indeed' Carl _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Re: Re: Re: RE: tompaine.com
Carl Remick wrote: Attacking people you haven't read and/or barely understand isn't my idea of what intellectuals are supposed to do ... Unless, that is, what is not understood is not understandable. by which token sokal is as much a fool as those he ridicules, for i am sure i will find his papers in theoretical physics forever incomprehensible, whatever preparation i might undergo. chomsky, in these matters, sincerely suggests that in the hard sciences he can ultimately learn how to understand a theory - there are people who can teach him how to do that (presumably starting from some simple rational axioms that chomsky comprehends). chomsky of course is being too kind in assuming the same is true for all humans. even if every human being, in theory, can understand and accept the results of quantum physics, in reality the complexity of the process, the years of preparation needed for it, makes it possible only for a select few. until sokal and chomsky are willing to subject themselves to that sort of training (that the layperson would need to understand theoretical physics or linguistics) their comments, based on this particular line of reasoning, are premature (at best). of course sokal will respond that he understands and refutes the theories of the postmodernists. i understand neither, and as a lay person all i see is a turf war, with the confusions of the postmodernists matched by the childishness of sokal, and note the anti-democratic nature of sokal and levitt's defense of their particular brand of activity from outside criticism (i started my life on pen-l with a response to a post on these matters, pointing out levitt's opinion that democracy had outlived its use and your regular joe is not equipped to participate in making decisions, that activity now being best performed by utilizing the results of complex science. michael pugliese responded to my post with a set of links, one of which was a page that reported levitt to have said that he was being facetious, or something of that sort). --ravi
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Robinson, along with Meek, did to Marx what Samuelson did to Keynes -- show how his work could be interpreted in terms of respectable economics by removing much that is valuable. I doubt that either felt that they were violating the work that they were interpreting. I spent an afternoon with Robinson in the late 60s. She seemed like a wonderful woman, enthusiastic about Mao, disdainful of some of the profs. in the Berkeley econ dept. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: tompaine.com
LP said: is making a calculated effort to appear leftish. Charles Peters shares Kuttner's Democratic Leadership Council politics. As some here know, Kuttner is on the board of the organization that employs me. So you can make of that whatever you like. All I want to say is that Kuttner, whatever his faults (which you won't hear from me, duh), is not DLC. He and a bunch of cronies founded The American Prospect and EPI to counter the DLC. Some might reason that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the DLC and Kuttner, but that would gloss over a lot. mbs
RE: RE: tompaine.com
Title: RE: [PEN-L:26769] RE: tompaine.com also, is it true that Kuttner is pretending to be leftist by being associated with tompaine.com? or is he a tompaine.com-type leftist who is pretending to be more moderate in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT? or is he trying to build a coalition with the lefists? in any event, I don't think it's useful to attach a label to Kuttner and reject him. He says some interesting things, even though I don't like his focus on the wonderful[*] Democratic Party. The key is he a logical thinker who bases his conclusions on fact and doesn't leave important things (such as class relations) out? or does he provide an incomplete picture that can complement others' incomplete pictures to allow us to develop a more complete understanding and a guide for political practice? [*] irony intended. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 12:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26769] RE: tompaine.com LP said: is making a calculated effort to appear leftish. Charles Peters shares Kuttner's Democratic Leadership Council politics. As some here know, Kuttner is on the board of the organization that employs me. So you can make of that whatever you like. All I want to say is that Kuttner, whatever his faults (which you won't hear from me, duh), is not DLC. He and a bunch of cronies founded The American Prospect and EPI to counter the DLC. Some might reason that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the DLC and Kuttner, but that would gloss over a lot. mbs
RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com
Kuttner, tompaine.com, and Moyers are political comrades. How much more 'left' one is than the other is a trivial question. How left they all are compared to your ideal, or to what you think is defensible, is more to the point. By the way, Paul Starr, TAP co-editor, is notably less liberal than Kuttner. mbs -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Devine, James Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 3:44 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:26772] RE: RE: tompaine.com also, is it true that Kuttner is pretending to be leftist by being associated with tompaine.com? or is he a tompaine.com-type leftist who is pretending to be more moderate in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT? or is he trying to build a coalition with the lefists? in any event, I don't think it's useful to attach a label to Kuttner and reject him. He says some interesting things, even though I don't like his focus on the wonderful[*] Democratic Party. The key is he a logical thinker who bases his conclusions on fact and doesn't leave important things (such as class relations) out? or does he provide an incomplete picture that can complement others' incomplete pictures to allow us to develop a more complete understanding and a guide for political practice? [*] irony intended. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
