The Sokal Hoax

Alan Sokal
Alan Sokal
The academic journal Social Text prided itself on its embrace of radical politics and controversial views. Since its founding in 1979 it had published a variety of important articles that were highly influential within the cultural studies community, including pieces by intellectual luminaries such as Cornel West and Michel de Certeau. Its editor Andrew Ross, who cultivated an image as a kind of hip, radical, intellectual celebrity, set the tone that the journal followed. Nevertheless, the truth was that the journal was not used to receiving much attention outside of its readership base, which was a small, elite group of academics numbering in the hundreds. It was certainly totally unprepared when an article in its Spring 1996 issue landed it at the center of an international whirlwind of controversy that resulted in its name being plastered across the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

Andrew Ross
Andrew Ross, Editor of Social Text
The article in question bore the portentous title, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." It was authored by Alan Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University. At first glance the article appeared to be an unlikely candidate for controversy. It was written in the typical style of academic articles, slightly overbearing and verbose, and it came armored with a bristling flank of footnotes (more footnotes than actual text). The real point of controversy, however, was the article's argument. The author made the case that recent developments in the scientific concept of 'quantum gravity' pointed the way towards a future in which science would be freed from the "tyranny of 'absolute truth' and 'objective reality.'" Or, to put it another way, he argued that the traditional concept of gravity was just a capitalist fiction that would be made irrelevant by the socialist/feminist/relativist theory of 'quantum gravity.'

On the day that the Spring issue of Social Text appeared in print, Sokal published a letter in the academic trade publication Lingua Franca revealing that his article was intended as a parody, a fact which the editorial board of Social Text had apparently failed to recognize. "Any competent physicist or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize that it is a spoof," he asserted. He suggested that its acceptance pointed to, "an apparent decline in the standards of rigor in certan precincts of the academic humanities." He also fumed over, "how readily they [Social Text] accepted my implication that the search for truth in science must be subordinated to a political agenda." Sokal's revelation almost immediately got picked up by the mainstream media. The New York Times ran the story on its front page on May 18, and from there the controversy grew.

The hoax elicited many different reactions from many different people, but the most common response was laughter. Social Text, and by extension the rest of the cultural studies community, had been made to look like egghead intellectuals adrift in their ivory tower. Social Text responded angrily and self-righteously to the parody, but only succeeded in digging itself deeper into the hole that it had fallen into.

One of the specific complaints that was brought against the cultural studies community in the wake of the hoax centered around the idea of 'social construction.' Cultural studies, it was claimed, advanced a destabilizing idea of cultural relativity that professed all forms of knowledge (voodoo, astrology, chemistry, etc.) to be of equal worth, because all were 'socially constructed.' Culturalists fiercely objected to this characterization of their ideas, but generally their objections were ignored.

In this way, the Sokal hoax brought to light the cultural schism that had come to separate the humanities from the sciences in the American university system. Humanities departments had grown progresively more radical and liberal since the 1960s, flirting with and often openly embracing ideas such as socialism and cultural relativity. The sciences, on the other hand, fed by massive Cold War funds funneled to them through the Department of Defense, had remained far more conservative (though only in comparison to their counterparts in the humanities). The two had, for the most part, lived peacefully side by side until the humanities began turning their analytical tools upon the sciences themselves. When this happened, the scientists fought back. The Spring issue of Social Text in which Sokal's article appeared had, in fact, been devoted to a study of the so-called 'Science Wars' between the sciences and the humanities.

The Sokal hoax also recalled the tactics (and arguments) that had been used to discredit modernizing influences in art and poetry during the early decades of the twentieth century. See, for example, the Spectric poetry of World War One and the Disumbrationist art movement of the 1920s.

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