Re: Lu+o+ng na(ng bi`nh da^n - Alan Sokal

[Alexander H L Vu <vuh000@mail.Uni-Mainz.DE>]

> Hi, perhaps ba'c Vu~ misunderstood ba'c AiViet. 

Ha?i, ba'c Vu~ did not misunderstand bac Aiviet. Ba'c Vu~ could understand
bac Aiviet in different ways, for bac Viet wrote his recent essay
with ambiguous formulations. So you can notice that I did not engage in 
with any criticism or applause to his opinions about TMH. As relates to
TMH or ba'c Vie^.t's opion about him, I did not express my opinion at all.

What I targeted is LNBN and you can also notice that I have made a context
shift. I did not fight LNBD as used in politics but rather I critiqued the
use of LNBD in science. LNBD may be especially good in politics but
political methods must not be identical with scientific ones. So if i am
forced to opine about TMH I would say that his "literary critique" is
politically "good" but scientifically bad. "Politically good" means
having severe effects.

BTW, I do not completely agree with you opion that you formulated as your
understanding of bac Viet's points:
> 
> I think what he means is as follows: You don't need to
> create issues from non-issues. For something that is
> (inherently) non-issue, if you try to make it an issue,
> force the other side to consider it as an issue, and try to
> address it in an "educated, scienfitic" manner, you will
> either make a fool out of yourself, or irritate the hell out
> of others.

Is there anything that is inherently non-issue? Things in themselves may
be inherently non-issues but in the human world, things are issues. A
thing can be a non-issue to the one human yet indeed an issue to the
other. In some respects, life is nothing but problem-making and
problem-solving simultaneously.

> 
> Why ngan ke^u to, or dda' nu+'t is inherently a non-issue.
> The father raising the question is hmm... a^'m dda^`u, the
> guy trying to explain it in a "chu+~ lo?ng" manner is even
> more ... a^'m dda^`u, to say gently. :-)
> 

Pls ask this father and the chu+~ lo?ng guy, they will certainly say you
are a^'m dda^`u, not they. Who is right? And how can you be sure that your
opinion about who is right is right?

Now well, I leave this chu+~lo?ng area and enter with you in the area of
real life, that is the area of survival competition. I do agree with you
(and partly bac Viet) that:

> 
> Tra^`n Ma.nh Ha?o is not at all a good literature critic,
> his writings are full of nitpicking, chu.p mu~, trashing,
> and character assasinations, and he has been getting even
> worse in recent years. He is not a professional critic. But
> why do his writings grasp attention, and why sometimes even
> seemingly highly educated people tend to agree with him?
> That's partly because he's pretty good at pointing out
> *relevant* issues, those that are of concerns to the
> readers. For example, his recent article on CHCC is
> professionally pretty bad, and there is not much that can be
> learned from there. But he managed to voice a legitimate
> concern that has worried many people familiar with the
> literature situation in Vietnam. So people reading his essay
> will node to themselves and say: "Ok, I see he's a bad boy,
> as usual, but I do agree with him on this one concern."
> 

and that:

> 
> Instead, what we have heard so far in this TMH thread? Some
> people from VN said: "yes, his writing is bad, but he does
> raise a legitimate concern, I share his concern too. This is
> a concern of mine, and I would like to talk about it". Some
> people outside VN jumped all over TMH and Nhan Dan and
> started saying: "God, this is so unprofessional, this guy is
> stupid, there is a danger of going back to Stalin-style
> blabla, how could he trash people like that, i'm shocked,
> this is an example of the state imposing its control again,
> he is bo^`i bu't for someone, you guys don't understand, you
> should be more professional, you should be careful otherwise
> you will loose that little writing freedom you have, etc and
> etc...".
> 

What I see with skepticism is your urge that people must realize what
you consider the real issue as their real issue as well. This urge is a
political act and not a scientific argument. The determination of the real
or "true" issues always involves the determination of life goals and vice
versa. This determination of life goals remains implicit in your
argumentation. So your writings give the impression that what you
show as the real issues are the only real issues possible. People with
other life goals than yours can have other real issues and you will see,
they will abide by their own real issues, despite your rhetoric about any
conservativism or reactionariness, etc.

This is a survival struggle and everybody has to survive, so everyone
struggle with and against anyone. What I want to highlight here is that
this is not a war of all against all. This image reveals only a half of
the truth. The other half says that in this survival struggle people have
to ally with one another as well. If the Vietnamese nation is a single
survival unit, there is indeed real issues to all Vietnamese as well.
One problem which arises here is that until now it is the intelligentsia 
who determines the real issues for the entire nation. And one of the
reasons why Tran Dang Khoa's CDVDT is getting so popular is that his
book hits exactly a number of the top intelligentsia of the nation, lo^.t
truo^`ng these high priests.

Lam