Postmodernism, pseudosciences, religion and the left

They also expressed their concern over the fact that the postmodern fad entails an enervation of the political left that has come under its sway. Sokal and Bricmont, who have always held Noam Chomsky in the highest scientific and political esteem, cite the octogenarian American thinker in support of their argument. In the past, says Chomsky:

Left intellectuals took an active part in the lively working class culture. Some sought to compensate for the class character of the cultural institutions through programs of workers’ education, or by writing best-selling books on mathematics, science, and other topics for the general public. Remarkably, their left counterparts today often seek to deprive working people of these tools of emancipation, informing us that the “project of the Enlightenment” is dead, that we must abandon the “illusions” of science and rationality - a message that will gladden the hearts of the powerful, delighted to monopolize these instruments for their own use.

Almost 13 years have gone by since the publication of Fashionable Nonsense. Now, with the appearance of Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture, Sokal (with Jean Bricmont as co-author of some parts of the book) deals with wider-ranging and more ambitious matters than he did in the earlier work.

Apart from pseudosciences and postmodernism, the new book, which is much longer (nearly 500 pages in the OUP edition), delves into domains such as religion and ethics. The result is very good as a whole, although somewhat uneven. I believe, for example, that it wasn’t necessary to include the Social Text article, even though it has now been edited and updated with new comments. On the other hand, I think that the long chapter called “Religion, Politics and Survival” is especially brilliant. A drubbing, no less. It includes a pithy discussion on the Stephen Jay Gould’s idea of “non-overlapping magisteria” according to which science deals with facts while the sphere of religion is ethics and meaning. Sokal very convincingly argues that this position is unsustainable.

One can be sure that, for all its merits, this is a book that won’t be gracing the bookshelves of postmodernists and fans of pseudoscience.