Page 103 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 103
the sokal affair and beyond: on the strategic
use of parody in the »science wars« 103
pend on many other contextual aspects and the specific circumstances
of the particular communicative and argumentative situation.
4.4.5. Confusing “Parody” and “Hoax”
Starting from this differentiation between paradigmatic parody and
paradigmatic deception, based on the criterion of the transparency of
the author’s intention, one final question concerning the argumenta-
tive aspects of the Sokal affair may be raised: Can the words “hoax” and
“parody” be used in a synonymous way (as they often are) in describing
the nature of Sokal’s original article?
If we stick to the standard meaning of “hoax” as a “deliberately fab-
ricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth”15, the answer should be
negative. Rather, it could be said that the manoeuvre performed by Sokal
was not simply to create a parody but to use his parodic article in order to
perform a successful hoax. But if we accept the thesis that deceptiveness,
notwithstanding appearances, is not an inherent feature of parody, this
kind of use of parody necessitates a subtle but essential deviation from
the standard manner of its creation. This deviation would consist in con-
cealing the real intention of the author, because if it stays transparent the
parody would be identified as parody and the hoax would not be success-
ful. Indeed, Sokal did make explicit moves in order to hide the parodic
nature of his article, including the rewriting of passages which worried
him by their potential “to betray the hoax” (Sokal, 2010: 36, # 93).
However, from the distinction between the fundamental nature of
a hoax and that of a parody it follows that both cannot be successful si-
multaneously. In order for a hoax to be successful, the parody as such
must fail. Thus Sokal in fact “sacrificed” parody by deliberately trying
to ensure that it was not recognised by the editors of Social Text, thus
performing a kind of “denaturation” of the parody and subordinating it
to a deceptive goal. Of course, as Boghossian and Nagel remark: “Sokal
sought to conceal his own disbelief in the nonsense he had so ingenious-
ly cooked up; the experiment would not have worked otherwise.” (Bog-
hossian and Nagel, 1996) Still, in the context of analysing forms of ar-
gumentative subversion and strategies for tackling such subversion, this
can be seen as a step into the grey area of meta-level subversion. From
this point of view, what is controversial in Sokal’s approach is not the
fact that he used parody for an argumentative purpose but the way in
which he did so. First he denatured his parody into a hoax (or an element
15 Retrieved at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoax. According to the source, the definition is Curtis
D. MacDougall’s.
use of parody in the »science wars« 103
pend on many other contextual aspects and the specific circumstances
of the particular communicative and argumentative situation.
4.4.5. Confusing “Parody” and “Hoax”
Starting from this differentiation between paradigmatic parody and
paradigmatic deception, based on the criterion of the transparency of
the author’s intention, one final question concerning the argumenta-
tive aspects of the Sokal affair may be raised: Can the words “hoax” and
“parody” be used in a synonymous way (as they often are) in describing
the nature of Sokal’s original article?
If we stick to the standard meaning of “hoax” as a “deliberately fab-
ricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth”15, the answer should be
negative. Rather, it could be said that the manoeuvre performed by Sokal
was not simply to create a parody but to use his parodic article in order to
perform a successful hoax. But if we accept the thesis that deceptiveness,
notwithstanding appearances, is not an inherent feature of parody, this
kind of use of parody necessitates a subtle but essential deviation from
the standard manner of its creation. This deviation would consist in con-
cealing the real intention of the author, because if it stays transparent the
parody would be identified as parody and the hoax would not be success-
ful. Indeed, Sokal did make explicit moves in order to hide the parodic
nature of his article, including the rewriting of passages which worried
him by their potential “to betray the hoax” (Sokal, 2010: 36, # 93).
However, from the distinction between the fundamental nature of
a hoax and that of a parody it follows that both cannot be successful si-
multaneously. In order for a hoax to be successful, the parody as such
must fail. Thus Sokal in fact “sacrificed” parody by deliberately trying
to ensure that it was not recognised by the editors of Social Text, thus
performing a kind of “denaturation” of the parody and subordinating it
to a deceptive goal. Of course, as Boghossian and Nagel remark: “Sokal
sought to conceal his own disbelief in the nonsense he had so ingenious-
ly cooked up; the experiment would not have worked otherwise.” (Bog-
hossian and Nagel, 1996) Still, in the context of analysing forms of ar-
gumentative subversion and strategies for tackling such subversion, this
can be seen as a step into the grey area of meta-level subversion. From
this point of view, what is controversial in Sokal’s approach is not the
fact that he used parody for an argumentative purpose but the way in
which he did so. First he denatured his parody into a hoax (or an element
15 Retrieved at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoax. According to the source, the definition is Curtis
D. MacDougall’s.
