For the on-going debate, please see the RHS bar under Also See
I can't speak for Wendy Doniger, Paul Courtright or others whom Rajiv mentions in his last piece (ThePeer-ReviewCartel). I don't know them personally or professionally and I don't want to answer his charges laid atthem. I'm not a participant in the world of Hinduism Studies, and I don't know the specific details aboutJeffry Kripal's thesis or other such matters.
What I do know is that I do not agree with the view that academics should not have an open dialogue with thosewho are not academics. Indeed, many Leftists with whom I walk in step take it as obvious that we must not onlybreach the academy's wall of privilege, that we should not only investigate processes outside the canon of theacademy, but also that we should take its hoarded knowledge to those who cannot access it as well as havediscussion about its knowledge in a broader context. The purpose of the non-university based schools that arethe legacy of "radical pedagogy" (some of it learnt from the Brazilian Paolo Friere) is just thelatter point. So I am not sympathetic to the refusal to engage. All those who work within the academy are notof a piece with regard to status and prestige.
It may be that scholars have other reasons not to engage in a debate, so I can't speak for them. If indeedtheir principle objection is that the academic can only speak to an academic, then that is plainly wrong.Rajiv does not cite any specific statement, but only offers a summary of what he says they said: it's not thatI don't trust you, Rajiv, but I would like to hear their reasons for non-participation in their own words (ifthey give you permission to post them). On citations (and again, please remember this is not the same as"name-dropping"), it would be useful to know who the "some academicians" are who"raised the red flag of censorship" or else what is the name of the "guide" that you quoteso often. I can't take this on faith: I would like to have something concrete upon which to base your remarks,and then to discuss them.
I seem to have taken up the following role in our own dialogue: Rajiv makes exaggerated denunciations aboutthe academy, while I come in and offer a structural analysis of the specific problems within the academy. Mineis certainly not a defense of the academy (indeed, it is at times much more sharply critical than Rajiv, asfor instance, on peer-review, as you shall see). What I offer is an approach that is empathetic andtransformative rather than Rajiv's scorched earth admonitions. I am utterly in line with Rajiv's frustrationswith the racism and the elitism of the US academy - although I think that his analysis misses the wood fromthe trees. In that spirit, here are my modifications and elaborations on the themes raised by Rajiv.
(1) Alan Sokal and the Scientific Temper.
For a reader who has no prior experience with the "Sokal hoax," Rajiv's summary must be quiteconfusing. Rajiv uses Sokal to do this work: to show that the peer-review system is bunk, "a famousinstance of exposure of the lack of quality controls in liberal arts scholarship," indeed, that Sokal'shoax shows "the fallibility of the peer-review system," that it shows "serious weaknesses inthe peer-review process," and that it angered the "whole liberal arts establishment because heexposed its pretentiousness."
Then, Rajiv quotes Sokal saying, "After all, I'm a leftist too." Why "too"? Who else is aLeftist? The "whole liberal arts establishment"? The editors of Social Text?
What Rajiv does not do for us is to offer the context of Sokal's hoax, indeed to show why a well-known Marxistphysicist would take on an intellectually fashionable journal edited by other Marxists (and severalnon-Marxists); nor does he tell us what the relationship this journal has with the "liberal artsestablishment" which is hardly Marxist or even sympathetic to the tradition. Context is one of thecrucial elements in the social science method, and Rajiv's lack of context muddies the original Sokal debate,which had nothing at all to do with the peer-review cartel.