Posted Monday, February 10 If the shoe fits. . . . A few days ago the 2Blowhards billowed us pleasantly on to an amusing blast against the MLA, courtesy of Mark Goldblatt. The MLA Convention is graduation day from Clown College, and my purpose here is not to call more attention to the preponderance of big floppy shoes. Thereby causing the reader’s gaze to fall upon the offending footwear; and to linger even while Goldblatt moves on to a number of potentially valid points. Chris Bertram, over Junius way, has got it about right: For all the fun of such pieces, they have a crucial defect, that while they leave their authors feeling good, they don't get taken seriously by the people who engage such theory. True. But if getting taken seriously requires taking seriously? Flop, flop, flop, flop. Certain people are NOT making this easy. Bertram recommends a dose of Bernard Williams, who thoughtfully collects many of Goldblatt’s victims under the heading ‘deniers’ – deniers of truth: in some way shape or form – and gives them a semi-sympathetic, though ultimately stern hearing. Sympathetic in that he acknowledges that much of the silliness may be cosmetic, masking genuine concerns with serious things; stern in that he does not deny that the imperative – lose the shoes – is philosophically compelling. I’ll complement Bertram’s effort by quoting some bits I especially like from the first chapter of Williams book (thanks to Bertram for the link). Of course all such discussions have their time, and the intense criticism in this spirit that was for a while directed to such things as literary interpretation and the possibility of objective history may now, to some extent, be passing. But this does not mean that the real problems have gone away. Indeed, the real problems have been there, as Nietzsche understood, before the label of "post-modernism" made them a matter of public debate, and they remain there now. Moreover, there is a danger that the decline of the more dramatic confrontations may do no more than register an inert cynicism, the kind of calm that in personal relations can follow a series of hysterical rows. If the passion for truthfulness is merely controlled and stilled without being satisfied, it will kill the activities it is supposed to support. This may be one of the reasons why, at the present time, the study of the humanities runs a risk of sliding from professional seriousness, through professionalization, to a finally disenchanted careerism. Indeed. This is very important. The high-tide of ‘theory’ has significantly receded, but what has been left behind on the beach of literary studies – for example, a vague feeling that one really ought to be doing something ‘theoretically significant’ - is odd driftwood, to say the least. Fortunately, I already wrote a 15, 000 word philosophical dialogue on the subject (PDF) . So I don’t have to blog about it at length. Posted Sunday, February 9 What type of crazy person is Michael Moorcock? SF author L. Neil Smith (whom I've never read, though I'm curious now) is posting over on Samizdata about libertarianism in sci-fi, and some people have left interesting comments. A few things strike me. First of all, he says that "sci-fi" is pronounced "skiffy." In the 1950s and 1960s, when I was a young reader of skiffy (the correct way to pronounce "sci-fi"), socialist views were predominant in the genre. That is completely insane. Not the socialist part; he's pretty right about that. OK, maybe he's English or something, but...skiffy? "My mum's made treacle pie tonight and I've got a new skiffy comical book--it's got lazers! [note: pronounced loixars]--d'you want to come over, Nigel?" No, fine, skiffy; it's all you Mr. Smith. The world don't move to the beat of just one drum, after all. Obviously some well-informed people pronounce it skiffy and I just never knew about it. Modern day SF writers get all sniffy about the label sci-fi anyway, though I don't understand that either. It's cool. One of the commenters suggests that Micheal Moorcock is a sort of libertarian because of his "muscular anarchism." Jerry Cornelius and whatnot. My immediate reaction was to scoff at this because I think of Micheal Moorcock as a fruitcake lefty (not that there's anything wrong with that.) But why? Well, I think of the anarchic philosophy exemplified by Cornelius as being of a piece with some very irritating aspects of sixties/early seventies culture. "Let's get wasted, ball some chicks, and ramble on." That sort of thing. One of my mom's main complaints with the era was guys who would call you "uptight" because you didn't want to have sex with them. "Come on, why don't we just do what's natural. Don't let society dictate who you should love." Right, but, I just don't want to have sex with you, personally. My mom has lead me to belive that body odor was often an issue here. That's the sort of patchouli-scented unfortunateness that seems to me to waft up from the pages of the Cornelius chronicles. Like, he turns into a black guy! And they've got all these killer drugs, and it's like, the future! But let's see what the internet has to say. Well...the evidence I gathered after an exhausting 15 second search is a bit thin, but I think enough to say that he ain't no libertarian (that's OK, I'm not either, at least not by the Samizdata's standards.) He thinks Lewis Lapham is