BACK TO ENLIGHTENMENT RATIONALITY REDUX:  Hoodwinked by Postmodernist
Moonbeams and Social Constructivist Fairy Dust

Epigraph I: The superstitious, who know how to censure vice rather than to
teach virtue, and who are eager *not* to guide men by *reason* but to
restrain them by fear so that they may shun evil rather than love virtue,
have no other object than to make men as wretched as themselves. (Spinoza,
The Ethics)

Epigraph II:  Everything truly worthy is as difficult as it is rare.  (The
author – from a *recollected* excerpt  from the works of Spinoza)

Epigraph III:  What a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
Therefore he rejects *difficult* things from impatience of research.
(Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, book I, 49)

Epigraph IV: Postmodernism is the _degenerate egalitarianism of the
intelligentsia._  *It launches a non sequitur from a truism.*  The truism is
that because our knowledge of facts is conditioned in complex ways by the
contexts in which facts are encountered, the acquisition of knowledge is not
simple, immediate, and infallible.  The non sequitur:  Therefore all
assertions are equally indeterminate – and equally respectable.  All
ascriptions of truth are arbitrary, so there are no standards of
intellectual conscientiousness.  So whoever has power shall decree the
truth.  (George F. Will, "Torricelli’s Larger Point:  When is a whopper
'trivial'?  Often, according to those who say only 'perceptions' matter."
Newsweek, September 1, 1997)
-------------------------------------

A counter-argument has been propounded to my essay "Back to Enlightenment
Rationality: Or the Roots of Postmodernist *Ignes Fatui.*"   In this essay,
I delineate my rejoinder and rebuttal at some length.

(1) Clay:  >>ALL the above points and argumentation raises a very crucial
and fascinating question: Why, then, the self-manifest and pervasive debacle
and obscurantism of postmodernism at Academe today? <<

Chris:  >>I'm not sure where Dr. Stinson is at, but at the three
universities I have attended (all in California mind you), I have not seen a
"pervasive" postmodern presence. I had one professor include post-
structuralism within his sociology of knowledge course, but that was it.
Empirical argumentation and positivist epistemology seem to be the order of
the day…. Please -- most of the undergrad students I taught couldn't even
define modernity, let alone some.<<

Clay:  Three universities out of how many in the USA, or even in the very
large state of California with more than the usual per-state-share of  four
year universities compared with many of their counterparts (i.e., other
states)? with a "statistical sample" of only one professor at that one
university teaching the problematic doctrines??  OK, you've set the ground
rules for part of this discussion, so then let's do speak anecdotally for
the moment – and only for the moment mind you. According to my friends and
colleagues back east, on the west coast, and many others in-between the two
coasts, Postmodernist discourse, post-structuralist discourse, feminist
discourse, edenic ecologist discourse, anti-scientism, fundamentalist
religious discourse, New Age discourse, etc., are either (i) regnant or (ii)
making significant inroads into disciplines and college curricula where they
do not even, remotely, belong, displacing what used to go for serious
discussion, serious teaching, and even more serious research of worthy and
related philosophical and scientific issues (among the motivated) in the
non-hard-science and non-hard-mathematics courses and fields like sociology,
anthropology, psychology, and even literature. Worse, a huge welter of
professors of literature, literary critics, so-called sociologists of
knowledge, and science studies zealots (Postmodernists), nationwide, now
feel competent to pronounce on Scientific matters and Scientific Disciplines
in which their knowledge and expertise is shallow to non-existent. Even
worse, moreover, is the highly regrettable fact that there is objective
evidence that Postmodernism is serving, exceedingly well, some *reactionary
causes,* ranging from Christian Fundamentalism and Biblical Creationism, to
Hindu Fundamentalism.  As a case-in-point, consider the following data:

>>>>…"democracy," by these peculiar [i.e., social constructivist] lights, is
supposed to mean that "all ways of knowing" are to be accorded equal
epistemic dignity, with the possible exception of scientific rationalism
itself, which is naturally to be reviled as imperialistic, sexist,
homophobic, and so forth.  It seems to me that this view is not only silly,
but of NO particular use to *progressive causes,* as I understand them.  It
is, however, of some use to *reactionary causes.* The purveyors of biblical
creationism, for instances, have their antennas up for useful bits of
academic blather, and they have found a trove in the stock of catchphrases
that science studies has coined to pooh-pooh  actual science.  In fact, they
may have found actual allies, to judge by the statements one very prominent
constructionist theorist has made within my hearing. To cite another
instance, Meera Nanda has conclusively demonstrated that the impact of
Postmodernism, relativism, and anti-universalism on the Indian intellectual
left was devastating. It paralyzed the fight against religious obscurantism
and its attendant reactionary MISOGYNIST politics.  Simultaneously, it
handed the Hindu fundamentalists a heap of useful slogans to deploy.  One
result has been the displacement of science and mathematics in many public
schools by their "Vedantic" versions.  The reaction of the science studies
community as been telling, particularly in response to another outrage cited
by Nanda.  This concerns a powerful politician whose credulousness with
respect to a superstitious practice called Vastu Shastra led directly to the
destruction of a poor community.  Nanda relates:

