Jean Baudrillard Did Not Die

[nomadologist]

Oh for fuck's sake, I'm 'dumb', am I, nomad? You have to be the most monochromatic thinker on this forum, and that's saying something. I once quoted someone (who was in turn quoting something) else, and something they said which wasn't even part of my main argument is now something I hold to be unshakably true? Yeah, OK, whatever. I deny that an equation relating mass, energy and the speed of light can be sexist and all of a sudden I'm denying the historical oppression of women? Well, I guess hard logic belongs to that fuddy-duddy, dead-in-the-water tradition of analytic philosophy, and is probably inherently mysogynistic anyway...

Can you explain to me, without using terms like 'cultural metatext' and 'socio-sexual hegemony', why an equation - a statement that's not even about human beings, let along men and women - can be seen as 'sexed'?
If you can, I'd love to hear it.

I never said you denying the cultural oppression of women. Where are you getting that? I'm saying you simply don't seem to have read any of these philosophers you're trying to desperately to dismiss on "scientific" terms.

 

[nomadologist]

Monocromatic thinker? Why, whatever does that mean scientifically? How can thinking have a color?

 

[nomadologist]

No, not at all. Hence my posting it.

When did I say he firmly believed it? I was questioning the intelligence of CITING if, if you'll note.

 

[nomadologist]

Wait a minute, here's another ridiculous conflation--when Irigaray says the equation is "sexed" why are you assuming she's saying it's "sexist"? Those are very different notions.

 

[Guybrush]

sexed = differentiated by gender; oversexual
sexist = discriminating by gender

???

Edit: I.e. you can ascribe someone the ‘sexist’ epitaph if he or she constructs something sexed.

Edit 2: But Merriam-Webster has a different definition to my dictionary:

Main Entry: sexed
Pronunciation: \ˈsekst\
Function: adjective
Date: 1621
1 : having sex or sexual instincts
2 : having sex appeal

Edit 3: Sorry for the digression I'll keep my fingers shut now.

 

[zhao]

human perception tends to always be subjective, ego-driven and tainted by power and prejudice, what ever lenses we look through. astro physics included.

I think we can only error on the side of understatement when we consider the arbituariness of what we deem to be unshakable truths, and the unreliability of the foundations on which our knowledge is built.

just had this thought: the Gulf War Did Not Take Place = War Without Casualties. no? seems Slavoj shares a few ideas with Jean.

 

[nomadologist]

Huh? She's describing a metaphorical reason why she can see a "sexed" value in E=MC^2. Who is she calling sexist there? [Answer: the Western tradition general, science in particular as a subset of the Western tradition]

 

[nomadologist]

Guybrush, unfortunately, when it comes to philosophy, you're not always going to be able to refer to Merriam Webster's, or any other dictionary, for simple meanings of words--philosophy often deals with *special* meanings of words or terms that the dictionary does not include.

 

[Guybrush]

Guybrush, unfortunately, when it comes to philosophy, you're not always going to be able to refer to Merriam Webster's, or any other dictionary, for simple meanings of words--philosophy often deals with *special* meanings of words or terms that the dictionary does not include.

True. *Silence is golden*

 

[nomadologist]

Can everyone who hates or fundamentally disagrees with any thought or theory that is not scientific please leave the threads about Baudrillard free and clear for people who DO enjoy reading philosophy and who HAVE read it?

If you want to have a discussion about why you fundamentally disagree with any theory that is not scientific in nature, could you please start a new thread for that, so people who want to discuss Baudrillard on his own merits, as people who enjoy reading his and other philosophies, can do that?

Thanks.

 

[tht]

can anyone get access to the disparaged article?

 

[nomadologist]

when i click on that, it says

Your institution participates in JSTOR but has not licensed access to the JSTOR collection that includes Cultural Critique.

We encourage you to contact your library to locate this article through another source, such as the library's print holdings or interlibrary loan. To assist you, we have included the citation and first page of the article below.

so i don't think i can get it.

i don't even know if i'd agree with irigaray, but i know she's not trying to be scientific.

 

[Mr. Tea]

interesting and revealing characterisation of feminist thought, that

I wasn't talking about feminism, I was talking about postmodernism.