sneering and unpleasant: 10 points for you, Mike. You hear in Lewis Lapham's tone a deep raising of his and his readers' self-esteem at the expense of a rather badly educated but not stupid public. That's not gentlemanly behaviour, even if you are an elitist republican pretending to be a democrat. However, he seems to think things were better back in the U.S.S.R. I think that's minus 1000. Publishers have contempt for readers, thus Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone becomes Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. This is the bane of America. It is a contempt most elitist republics hold their populations in (compared to the Soviet Union). The failure is of culture-mongers to respect the vast millions of smart people out there. And, finally, deregulation is bad. Deregulation means the quest for the lowest possible common denominator. Liberal economics and orthodox politics produce a very dysfunctional voter. I submit that Moorcock is an anarchist of the lefty rather than righty variety. Luckily we don't have to worry about any of this because anarchism is not a coherent political philosophy. And those Elric books are actually great, even though it's hard not to think of the Cerebus parody now. When Chief Kim is on the mike it's like a cookie--they all crumble. I just want to say that this woman kicks ass. One look at her face and you can see those powerful brothel owners didn't stand a chance in their crusade to employ child prostitutes. One odd thing; the author of the article is stunned by something at the start of his interview. But for a visitor who had been in and out of hundreds of offices in East Asia, seeing a woman served tea by a male subordinate was a conversation-stopping first. OK, cool. But. She had to ask them to. I somehow think that in the male police chief's office some female subordinate bustles in with the tea without being asked. Just a thought... All the things that people do to overprotect women are really just ways of looking down on them. -Kim Kang Ja. Word to that, Chief Kim It turns out O'Reilly is a big fat idiot too. This is just one more in a long line of reasons why we should all drink Coca-Cola. (Yeah, you have to look at ads for the Well, whatever that is.) Free Ludacris! Posted Saturday, February 8 Now where were we? Oh yeah, the sweater. Having gotten past that sartorial detail, I did prof. Kirstein the courtesy of reading a short paper he's posted, "American Swagger in a Dangerous Nuclear World." This paper is a perfect illustration of my point about how thoughtful conservatives don't really - or shouldn't, anyway - want to muzzle leftist activism in the classroom. The concluding paragraph, which gives a decent sense of the thesis, and the overall tone and content, reads as follows: Bush described Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "focus of evil" in his State of the Union address in January 2002. Clearly this accusatory rhetoric is hardly a disincentive for would be WMD-proliferators that fear America's wrath and proven ruthlessness in applying military force. Great powers cannot rule through force of arms alone but by moral example. If the United States is serious about pursuing nuclear and other forms of nonproliferation, it must adhere to international law, respect international treaties and join the international community as a participant and not as its imperial chieftain. As Bertrand Russell wrote: "For love of domination we must substitute equality; for love of victory we must substitute justice; for brutality we must substitute intelligence; for competition we must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family." Now obviously this sort of thing has buckets and buckets of moral and political implications - and will therefore be banned from the classroom under the Fish doctrine. And obviously lots and lots of conservatives will find the content enragingly wrong-headed. (And isn't it "Axis of Evil"?) But surely no one would say that an "International Relations" 101 lecture that ended on this note was academically intolerable - if it were the case that what went before was something on the order of an argument; evidence and bits of logic to connect it all up; and if it were the case that a student in the class could write a paper entitled, "The Compelling Case For War With Iraq Now" and get an A. Kirstein passes the first test. To judge by the content of his now infamous letter to the cadet - You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby-killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honor. ... You are unworthy of my support. - he may fail the second. (But doing favors for students is different than grading their papers fairly.) The first two tenets of Kirstein's stated teaching philosophy (one of which Fish quotes) are (as Fish suggests) a bit of a red flag: 1 ) Teaching is a moral act. 2 ) Teach peace, freedom, diversity, multiculturalism and challenge American unilateralism. The first is straight out of Socrates, of course; the second makes one slightly suspicious, but then: 5 ) "Students should be free to take reasoned exception to the...views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion..." AAUP statement on Student Rights and Freedoms (1967). 