malgosia askanas wrote:
> For example, there are
> a number of people in physics who are continuing Reich's work or are
> pursuing research that assumes the existence of an energetic aether.
How ironic that you are saying this on the Foucault list! Foucault who devoted his last major work to the
essentialization of sex - of which Reich must be the most devoted exponent - as a bourgeois ideology. But show me a
single computer scientist who involves Foucault in any way and I will consider your point made...if you can.
> Now these people are not regarded by mainstream scientists as doing _science_,
> they are regarded as crackpots. Many of them undoubtedly _are_ crackpots,
> but the point is: you probably won't hear about them as "scientists" if
> you talk to "official scientists".
It is just those official scientists who concern me the most. They are the ones who make decisions which shape the
lives of so many. The issue I'm trying to raise here is a political issue of praxis. Those people don't care and don't
need to care and that means, to me, that there is no credible opposition. Whether or not there is an incredible
opposition makes no difference. Crackpots are politically irrelevant by definition.
> I have no doubt that they see it as a threat, but this doesn't mean that
> the conclusions of science studies come as some kind of shock which,
> ideally, should cause people to change their ways. The threat, I think,
> is not that the science-studies stuff is new and shocking, but that it is
> sort of in vogue and so a ritual wrist-slapping is in order. Just like there
> is nothing new and shocking about the fact that politicians have sex with
> interns; nevertheless, if it is revealed, there must be a ritual denial.
As for whether it is shocking or would make people "change their ways", as you've put it with your churlish sarcasm,
there would be little point in such study if it were otherwise. As for your ritual wrist-slapping hypothesis, it would
imply a tacit admission of the truth of their claims, not the ignorance, ready dismissal, and occasional righteous
indignation which is apparent. The official scientists are the police of the hospital general, of which the STS folks
are the new inmates. If you think this is so banal, then why do you read Foucault?
> For example, there are
> a number of people in physics who are continuing Reich's work or are
> pursuing research that assumes the existence of an energetic aether.
How ironic that you are saying this on the Foucault list! Foucault who devoted his last major work to the
essentialization of sex - of which Reich must be the most devoted exponent - as a bourgeois ideology. But show me a
single computer scientist who involves Foucault in any way and I will consider your point made...if you can.
> Now these people are not regarded by mainstream scientists as doing _science_,
> they are regarded as crackpots. Many of them undoubtedly _are_ crackpots,
> but the point is: you probably won't hear about them as "scientists" if
> you talk to "official scientists".
It is just those official scientists who concern me the most. They are the ones who make decisions which shape the
lives of so many. The issue I'm trying to raise here is a political issue of praxis. Those people don't care and don't
need to care and that means, to me, that there is no credible opposition. Whether or not there is an incredible
opposition makes no difference. Crackpots are politically irrelevant by definition.
> I have no doubt that they see it as a threat, but this doesn't mean that
> the conclusions of science studies come as some kind of shock which,
> ideally, should cause people to change their ways. The threat, I think,
> is not that the science-studies stuff is new and shocking, but that it is
> sort of in vogue and so a ritual wrist-slapping is in order. Just like there
> is nothing new and shocking about the fact that politicians have sex with
> interns; nevertheless, if it is revealed, there must be a ritual denial.
As for whether it is shocking or would make people "change their ways", as you've put it with your churlish sarcasm,
there would be little point in such study if it were otherwise. As for your ritual wrist-slapping hypothesis, it would
imply a tacit admission of the truth of their claims, not the ignorance, ready dismissal, and occasional righteous
indignation which is apparent. The official scientists are the police of the hospital general, of which the STS folks
are the new inmates. If you think this is so banal, then why do you read Foucault?