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Title: RE: [PEN-L:26774] RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com Like Max, I really don't care how left someone is. It's not like there's a way of measuring such things along some hard-and-fast and objective spectrum. Besides, what's left changes over time. Back in the 1940s, supporting the state of Israel was quite a leftist thing to do. Now it isn't. Recently, I heard on pen-l that Noam Chomsky isn't as leftist as people think. He also can't walk on water. Similarly, I heard on pen-l that Alan Sokal was a social democrat. Who cares? Does his status as a social democrat imply that he's worse than some creep who runs a small sect of five people which claims to have the correct line (or program)? should we shun Sokal and reject everything he says out of hand? Just as Michael Perelman says we shouldn't characterize each others' politics, we should down-play the characterization of the politics of those outside the list. The content of their politics is more important than the label. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 1:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26774] RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com Kuttner, tompaine.com, and Moyers are political comrades. How much more 'left' one is than the other is a trivial question. How left they all are compared to your ideal, or to what you think is defensible, is more to the point. By the way, Paul Starr, TAP co-editor, is notably less liberal than Kuttner. mbs -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Devine, James Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 3:44 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:26772] RE: RE: tompaine.com also, is it true that Kuttner is pretending to be leftist by being associated with tompaine.com? or is he a tompaine.com-type leftist who is pretending to be more moderate in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT? or is he trying to build a coalition with the lefists? in any event, I don't think it's useful to attach a label to Kuttner and reject him. He says some interesting things, even though I don't like his focus on the wonderful[*] Democratic Party. The key is he a logical thinker who bases his conclusions on fact and doesn't leave important things (such as class relations) out? or does he provide an incomplete picture that can complement others' incomplete pictures to allow us to develop a more complete understanding and a guide for political practice? [*] irony intended. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: tompaine.com
Max Sawicky wrote: As some here know, Kuttner is on the board of the organization that employs me. So you can make of that whatever you like. All I want to say is that Kuttner, whatever his faults (which you won't hear from me, duh), is not DLC. He and a bunch of cronies founded The American Prospect and EPI to counter the DLC. Some might reason that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the DLC and Kuttner, but that would gloss over a lot. Yup. I talked with someone who recently interviewed for a job at DLC, and it was made clear that they *hate* Kuttner, and would love to see TAP vaporize. Which, if the rumors are correct, may be about to happen. Doug
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I largely agree with Jim. There are times when it is important to understand a person's politics; other times, you can do just as well to take what they have to offer. Chomsky is a perfect example for me. I don't agree with all of his politics or all of his analysis. But the vast majority of what he says has a wonderful influence. I wish that I could do as much good in the world. I sometimes listen to RadioNation with Marc Cooper. He was a horrible influence in the Pacifica wars in my opinion, yet sometimes he has interesting guests and even has some worthwhile things to say. I think of Marx. He could say positive things about, say, Malthus when he found something of value -- for example, when Malthus attributed greater productivity in England to a longer working day. He could also say negative things about allies when they were wrong. On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 01:34:15PM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Like Max, I really don't care how left someone is. It's not like there's a way of measuring such things along some hard-and-fast and objective spectrum. Besides, what's left changes over time. Back in the 1940s, supporting the state of Israel was quite a leftist thing to do. Now it isn't. Recently, I heard on pen-l that Noam Chomsky isn't as leftist as people think. He also can't walk on water. Similarly, I heard on pen-l that Alan Sokal was a social democrat. Who cares? Does his status as a social democrat imply that he's worse than some creep who runs a small sect of five people which claims to have the correct line (or program)? should we shun Sokal and reject everything he says out of hand? Just as Michael Perelman says we shouldn't characterize each others' politics, we should down-play the characterization of the politics of those outside the list. The content of their politics is more important than the label. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 1:10 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26774] RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com Kuttner, tompaine.com, and Moyers are political comrades. How much more 'left' one is than the other is a trivial question. How left they all are compared to your ideal, or to what you think is defensible, is more to the point. By the way, Paul Starr, TAP co-editor, is notably less liberal than Kuttner. mbs -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Devine, James Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 3:44 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:26772] RE: RE: tompaine.com also, is it true that Kuttner is pretending to be leftist by being associated with tompaine.com? or is he a tompaine.com-type leftist who is pretending to be more moderate in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT? or is he trying to build a coalition with the lefists? in any event, I don't think it's useful to attach a label to Kuttner and reject him. He says some interesting things, even though I don't like his focus on the wonderful[*] Democratic Party. The key is he a logical thinker who bases his conclusions on fact and doesn't leave important things (such as class relations) out? or does he provide an incomplete picture that can complement others' incomplete pictures to allow us to develop a more complete understanding and a guide for political practice? [*] irony intended. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: tompaine.com
I am reading my mail out of order, so I should have responded to Lou's note first. I think that what he says here is correct, except we should be cautious about much that we read and hear. On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 02:23:14PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Clearly there is useful information on tompaine.com, but I would urge the reader to exercise a little caution considering the background and funding. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: tompaine.com
On Sun, 9 Jun 2002 15:10:53 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: Chomsky is a perfect example for me. I don't agree with all of his politics or all of his analysis. But the vast majority of what he says has a wonderful influence. I wish that I could do as much good in the world. I guess that Michael Perelman is trying that I was correct in calling attention to and condemning Noam Chomsky's free speech absolutism as applied to the right of academics, including Chomsky himself, to receive funding for the military even on projects that might result in the massacre of innocent peasants. And that he himself would have sided with antiwar protestors trying to rid places like MIT or Harvard of laboratories of death, as Chomsky would have put it. (Of course, it was a delusion to think that such a name change would have taken place. It would be more reasonable to expect that the military would have taken its filthy funds somewhere else just to get the students off its case.) I sometimes listen to RadioNation with Marc Cooper. He was a horrible influence in the Pacifica wars in my opinion, yet sometimes he has interesting guests and even has some worthwhile things to say. Marc Cooper is an enemy of the radical movement. I think of Marx. He could say positive things about, say, Malthus when he found something of value -- for example, when Malthus attributed greater productivity in England to a longer working day. He could also say negative things about allies when they were wrong. You and I are different, Michael. For me it is more important to make telling criticisms, even when they are made against people with saintly reputations. -- Louis Proyect, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 06/12/2002 Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
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Yup. I talked with someone who recently interviewed for a job at DLC, and it was made clear that they *hate* Kuttner, and would love to see TAP vaporize. Which, if the rumors are correct, may be about to happen. Doug Kuttner's opposition to Clinton--the quintessential DLC'er--could certainly not be based on any questions of principle. Instead, it would appear that he grew hostile to Clinton only after the Arkansas politician went way overboard in pursuing his corporate agenda. In the beginning, however, Kuttner fawned over Clinton as did everybody else at the New Republic. Financial Times (London), December 17, 1992, Thursday Big deal at Little Rock: Economic summit solved no problems but it was a tour de force by Clinton By MICHAEL PROWSE THE two-day economic 'summit' in Little Rock that many feared would be a public relations disaster was a personal triumph for Mr Clinton. In 19 hours of televised debate he demonstrated his mastery of an extraordinary range of complex issues; indeed, as the tireless moderator, he seemed to have a better grasp of the minutiae of most topics than many of the invited experts. As one participant put it, Mr Clinton combined 'the leadership qualities of the class president with the expertise of the class nerd'. He also showed a keen wit. When Mr Robert Kuttner, an economics columnist for New Republic Magazine, lapsed into almost obsequious praise, describing the conference as 'magical' - the 'defining moment' of his presidency, Mr Clinton shot back: 'I hope it is not all downhill from here. ' -- Louis Proyect, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 06/12/2002 Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