6 ) Encourage student discussion and debate. Let them know you like to be challenged and that your ideas and values are not a form of proselytizing or domination but a honest effort at conversation. Assuming he means it - I mean, assuming cadet-bashing is just an extracurricular hobby with this gentleman: big assumption, that - I fail to see how conservatives could ask for more. They can't just demand that he profess no strong opinions about international relations. His job title is 'professor' and his subject is international relations. So what is the solution to the whole 'left-wing bias in academia' problem? Obviously the problem needs a careful definition. I think it is a real problem, though a good deal less socially and culturally grave than it is often made out But surely - once the problem is suitably defined, so that the solution I am about to declare comes clear - the solution is: a proper ecological mix of ideological positions, including some 'extremist' ones, plus something like tenets 5 and 6. Some stray but related thoughts: Matthew Yglesias' page (as part of the discussion started at Junius) has a posted quote from Stanley Fish's "Harper's" article of a few months back: It would be interesting to study why humanities departments do not by and large attract the politically conservative, but I would bet that such a study would not reveal that they have been denied entry or badly treated when they have attained it. The case for bringing more conservatives into the humanities and social sciences is a nonstarter. It sort of depends on what you mean by 'humanities'. But if we are talking about Fish's home department - the English department: literary studies, cultural studies - this claim is laughable. You can think it is a good thing or a bad thing that conservatives are excluded and made to feel unwelcome. If you deny that they are made unwelcome, you are either dishonest or unaware of the facts. And Fish is not, I think, unaware of the facts. Kirstein's first two tenets are upheld with righteous rigidity. Tenets 5 & 6 are frequently unenforced and not infrequently intentionally flouted. (I suspect Fish himself of being a conscious enemy of 5 & 6 - a very dire charge, I realize.) My experience in philosophy departments has been that conservatives are usually in the minority but are treated with respect. I think back to my grad school days: having a beer with Smith, who is going to go home and read Marx; and Jones, who is going to go home and read Hayek; and Smith and Jones are good friends and, moreover, have the highest respect for each other's minds. That's how it should be and - too often in the humanities - isn't. It is probably impossible to conceive of any institutional rule that would enforce congenial drinking with ideological opposites; but it would be a good rule if one could craft it. In short - this relates, again, to Christ Bertram's Junius posting - if you want to read Oakshott in a philosophy department you are probably going to be a bit lonely. But that just means you will be in the same fix as the gal who wants to study Maimonides and the guy who is hipdeep in certain minor Hellenists whom history has unpardonably neglected. You tell people what you are working on, and you can be reasonably sure they won't think 'sooo, he's a dangerous fascist.' Conservative philosophy is not left undone on moral grounds. It sounds odd to say that, but I think it's right. Perhaps I will talk to myself again tomorrow. Goodnight. Posted Friday, February 7 Have followed with interest debates on conservatism, conservative philosophy, and academia at Junius,and associated postings. It dovetails - in ways perhaps not obvious - with my thoughts on Fish see below. Conservatives rightly object to leftist bias in academia, but respond, on occasion, by approving - in principle - the proposition that academics should wear kid gloves; that is, should keep their moral/political views out of view. (No one over at Junius is saying this, by the by. But it's the thought that connects the Junius stuff to Fish.) Not the right answer. I'll take this up tomorrow, taking as my textual point of departure Fish's take on the the now-infamous St. Xavier's incident. (The history prof. who abused the cadet.) And I quote Fish's editorial: The university's president found himself doing damage control, something he might have avoided had he looked at the professor's Web page where he would have found a declaration that teachers should teach "peace, freedom, diversity ... and challenge American unilateralism." No, teachers should teach their subjects. They should not teach peace or war or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or antinationalism or any other agenda that might properly be taught by a political leader or a talk-show host. No, I think the answer is: the man should not have sent abusive email. No time tonight. I will confine myself to a smaller point. Having imitated the practice advised by Fish for the president, namely, visiting the man's site, I conclude: the man needs to lose the sweater. Bury it in the backyard. Feed it to the dog. That is all. Posted Thursday, February 6 - real late A cordial welcome to our discriminating guests. You are few in number but individually prized all the more for that reason. Yes we have no Fish tonight. It was getting a bit old. That said: Damn. Damn. And damn. But you probably knew all that, didn't you? Oh, well; when life gives you lemons, make