"I have tested this case on my SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST friends here in the
U.S.  While they DO see the injustice of the situation, they DO NOT see WHY
I am so exercised by the irrationality that led to it.  We have our
superstitions in the West, they tell me.  Did not Nancy Reagan consult
astrologers?  As for my suggestion that IF we want justice, we MUST
challenge the IRRATIONALITY of the ideas that lead to injustice, I am told
that there is no need for proving that Vastu Shastra is wrong and modern
science correct.  I am told that seeing the two culturally bound
descriptions at par with each other is progressive in itself, for then
neither can claim to know the absolute truth, and this tradition will lose
its hold on people's mind.  I am told that this desire to prove that the
traditional knowledge is an incorrect representation of nature is a sign of
a scientistic mind-set, a hangover from my training in biology, that I must
overcome it if I do not want to re-engineer the society of my birth on
technocratic lines.  Finally, I am told that I am an incorrigible modernist
if I believe that Western science has any democracy-enhancing potential in
the world."

Could there be any more pointed instance of smug, insular, airtight,
infinitely condescending knowingness?  Here we have a picture of
sanctimonious science studies arrogance in full bloom. In my experience it
is quite characteristic.<<< [from More Higher Superstitions:  Knowledge,
Knowingness, and Reality, by Norman Levitt, Skeptic, Vol. 4, No.4 1996,
pages 80—81.]

[N.B.!: Again, anecdotally speaking, I can think of three major universities
within a 30 mile radius of where I live that once had, at least nominally
(for average universities) respectable philosophy, sociology, anthropology,
and literature departments and programs.  But that was 20 years ago when I
was an undergraduate.  Going to back to these universities today and looking
at the textbooks for the same  courses, I find that the serious stuff –
e.g., Jane Austin, Descartes, Herman Melville, Emile Durkheim, Plato,
Aquinas, Scotus, Hume, F.H. Bradley, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Kate
O'Flaherty Chopin, Anne Frank, Albert Einstein, inter alia – has been
displaced by unalloyed Postmodernist Puffery, the intellectual merits which
are dubious in the extreme.  Fortunately, we do not yet have "feminist
algebras," "Afrocentric physics," "postmodernist computer science" or
"feminist biology" replacing orthodox and correct algebra (e.g., college
algebra, abstract algebra), correct physics (e.g., classical mechanics,
thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, statistical physics, special relativity,
generality, etc.), correct computer science, and rigorous scientific biology
at these particular universities that I can detect by examining the
textbooks for courses in the just-mentioned disciplines YET, and probably
not at many four year universities in the USA on a large scale, again, as of
YET.  The reason for this should be clear to any and all thinking and
rational persons. IF this ever were to occur on a *large scale,*
nation-wide, ALL of these disciplines would fall apart –  we could not
adequately train individuals to run our technocracy nor to do modern
science, mathematics, engineering, digital and analogue electronics theory
and design properly and correctly; there would be no doctors (and thus,
eventually, no scientific medicine and pharmacology) and, in
all-too-short-order, we would be thrust back into another Intellectual and
Cultural Dark Ages….)]


Substantively speaking, I now address the intellectual merits of response
(1) of Chris'; and in reply, I have the following to say. The besetting
fallacies, factual errors, and flaws in this first part (i.e., (1)) of his
response are threefold.

The first cognitive flaw, a logical fallacy (et al.), committed vis-à-vis my
previous essay is precisely this, namely, The Fallacy of the Hasty
Generalization – As if one course with one professor, out of a meager three
universities can, by any stretch of a perfervid imagination, qualify as
anything more than the most tenuous and *anecdotal* evidence in a country,
the USA, which has at least 2000 four year universities – and it's
absolutely and unqualifiedly anecdotal and tenuous.  In science and
mathematics, in order to determine a more nearly adequate answer to
questions of this sort, we would have to (i) engage in a massive empirical
research project involving many random samples of universities around the
country, (ii) perform elaborate statistical analyses of the data, (iii)
construct the appropriate confidence intervals and compute correlation
coefficients, and so forth. Additionally, if you MUST invoke anecdotal
evidence (an egregious *long-term* error in scientific methodology I might
add), would it not, perhaps, be wisest to consult (a) those who have not
jumped onto the academic-gravy-train of Postmodernism or any of its
evolutes, and (b) those who have traveled to many many universities around
the country as observers in their capacity of scrutinizing and analyzing the
Byzantine-sieve-Baroque multifaceted phenomenon of Postmodernism in
action???

