Right Wing Nation

We’ll leave mailing lists and go on to actual, face-to-face UACJOB encounters.

There was a teaching seminar I wanted to attend (really, I should have known better, but I do this for my students, and am ever hopeful that I will finally go to one of these that is actually useful, and actually has something to do with pedagogy–naïve of me, I know). Next to mailing lists, teaching seminars are the best forum for these postmodernist morons to “share” their idiocy.

By the way, this is by far the stupidest teaching seminar I attended–and that’s saying a great deal.

I admit that the primary reason I wanted to go to this particular seminar was that Jeremy was “facilitating” it, and Alan Sokal had just blown the cover off postmodernist nonsense (if you’re unfamiliar with postmodernism, or more importantly, the Sokal controversy, see first this, then this; Sokal’s page is here, and if you really want to have fun, try the Postmodernism Generator.) I wanted to see what these postmodernist fools were going to do, now that Sokal had made idiots of them.

Well, let me say that I did not realize how utterly shameless these people are until I went. Nothing at all. They spewed the same “everything is a social construct” nonsense, as if nothing had happened. And even though Sokal’s hoax was exposed, Jeremy quoted from it, as if it were the latest greatest research.

Why I was surprised, I do not know. I suppose I expected some intellectual and professional integrity. But no.

Jeremy began to breaking us into groups. He then gave each one of us a “culture” and a “belief system” to represent.

We had to work with our groups to best explain our “belief systems” while being “sensitive” to everybody else’s “belief systems.”

Don’t groan until you hear the “belief system” I got. Ready?

I was from Moldirania, where we believed that all women with red hair were witches and would fly up into the air if they jumped out the window.

Now you can groan. Get it out, because it gets worse.

First, though, let me try to explain what this was like for me. I’m an empiricist, a decision sciences geek. Again, I found myself fighting the nearly overwhelming urge to ask what the hell happened to these peoples’ brains.

Fortunately for me, Jeremy hadn’t thought out the time constraints, and we ran out of time before I had to explain my “belief system.” So I can’t tell you what I did–and instead, will tell you what one of my group members did.

I don’t remember her name, but she was this lumpy pigeon-toed neo-hippie grad student from the English department, doing her PhD minor in Education. I don’t recall the “name” of her “culture,” but she was given as a “belief system” that interpretive dances purged the viewers of spirit toxins–and in order to “explain” her “belief system,” she had to incorporate her interpretive dances.

You know, I had no classes or office hours on that day. I could have been doing something really productive, like clipping my toenails or giving the dogs a bath.

I’ll call our English PhD student Clara for brevity. Clara was really into doing this little activity. Enthusiastic or bubbly doesn’t begin to cover it.

She had drawn the first spot, so she had to work up her “explanation” for all of us, remaining “sensitive” to our “cultural belief systems” in the process (the ultimate goal was to writhe about interpretively for the whole roomful and do so in a “culturally sensitive” manner).

So we watched as Clara did two or three different “interpretive dances,” each one designed to purge us of a different “spirit toxin.” Several group members stopped her from time to time because she wasn’t being “sensitive” enough.

“The way you are moving your head, there, that’s offensive to my belief system!”

That sort of thing. I just sat there, trying very hard not to laugh.

Not only did Clara “explain” her “belief system” by prancing about in front of a whole roomful of people, but Jeremy gave her props for being so “sensitive” about it. And a week or so later, Jeremy forwarded a message from Clara, saying that she had used her “interpetive dance” technique in class to great success, and her students had loved it.

Like I said, Jeremy had to stop the “activity” so he could give his presentation. He started it by quoting Sokal’s Social Text paper, as if Sokal hadn’t revealed it to be a hoax, then going on about how science is nothing more than a cultural construct. Fortunately, I had to leave–and did, before it got any worse.

I went to several of these teaching seminars. More on those later.