flaming marshmallow balrogs. Oh, all right. I lied about the fish. So if you have a few minutes to spare, please to fill out this standard form, which gets around to asking the simple but strangely eternal question: was kelp elsewhere? Because: they're coming. That's what I love about my country. Folks do what they like, provided they pay for the marshmallow fluff and chickenwire themselves; and they can study what they like - and someone'll probably pay for it. That is all. Posted Thursday, February 6 Thanks to Porphyrogenitus for giving our humble bauble blog its first nudge into the turbid blogosea with this link! Reading his response, and rereading my anti-Fish rant, it occurs to me that I ought to calm down more often. Basically, I was concerned to show - a narrow point - that the oddity of Fish's description of academic duties suggests he has a bug in his ear, and (on sort of thin evidence, by the cold light of day) I hypothesized it to be Sokal. The clue: if you are concerned to keep academics at their desks, it simply makes to sense to suggest they should spend their time 'not falsifying their credentials, not misleading people about their sources', etc. Because you can be at the barricades 24/7, not falsifying your credentials, if it comes to that. Not doing things takes no time at all. Porphyrogenitus says: but it's still important not to falsify your credentials, sources, so forth. True. But my point was only: what a weird example for Fish to pick. It shows he's, ah, I said it already below. But so what? Well, I admit, that's a pretty good question. Maybe I'm the one with a bug in my ear. I'm seeing Sokal Affairs under the bed. And, really, it's not so nice of me to go sniffing through Fish's editorial, looking for foul motives only ever-so-faintly discernable on the surface. (Maybe the guy just got into the habit of describing academic life in a certain way back around 1996, i.e. so as to make Sokal sound bad; and that way of talking stuck; and now Sokal is the furthest thing from his mind. Could be, could be.) Having now blathered again, I might as well respond to the substance of Porphyrogenitus' response to my allegation that Fish is too rigid and extreme in his prescriptions. One of the problems with what happened to the university is the bluring and erosion of what I'd call common sense distinctions eventually led to a destruction of the general rules that Holbo says Fish is right to articulate. Probably the only way to restore those distinctions is through an "anti-activist principle" that may seem very rigid. I'm not a big defender of "zero tolerance" nonsense, myself (whereby, on other subjects, "zero tolerance" can mean a student suspended from school for having a pen knife or pointing a finger pretending it's a gun in play because the school has a "zero tolerance" policy and also a "zero common sense" policy). But what Fish is articulating are good general rules and, in my opinion, would represent a vast improvement over what goes on all too frequently. I guess all I can say is that Fish does not state his prescriptions as 'good general rules', but as absolute principles. If they are actually just the former, I have no problem. And 'zero tolerance', even intended as an exaggerated lean to tip the ship back on its keel, would risk seriously undesirable side-effects. Consider Fish's actual statement of his principle: it is immoral for academics or for academic institutions to proclaim moral views. Now I think this is REALLY not seriously intended, except as a sweeping gesture Fish likes because it is paradoxical. But think what it would mean as an actual rule, enforceable, with committees to back it up, so forth. 'Professor Holbo, on the morning of. . . you claimed in Intro to Ethical Theories 101, that - and I quote - 'murder is wrong.'' This would never happen, obviously, but that is just because the principle in question is unworkable. Which is one of the main reason academics currently have such exaggerated leeway to say what they like. Which has unfortunate consequences. But so would hauling half the staff into disciplinary sessions twice a week on the basis of a strict constructionist reading of Fish's principle. One can then - I appreciate that Porphyrogenitus is not Zero Tolerance on common sense - retreat to Fish's second criterion: Has the decision to do this (or not do this) been reached on educational grounds? This is less dangerous - gets me off the hook for that whole 'murder is wrong' fiasco, probably - but still seriously vague. And if I am even an itsy-witsy bit right about Fish wanting to craft 'legitimate educational activity' into a club with which to beat down the next Sokal who comes down the pike; well, then I'm agin' it. (See John Rosenberg's post today about Fish looking after Fish. Hat tip: Volokh.) Posted Wednesday, February 5 Making the blogospheric curcuit are multiple attributions of good sense to Stanley Fish from the likes of the immortal Instapundit and the ever-acute Eugene Volokh. (But Porphyrogenitus started it. And, to be fair, the instapundit just linked without passing judgement.) Stanley Fish? Talking sense? You just ran to the calendar, didn’t you? - to make sure you didn’t sleep through to April 1? All right, then. On we go. It's going to be a bit round-about, but where we're going is this: there may be a (cue spooky