The second cognitive flaw in the Chris' argument/response is that it
contains a wholly misleading and insidious equation of (i) whether or not
students at Academe can *define,* say, post-structuralism and/or Modernity
as understood by Postmodernists, with (ii) Postmodernism's manifest
pervasiveness and deleterious impact on at least American Academe.  Ergo,
the real issue is decidedly NOT whether the "average" undergraduate student
can *define* ANY of the welter of terms in the Postmodernist Lexicon at the
"average" university (or any one of the ever-proliferating numbers of
neologisms spawned by Infernal  Pseudo-Disciplines and Intellectual
Vaporware subsumed under the rubric of Postmodernism) but, rather, the
inimical IMPACT that Postmodernism (e.g., multiculturalism, Afrocentrism,
deconstruction, post-structuralism, social constructivism, relativism,
antirealism, etc.) has had, and is having, on the life of the mind and
behavior of students, faculty, and culture at Academe itself, as well as on
the (USA) body politic if one takes the long view.

[N.B.!:  Anecdotally speaking, I have heard, over and over and over again,
complaints from professor after professor, that far too many students at the
universities so affected (i.e. by Postmodernism) no longer take their
science, philosophy, and religion courses as seriously as they did even 10
years ago, especially philosophy and religion – they are able to, with a
relativist nod, a deconstructionist wink, and an "all ways-of-knowing are on
equal footing" attitude, totally ignore the most powerful arguments and
evidence against their positions (e.g., evolutionary biology,  the
objectivity of science, the existence of extra-mental reality, or whatever
other cherished doctrine may be called into question by quotidian facts,
logic, common sense, philosophical analysis, painstaking research, and
well-established scientific paradigms). And many really do perfunctorily
parrot back the slogans of Postmodernism while doing so.]


Speaking of intellectual dissembling and professorial mystification, I now
turn to Derrida, The Supreme Master of Intellectual Mystification, and a
hierophant's hierophant, himself.  Derrida's pontifical pronouncements (ex
cathedra, with Postmodernism's absolutely automatic *nihil obstat* and
*imprimatur*) on the alleged variability of the speed of light  c, in vacuo,
along with his "conscription of science as metaphor," truly does help in the
efforts of the acolytes of Postmodern Superstition-sieve-Intellectual Fads
and Obscurantism to believe whatever delusion (or delusions) suits their
caprices, vanities, careerism, pet thesis/theses, Machiavellian academic
politics, and what not.  But, by all means, let me let the Master speak for
Himself:


The "Einsteinian constant is not a constant, not a center.  It is the very
concept of variability – it is, finally, the concept of the game.  In other
words, it is not the concept of something – of a center from which an
observer could master the field – but the very concept of the game."
(Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the human
Sciences," page 267.)


This heap of double-talk and banalities regarding the, simply
decreed-by-the-non-scientist Derrida, of the (claimed) variability of the
speed of light *in vacuo,* along with the nearly unintelligible and totally
irrelevant Postmodernist piece of Intellectual Vaporware of "the concept of
the game" such as we hear from this postmodern Sage will, no doubt, come as
something of a surprise to experimental physicists who have, through
increasingly accurate experiments, measured the speed of light *in vacuo* to
be roughly 186,282 miles/sec (If an authoritative reference is required,
consult  *A New Dictionary of Physics,* by H.J. Gray and Alan Isaacs,
Longman, 1975, page 590: c is approx. 2.997925 x 10^(8) meters/sec which,
upon conversion to miles for the distance unit, yields 186,282.42
miles/sec).  It (i.e., c *in vacuo*) shows no sign, none whatsoever, of
varying in the slightest. To this I would add that if there is ANY game (or
are any games) being played in this context, Postmodernist or otherwise, it
is by Derrida – Stygian Lord and Autocrat of Postmodernist Sophistry. Worthy
of note along these lines, is the incredibly good news that famed literary
critic *Frank Lentricchia* stunned the community of lit-crit scholars and
Postmodernists by an adroit and elegant public recantation, in which the
absolute fatuities of Postmodernism and "theory" are summarily and
stridently denounced (see "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary
Critic," Lingua Franca, September/October, 1996, 59 – 67).  Some of
Lentricchia's utterances along these repentant lines are:

"I believe that what is now called literary criticism is a form of Xeroxing.
Tell me your theory and I'll tell you *in advance* what you'll say about any
work of literature, especially those texts that you *haven't* read.  Texts
are not read, they are preread.  All of literature is X and nothing but X,
and literary study is the naming (exposure) of X.  For X, read imperialism,
sexism, homophobia, and so on.  All of literary history is said to be a
display of X, because human history is nothing but the structure of X.  By
naming X, we supposedly name the social order (ordure) as it is, and always
has been. *An advanced literature department is the place where you can
write a dissertation on Wittgenstein and never have to face an examiner from
the philosophy department.  An advanced literature department is the place
were you may speak endlessly about gender and never have to face the
scrutiny of a biologist, because gender is just a social construction, and
nature doesn't exist.*"
[from More Higher Superstitions:  Knowledge, Knowingness, and Reality, Vol.
4, No. 4, 1996, page 79]

Contd.