Dear Clay Stinson:

Beyond the rant and invective, what exactly is your point about
postmodernism? That "postmodernists" have failed to develop anti-AIDS drugs?
Why should they have? The psychoanalyst you quote is a psychoanalyst, not a
medical scientist; Derrida is a philosopher; etc. 

Your writing reminds me of those quote-laden prophetic pronouncements
printed on the sides of bottles of Dr. Bronner's (All-One-God-Faith, Inc.)
shampoo. Having had enough of this gospel-thumping, I will unsubscribe. If
anyone is aware of another listserv where serious and sober discussion of
the social/cultural aspects of science takes place, please let me know
(privately). Thanks.

Adrian Ivakhiv



>Like all Con Men, great or not, Postmodernists are Name Droppers and
>Vaporous Dilettantes, perfectly and fatuously content to build Castles in
>the Air (so long as they are careful enough in their Ariel Engineering),
>offering us Moon Beams and Fairy Dust, Chimerical Utopias and The
>Metaphysical Life – in short, RHETORIC, "theory," and FEELINGS – IN THE
>PLACE OF real-world rectifications and real-world solutions to equally real
>ills, afflictions, and exceedingly grave problems – environmental, social,
>disease epidemics and pandemics, ethnic genocide (inter alia).
>
>Sorry, but this kind of argumentation founders like a ship made of the
>thickest lead.
>
>As a corollary to all that I have said, I add this one final point.  Such
>hallucinatory and vain imaginings and imaginations, hallucinatory language,
>and hallucinatory theorizing that is utterly *de rigueur* with Postmodernism
>and Postmodernists, mandates the most minute, rigorous, and  complete
>scrutiny possible by intellectuals in and out of science and, moreover, if
>and when necessary, swift public censure by ALL who value our intellectual
>future, systematic Enlightenment rationality, inquiry based on evidence and
>dispassionate reason, real justice, democracy run rationally, and common
>sense as well.  Our future as a species on this earth depends, most
>critically and right now, upon preserving the integrity of our Enlightenment
>and Scientific Heritage.