music) less than sensible subtext to a seemingly sensible text. The occasion for it all is: a Chronicle of Higher Education editorial in which Fish preaches against the evils of academic activism. Academic virtue is the virtue that is or should be displayed in the course of academic activities – teaching, research, publishing. Teachers should show up for their classes, prepare syllabuses, teach what has been advertised, be current in the literature of the field, promptly correct assignments and papers, hold regular office hours, and give academic (not political or moral) advice. So far so good. Far be it from me to forbid a strayed soul from rejoining the flock of reasonableness. But something about the piece – I mean: besides the fact that sense seems to be emitting from Fish – seems out of place. Consider the next paragraph, the first sentence in particular: Researchers should not falsify their credentials, or make things up, or fudge the evidence, or ignore data that go against their preferred conclusions. Those who publish should acknowledge predecessors and contributors, provide citations to their sources, and strive always to give an accurate account of the materials they present. This is no small list of professional obligations, and faculty members who are faithful to its imperatives will have little time to look around for causes and agendas to champion. If you, like me, are an academic, answer the following question: how much time did you spend last week not falsifying your credentials, not making things up, not fudging/ignoring data, not saying things you honestly think there are good reasons not to think true? Quite a lot of time. (If you answered otherwise, you should examine your conscience, or your ability to process excessive use of negation.) Did all this activity keep you from engaging in other, potentially worthwhile activities? (Sorry, hon’, working late at the office not falsifying my credentials. Kiss the kid goodnight for me.) Well, perhaps prof. Fish is just expressing himself awkwardly. What he really meant, no doubt, was that we all ought to be doing something like the opposite of these negative activities: not not writing papers, not not publishing papers, not not footnoting papers, not not collecting good data, not not saying things we suspect to be not true, so forth. (If a man wishes to walk down the street, while spinning 360 degrees on his axis, and if he can maintain his general heading while doing so – well, it is a free republic, and shall probably remain strong despite.) But perhaps there is something baneful behind these negative gyrations. Indeed, I can hear in the belfry of memory, the bells of déjà vu tolling all over again. . . but for what? Full disclosure: I’ve read a lot, a lot of bad Stanley Fish in my time. But what does this bit remind me of exactly? Got it! Advantage: google. (Which helped me with my typing.) Ah, here’s the link I wanted: The redoubtable Alan Sokal of “Social Text”-hoax fame, has a webpage devoted to articles, reviews, so forth relating to the great event. Included is a May 1, 1996 “New York Times” op-ed by Prof. Fish, entitled “Professor Sokal’s Bad Joke”. (Fish was executive director of Duke UP at the time, which published “Social Text”. So he was standing up for his own.) And I quote: Acknowledging the ethical issues raised by his deception, Professor Sokal declared it justified by the importance of the truths he was defending from postmodernist attack: "There is a world; its properties are not merely social constructions; facts and evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? Exactly! Professor Sokal's question should alert us to the improbability of the scenario he conjures up: Scholars with impeccable credentials making statements no sane person could credit. The truth is that none of his targets would ever make such statements. What follows is a most unconvincing defense of statements I think no sane person could credit. But never mind about that. So many errors, so little time.(Hint: the trick is to keep a straight face while asserting that the social constructivist thesis under attack is equivalent to the trivial claim “that accounts of the world are produced by observers and are therefore relative to their capacities, education, training.”) What is presently interesting are the terms with which Fish tars Sokal – who has engaged in (gasp!) ‘deception!’ And the words with which Fish attempts to shield the hapless hoaxees: they have ‘impeccable credentials’. (Indeed. Wasn’t that the point?) In his latest piece, Fish is, in effect, defining proper academic activity in such a way that it expressly excludes the likes of Sokal. (And, this is a bit less clear, expressly includes those editors.) Let us return to yesterday’s “Chronicle” piece and delve a sentence deeper into Fish’s description of the duties of academe. I quote again: Those who publish should acknowledge predecessors and contributors, provide citations to their sources, and strive always to give an accurate account of the materials they present. Not wrong, per se. But the emphasis is odd. Surely the hard part – the time-consuming part – of the whole writing process is, well, the writing process. Fish seems obsessed not just with footnotes but – if I have correctly inferred the intended referent of ‘they’ - with the perspicuous framing of footnotes. Footnotes