 

[k-punk]

I wasn't talking about feminism, I was talking about postmodernism.

That's the trouble with using terms in an inaccurate way, though, isn't it....

 

[Mr. Tea]

Wait a minute, here's another ridiculous conflation--when Irigaray says the equation is "sexed" why are you assuming she's saying it's "sexist"? Those are very different notions.

But what is there to 'sex' about it? Why should a discussion about sex or gender arise over an equation that describes physical quantites like mass and energy?

Furthermore, saying the equation is 'sexed' is obviously equivalent in intent to calling the equation, or the person who discovered it, sexist - otherwise why mention it in a feminist context? What relevance could a discovery about the relationship between fundamental physical quantites, derived from logically rigorous first principles, possibly have to feminism or sociology or any other area of thought pertaining specifically to human societies? It's ludicrous.

 

[Mr. Tea]

That's the trouble with using terms in an inaccurate way, though, isn't it....

At worst you can accuse me of being ambiguous. I mentioned an 'intellectual discipline', which surely describes postmodernism, whereas feminism is a movement, is it not?

 

[turtles]

I'd just like to say on the behalf of people with a "science" background around the world, that not all of us are so utterly dismissive of postmodernism as well as other strains of modern critical theory. Though I'm probably not that much more well informed on the theory front as Mr. Tea (Nomad's course postings are a pretty handy reading list though), I think it's extremely important for people who practise science to be aware of their own cultural biases and the biases of those around them, if they wish to make properly "objective" conclusions about their research. One only has to look at the proportion of males vs females in such "hard" sciences as physics & chemistry (and applied ones like engineering & computer science) compared to the proportion in "soft" sciences like biology and even psychology, and then questions about why these gender disparities and what affects they might have on the results of these sciences become pretty damn inevitable.

While I understand that the use of language by these people takes a while to get used to (I was trying to read that Lyotard piece from Nomad's course readings last night, and damn is that dense--and that's supposed to be introductory!), but it's no more challenging that a tightly packed statistical argument in a space-constrained journal paper. You just have to slow down, think about it, and assume that the author actually knows what they're talking about and spent the time to try and ensure the correct meaning of his/her writing.


[sorry! i won't talk about science any more...i just wanted to clear "our" name a bit...]

 

[bruno]

One only has to look at the proportion of males vs females in such "hard" sciences as physics & chemistry (and applied ones like engineering & computer science) compared to the proportion in "soft" sciences like biology and even psychology, and then questions about why these gender disparities and what affects they might have on the results of these sciences become pretty damn inevitable.

how does gender have any incidence on scientific results, am i missing something? this is like saying one has to look at the proportion of males vs females in breadmaking compared to the proportion in piemaking, how could this have anything to do with the quality of bread and pies and what comparison could you possibly make between the two?

 

[tate]

when i click on that, it says

so i don't think i can get it.

i don't even know if i'd agree with irigaray, but i know she's not trying to be scientific.

Just go to your library's website, choose databases, search for JSTOR, give your net id when asked, open JSTOR, search within JSTOR for the article. Unless NYU doesn't participate in JSTOR, which I find very difficult to imagine. It's an excellent service, moreso for older articles, MUSE is better for recent ones. Depends on your field of study, of course.

EDIT: i only intended this for nomadologist. i have no idea how other people's database services work.

 

[turtles]

how does gender have any incidence on scientific results, am i missing something? this is like saying one has to look at the proportion of males vs females in breadmaking compared to the proportion in piemaking, how could this have anything to do with the quality of bread and pies and what comparison could you possibly make between the two?

Trying not to get dragged in....failing...

Gender affects scientific results on AT LEAST two levels.

1, At the high level, a department that has a majority female faculty will probably have different interests and pursue different general areas within their field as compared to a majority male faculty. Thus they will produce different results.

2. The tricky part of science (especially social science) is generalizing from results. There are plenty of rules about how to prove statistical significance for an experiment, but interpreting these results is not at all an exact science . Thus cultural background (gender, race or otherwise) definitely comes into play.

also there's the whole question of WHY certain scientific area's attract more males or females...