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Devine, James wrote: Similarly, I heard on pen-l that Alan Sokal was a social democrat. Who cares? Does his status as a social democrat imply that he's worse than some creep who runs a small sect of five people which claims to have the correct line (or program)? should we shun Sokal and reject everything he says out of hand? Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied, in part because he's never really read it. Doug
Re: Re: tompaine.com
Lou, Malthus, like Cooper, was also an enemy of the working class, but Marx would take from him what he found useful and credit him for it. I do not agree with all that Chomsky says. I thought that I was clear in that respect, but he has done more than anyone else on the left to get a progressive message across. On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 06:12:36PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: On Sun, 9 Jun 2002 15:10:53 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: Chomsky is a perfect example for me. I don't agree with all of his politics or all of his analysis. But the vast majority of what he says has a wonderful influence. I wish that I could do as much good in the world. I guess that Michael Perelman is trying that I was correct in calling attention to and condemning Noam Chomsky's free speech absolutism as applied to the right of academics, including Chomsky himself, to receive funding for the military even on projects that might result in the massacre of innocent peasants. And that he himself would have sided with antiwar protestors trying to rid places like MIT or Harvard of laboratories of death, as Chomsky would have put it. (Of course, it was a delusion to think that such a name change would have taken place. It would be more reasonable to expect that the military would have taken its filthy funds somewhere else just to get the students off its case.) I sometimes listen to RadioNation with Marc Cooper. He was a horrible influence in the Pacifica wars in my opinion, yet sometimes he has interesting guests and even has some worthwhile things to say. Marc Cooper is an enemy of the radical movement. I think of Marx. He could say positive things about, say, Malthus when he found something of value -- for example, when Malthus attributed greater productivity in England to a longer working day. He could also say negative things about allies when they were wrong. You and I are different, Michael. For me it is more important to make telling criticisms, even when they are made against people with saintly reputations. -- Louis Proyect, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 06/12/2002 Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com
Title: RE: [PEN-L:26794] Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com Doug, I wasn't defending Sokal. Instead, I was arguing against indiscriminate use of political labels, as if we should assume that someone is wrong on all counts just because they're a social democrat. It's probably true he didn't read the literature he lampooned very seriously, but he must have read it well enough to get published in that journal. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Doug Henwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 3:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:26794] Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: tompaine.com Devine, James wrote: Similarly, I heard on pen-l that Alan Sokal was a social democrat. Who cares? Does his status as a social democrat imply that he's worse than some creep who runs a small sect of five people which claims to have the correct line (or program)? should we shun Sokal and reject everything he says out of hand? Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied, in part because he's never really read it. Doug
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Speaking of the glorious days of Clinton, I was just reminded yesterday that Ira Magaziner was behind the ICANN mess as well as Hilary's health care fiasco. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: tompaine.com
Doug Henwood wrote:
Devine, James wrote:
Similarly, I heard on pen-l that Alan Sokal was a social democrat.
Who cares? Does his status as a social democrat imply that he's worse
than some creep who runs a small sect of five people which claims to
have the correct line (or program)? should we shun Sokal and reject
everything he says out of hand?
Of course, he didn't really say much about the literature he parodied,
in part because he's never really read it.
well he did write a book with bricmont ('intellectual impostors'),
as i am sure you know, offering an analysis of the illogic of the
folks he didn't like... a critique of the analysis could be that it
was simplistic and outdated, many of the criticisms he raised
having been hashed many times over in philosophy of science and
responded to (for eg, his criticism of feyerabend, and his dragging
out that old horse context of discovery vs context of justification).
the debate was also carried out by chomsky, ehrenreich and the
usual suspects on z-magazine. i always find it amusing that chomsky
starts off his sokal'ish position in these debates with sentences of
the form well, in the hard sciences, we. is linguistics really
a hard science? appeal to authority doesn't hurt i guess (of course
none of this posturing diminishes my respect for chomsky).
--ravi