must not be composed and placed in such a way that the reader is likely to be deceived about what the footnoted works are likely to contain, should the reader trouble to schlepp down to the library. True. But as potential-evils-to-be-warded-off go, rather far down the ‘thing-to-do-today' list. (Sorry, hon', late again at the office, wracking my brain over the outside possibility that someone might make a wrong surmise concerning the contents of a work I’ve footnoted. Just leave the roast in the oven on warm.) Fish - if one could take all this seriously - comes close to speaking of academic writing and publishing as primarily a matter of maintaining completely transparent communion concerning credentials and secondary sources. But surely the really important thing in writing is: saying and showing things that are worth saying and showing. Sokal did that in spades. With a vengeance. As it so happens, Sokal made his point precisely by gaming and flouting all the (very sensible, in ordinarily circumstances) rules about footnotes and saying what you really think and all the rest of it. Point being: all this scholarly apparatus is rather beside the point, isn't it, when certain people are patently not even TRYING to be responsible inquirers? This rhetorical question - devastatingly unanswerable, except with a meek 'yes' - sinks in advance Fish's attempt to talk around it in the1996 op-ed. Alan Sokal put forward his own undertakings as reliable, and he took care, as he boasts, to surround his deception with all the marks of authenticity, including dozens of "real" footnotes and an introductory section that enlists a roster of the century's greatest scientists in support of a line of argument he says he never believed in. He carefully packaged his deception so as not to be detected except by someone who began with a deep and corrosive attitude of suspicion that may now be in full flower in the offices of learned journals because of what he has done. See the connection with the bit quoted from the "Chronicle"? It's those damn, sneaky footnotes and references. Real ones. Yes. It must be admitted. They are real. But SO SNEAKY in their misleading placement. Grrrrr. In declaring that academics should, properly, spend their time making sure their footnotes are unsneakily framed, Fish is effectively saying (silly as all this is beginning to sound): let there never again be an Alan Sokal. We should be prepared, in advance, to brand him as some sort of illegitimate political activist (since he is obviously not engaged in legitimate scholarly behavior.) I am aware, of course, that Fish's "Chronicle" piece has nothing explicitly to do with the Sokal Affair. Fish is explicitly discussing exactly what he seems to be discussing. And yet. And yet. It seems to me that the distinctly odd way Fish describes non-activist behavior suggests that, seven years on, he is still mulling over the Sokal affair. In his mind (this is my hypothesis) he is, in addition to saying all the stuff he's obviously saying, trying to tell that story so that the good guys - his guys - emerge as the true upholders of the ideals of the university. Speaking of truth: it might be objected to all the foregoing that Fish has a great deal to say in his editorial about the value of 'truth'. This is a value that goes well beyond that of proper framing of footnotes. So Fish is not so penny-ante in his account of what is essential to proper academic activity. And yet: this fits well enough with my Sokal-hypothesis, and with the tenor of the 1996 editorial. Sokal is guilty of intentionally telling untruths. End of story. And for Fish 'truth' means something like 'belief that is ratified by an interpretive community'. So: to emphasize truth-seeking can amount to a circling-of-the-wagons. (When it comes to ratification of beliefs, possession of 'impeccable credentials' in the relevant field - the editors of "Social Text" have got 'em; Sokal doesn't - can be the determining factor.) Cocooning. An activity familiar from the blogosphere, and elsewhere in human life. Please don't link to me; I won't link to you. Some folks, worn out from the culture wars, may have reached the point where they feel: a cocoon in which we can read our Foucault in peace - and a latte to go with - would be most welcome, thank you very much. Outsiders, please do not try to embarrass us with attacks on the legitimacy of what we are doing. The unfettered expression of ideas is a cornerstone of liberal democracy; it is a prime political value. It is not, however, an academic value, and if we come to regard it as our primary responsibility, we will default on the responsibilities assigned us and come to be what no one pays us to be - political agents. I guess I can see defending this. But I just wonder whether, when Fish wrote these words, he wasn't (in part, just in part) trying to make out the case that he is academically entitled not to have to put up with the impertinent Sokals of the world. And I wonder whether I'm not nuts for writing all this out. Maybe Fish just got out of bed sensible one fine morning. Hey, it could happen. Actually, I think the editorial is pretty screwy, even on the surface. The anti-activist principle Fish articulates, though agreeable in its general tendency, is WAY too rigid and absolute as actually stated. I've griped enough. Good night.