From: David Harding (davidharding@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Sun Aug 28 2005 - 07:25:18 BST
Hi all,
An author called Robert Pirsig writes a fiction book about a man called
Phaedrus.
Definition of fiction from dictionary.com:
"A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not
necessarily based on fact."
Glenn writes a story about a fiction person called Richard Loggins.
What's the difference? Does the fact that the latter claims the fiction
person as truth whereas the former claims the fiction person as fiction
change anything?
Definition of fact from dictionary.com:
"Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed."
What then of the authors whos thoughts produced these two characters to
begin with? One claimed their character as fiction and was happy to
have him accepted as such. The other claimed their character was fact
and wasn't happy to have him accepted as what he really was, fiction.
In my view this seems to be what has so many people upset, the fact that
Glenn and Straun claimed Loggins was fact, when really he was fiction.
What about the ideas the fictional Loggins held however? Just because
it's been found that Loggin's didn't exist as a person does this mean
the quality of his ideas all suddenly dissapear too? In contrast to
Glenn who still, acknowledging this problem, thinks that it does when he
says
"It turned out that the people whom he[Sokal] wanted to dupe (the
publishers of Social Text) still saw merit in his article even after he
exposed the hoax. If something similar has happened with my paper, this
is my attempt to expose the parody to those who still don't get it" .
and later on...
"Though I hope not, some of you will still manage to rationalize the
paper as having value beyond that of a parody. "
I think the quality stays right where it was.
With the MOQ honesty exists at both the social and intellectual levels.
For example, Bradford told others Loggins was fact, socially dishonest.
Bradford claims a disease to exist "neural ampblyopia" which doesn't,
intellectually dishonest. But beyond this his article actually shows
great care (and it's no surprise that some were taken away at the
conference by it) something very rare particulary from a dissenter. If
you don't like anything at all you ignore it, you don't spend many hours
writing a literary piece under an alter ego! As Pirsig himself has said,
it's probably because the dissenters have such a hard trouble trying to
find anything wrong with the MOQ that they give such a passionate
response. As has been pointed out many a time however, dissenters
provide lots of light with their heat, and this case is no exception,
helped all the more with Bradford himself using the MOQ as justification
for his paper.
"Still, there is comfort for me in knowing that the MOQ accommodates
this kind of alter-ego thing. It turns out that Richard Loggins is just
an expression of an entirely different pattern in my mind, made possible
by Horse's karmic decision to unsubscribe me."
I think even Glenn, though he might not admit it, would be happy to know
that his article has pushed the MOQ toward "academic acceptance".
Just my thoughts.
-David
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