Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 29 May 96 16:29:26 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: a diversion (fwd) (fwd) To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU This ought to spark some discussion. There is also an article on the Sokal-Social Text controversy in the NYT Week in Review from last Sunday. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It is always helpful to note how we are perceived by others ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 05:43:18 +0600 Reply-To: UCSB Religious Studies Forum Sender: UCSB Religious Studies Forum From: Mark Diller Subject: a diversion Shawn reminded me of the compelling need to distract ourselves from current projects this time of year, so I offer the following. In a recent, mostly futile effort to work my way through the huge pile of unread magazines that teeters precariously beside my bed, I came across an article in the November/December issue of the Utne Reader that could prove diversionary. The article deals with the current problems of a certain portion of academia. I propose a new game: "Name That Discipline!" Below portions of the article are reproduced, with every specific mention of the discipline excised and names reduced to initials, to protect the innocent. Read it through, line by line, considering the issues presented, and see how soon you can Name That Discipline! The answer is at the bottom (so no peaking!). **** on the Skids: A Once-Great Discipline is Having an Identity Crisis **** has fallen into a 'dismal abyss' from which it may never recover, announced distinguished **** I.H., editor of the journal ****, in his book _The Decomposition of ****. The field 'is in a tailspin and no one seems to know what to do,' agrees another **** quoted in the ultraconservative **** publication _Insight on the News_ (Feb. 14, 1994). Statistics ... support these dire conclusions: U.S. universities conferred 35,996 undergraduate degrees in **** in 1973, but by 1991 that number had dropped to 14,393. At three U.S. schools in recent years, **** departments in which the professors had come to outnumber the students have been forced to close their doors; others have had their budgets slashed, reports H. Why has **** ... fallen on such hard times? ... **** is loaded with specialist jargon, say some critics both within and outside of the profession, while others are quick to label easily readable **** research as mere journalism. **** is divided into too many specialized fiefdoms, goes another argument, but others insist that generalization isn't sufficiently scientific. But these debates may merely be symptoms of a deeper problem still. ... Comfortable in neither the natural sciences nor the humanities, **** has never been able to agree upon its mission or methods. From its very inception it has been an 'impossible science' torn between the ideals of scientific objectivity and humanistic reform-mindedness. The pressing need on the part of funding-hungry **** departments to resolve this tension in one direction or the other is a crippling problem. To explain the world or to change the world -- that seems to be the question. H. argues that **** began as an objective social science and has become increasingly and problematically 'enmeshed in the politics of advocacy and the ideology of self-righteousness'. ... Many **** feel that 'scientific' **** may actually be the problem, not the solution [since it] 'tends to make a fetish of 'hard numbers' ... rather than trying to understand how social groups interpret and act on the circumstances those numbers describe.'. ... Reknowned **** N.G. offers a solution -- **** 'should be both a humanistic and a scientific discipline, based on the search for objective truth in the belief that such truth can serve mankind, but recognizing in **** truth cannot have the character it has in the [natural] sciences.' ... C.W. argues that empirical **** can and should seek to describe the objective structures that constitute that elusive entity, '****,' but only the imagination can measure the moral distance between individuals and those structures. The **** must, to paraphrase Vaclav Havel's vision of the postmodern politician, 'trust not only an objective interpretation of reality, but also his own soul.' The answer is ... sociology. In reading through this for the first time I was struck by the irony that this discipline, which in my experience has often been promoted in religious studies as a model for how we should proceed, seems to be experiencing many of the same tensions as we are, and perhaps is even more troubled by them than are we. I'm not sure what the conclusion of this all is, if anything; perhaps it's that we're all going to hell in a handbasket together. Or perhaps it's that religious studies will not solve its problems by moving in the direction of the "hard" sciences, since such a movement will simply land us in the quasi-empiricism of sociology. If the tension between science and the humanities is in fact irreducible, then we should focus on making that tension creative, rather than destructive as has been the case with sociology. I'm open to suggestions. Mark Mark Diller - Univ. of Chicago Divinity School - a.ka. zagreus@aol.com "In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you." -Jack Handey