Re: the arrogance of postmodern mumbo jumbo
Len Piotrowski (lpiotrow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Mon, 16 Sep 1996 20:20:17 GMT
In article <51k78s$14l7@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de> bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) writes:
>[snip]
>Not just science. You can hold onto all of your favorite myths and
>ignore any contrary argument once you can look to dialectical contexts
>and deconstruct anything inconvenient. The PM-ists are by far not the
>only ones to do this. Just ask Brother Rush, or the Xian Coalition.
>They just use different language.
And too, I suppose, goes sociobiology's myth of a functional adaptationist
paradigm for human social behavior. From an anthropological perspective, one
person's mumblings about "mumbo jumbo" is another person's gobbledegook. A
common characteristic of self-validating belief systems is the definition of
the in-crowd versus the out-crowd, which by design confers authority and
power to pass judgement upon ultimate truths justifying the efficacy of the
very process of discrimination to the in-group! Ironic that sociobiology's
claim to synthesis stands in clear contrast to it's stereotypic practice of
deriding alternative points of view.
Couldn't help noting the parallels. Now back to the PM bashing!
Cheers,
--Lenny__
"If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem."
- perlstyle
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